EC from DC: Independence Day Special

Independence Day

On this day, the 2nd of July, 1776 the Second Continental Congress voted to declare our independence from Great Britain.  All thirteen colonies assembled, cast one vote each, either for or against severing ties with the crown. The final vote was 12 colonies for independence, with only New York abstaining because it had not been authorized to vote for independence by its home legislature. 

On this day, 234 years ago, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail:

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."

Two days later, however, bells would ring out across Philadelphia as the document was published and read aloud. July 4th, the day the document was given to the public and sent to King George, would be the day we celebrated our American Independence.

Many have spoken of revolution this last year. As it so often is, history has been appropriated by a few to serve a specific purpose. On this weekend, and in celebration of our shared history, I want to encourage you to read our Declaration of Independence. Read it out loud to your children and family. This is our founding charter, our galvanizing document, our list of grievances and our final protest to a tyrannical King.

This document belongs to all of us. It is shared by all of us. Hundreds of thousands have died both to directly prove its worth in the Revolutionary War, and to prove its enduring legacy in the Civil War. So many lives have been lost devoted to the simple and undeniable phrase, "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 second sentence is, of course, the one all of us know by heart, but what struck me this year as I re-read this hallowed document was the list of complaints to the crown. Read them with care.

Our nation's birth has been simplified to being about a protest of large government and high taxes. Taxation without representation is in fact the 13th complaint — and an important one. But it was not the singular reason for our revolution.

No, our founders lived in a time and place where towns were burned, people were hung without trial, laws passed by duly elected legislatures were nullified by the King, votes were often overturned, and free people were arrested without cause. I cannot begin to imagine the horror of those times. Events so terrifying that after years of suffering, they drove patriots to sign this document, on this day, knowing it would almost certainly mean their death.

I believe our founders would be proud of what we have become. But I also believe that we often trivialize their suffering, bravery and genius when we misappropriate history to serve our current political whim.

Read these grievances, and imagine what it must have been like to essentially sign your life away for the good of generations you would never meet. The results of our founders' actions were not perfect, but their intentions were. They sought liberty and happiness for their fellow citizens, knowing that the odds were strong they would perish before their dreams would come to fruition.

We are all inspired by our founders in different ways. I am not trying to say that anyone is wrong in their looking to history as a guide. Our founding story belongs to all of us, and means different things to each. What I am trying to say, is that on this holiday, as we sit and watch the night sky light up with fireworks, let us all take a moment to reflect on the great pride and great fear that would have been felt in that small room in Philadelphia as the vote was cast for independence.

The last line of the Declaration makes the emotions of that day clear: "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." 

Perhaps never before had the idea of brotherhood and common purpose, shared responsibility, selflessness and trust been so succinctly written. I think this great American pledge of loyalty to one another is often forgotten. 

Friends, on this, our Independence Day, let us remember and commit ourselves again to one another. There are no challenges too great that we cannot overcome if we stand together. Our founders put their faith in one another. They knew that divided they could not endure. That lesson is true 234 years later. We are a deeply fractured nation, and we would be wise to emulate our founders and rely again on each other. This is our shared heritage. 

Happy Independence Day. Be safe, and I hope to see you in Sugar Creek for the parade.

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.

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
• For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

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Emanuel Cleaver, II Member of Congress