Editorial - July 2003

Declaration stands as eloquent symbol

Published July 4, 2003

“For they gathered to affix their names to a document which was, above all else, a document not of rhetoric but of bold decision.”

— John F. Kennedy

The Declaration of Independence still stands to this day as an eloquent symbol of democratic freedom. It’s a huge blessing to have this written perspective from our founding fathers, but what was so crucial on July 4 1776, was the action it represented.

     On June 11, 1776, the colonies Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, formed a committee to draft a document that would formally sever their ties with Great Britain. The committee included Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston. The document was crafted by Jefferson who was considered the most eloquent writer. The final version was officially adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4.

  In a July 4 address, John F. Kennedy put the document in perspective. It was a document of protest — but protests had been made before, he said. It set forth their grievances with eloquence — but such eloquence had been heard before. What distinguished this paper from all the others was the final irrevocable decision that it took to assert the independence of free states in place of colonies, and to commit to that goal their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

  That’s exactly what Americans did in the ensuing battles that not only won them independence from Britain but stood as the inspiration for the conflicts to come, including two World Wars. It stands today as timely as ever.

We often look back on that document with something of an academic, historical perspective. Today there are fireworks, parades and barbecue to stoke our patriotic flames. But what they wrote and what they did on July 4, 1776, is a striking account of how our nation was founded. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence bore words of our nation’s birth.

Read only the first several lines, and you still feel the impact:

   When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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