I’m posting this a day early so that we can all absorb the meaning and content before getting together with friends on the actual day but first a little history.
July 3, 1826 Thomas Jefferson inquired “Is it the Fourth?” Jefferson and John Adams died on July 4, 1826.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence edited by John Adams & Ben Franklin. In a discussion with Samuel Adams Wells May 12, 1821 Jefferson stated = “The Declaration of Independence… [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.”
Below is the Declaration of Independence please; a moment of your time to read why you & I are celebrating July 4th. But before you do remember that amongst our founding Fathers there were weak kneed scaredy cats that did not want to offend King George or Parliament and wanted portions of the Declaration of Independence removed before posting it. Frustrated John Adams said, “This is a revolution, dammit! We’re going to have to offend somebody!!
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.