Celebrating Independence Replicas of the Charters of Freedom, the documents that inspired
America’s creation, are on permanent display in Brunswick County
ON July 2, 1776,
representatives
from the 13
American col-onies
declared
their intent to form a free and
independent country. No lon-ger
would they be subject to
the tyranny of King George III,
the reigning monarch of Great
Britain. They would form a new
nation, the United States of
America.
The intentions were cod-ified
in the Declaration of
BY SIMON GONZALEZ
Independence, drafted and
presented to the Continental
Congress by the Committee of
Five: Thomas Jefferson, John
Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger
Sherman, and Robert Livingston.
The document, approved on
July 4, is one of the most persuasively worded and important in
recorded history. Abraham Lincoln would later call it
“a rebuke and a stumbling block to tyranny and oppression.”
Foundation Forward dedicated replicas of the Charters of
Freedom in a public ceremony in April. The permanent dis-play,
located in front of the Brunswick County Courthouse in
Bolivia, is the organization’s 34th setting.
The introduction eloquently begins to make the case.
“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.”
The next few sentences are among the most famous — and
inspiring — in the annals of persuasive prose.
“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.”
The formal adoption of the
Declaration is considered
America’s founding date. It is
why we have parades and fire-works
on July 4, implementing
the suggestions espoused by
Adams in a letter to his wife,
Abigail: “It ought to be solem-nized
with Pomp and Parade,
with Shews, Games, Sports,
Guns, Bells, Bonfires and
Illuminations from one End of
this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
Skirmishes between Patriots and British soldiers and Loyalists
had taken place since April 1775 — including the Battle of
Moore’s Creek Bridge near Wilmington on Feb. 27, 1776 — but
the American Revolutionary War officially began with the
Declaration.
Independence would be hard fought, though. The conflict
raged until Oct. 17, 1781, when British General Charles Cornwallis
surrendered to American General George Washington at the
Battle of Yorktown. The new nation was officially recognized
with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on Sept. 3, 1783.
Four years later, the United States had its governing docu-ment.
On Sept. 17, 1787, the Constitutional Congress — presided
over by Washington — approved the U.S. Constitution. It gained
the force of law on June 21, 1788, when New Hampshire became
the ninth of the 13 states to ratify it.
The Constitution, written by James Madison, is a remarkable
document that, like the Declaration before it, includes stirring
language familiar to every schoolchild and student of American
history.
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WBM
COURTESY OF FOUNDATION FORWARD
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