Fellow Patriots, Friends, and Families:
Today we pause to celebrate the 239th anniversary of our American Independence. We Americans think of July 4, 1776 as the date the colonies declared their independence, giving birth to the United States of America as an independent nation. But did you know that the Declaration wasn't actually signed until August 2, 1776? So what did happen on July 4th? That was the date that the Continental Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence, and that date was included on both the draft document and the fancy handwritten copy that the fifty-six colonial representatives signed when they came together on August 2, 1776.
The signing of the Declaration of Independence was an act of great courage. It was noted at the time that the signers "pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors; and that was more than just rhetoric. Each of those men knew the penalty for high treason to the Crown." At the time, Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or, assuredly, we will all hang separately.''
These were incredibly brave men and they stayed brave through all the bloodshed of the coming revolution. Their courage created a nation built on a universal claim to human dignity, on the proposition that every man, woman, and child had a right to a future of freedom. It is worth reminding ourselves of the words our forefathers wrote as they took this historical stand: ``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."
Through the years since 1776, generations of Americans have gone to war to defend the rights of ourselves and others to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our motives have been just; we have never sought to dominate or occupy the lands of others; only to help guarantee these same principles of human rights for all. We are the successors to the brave men who fought for the freedoms all Americans enjoy. Our young men and women in uniform today, as were their parents and grandparents, are just as willing, just as brave, and just as ready to lay down their lives to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
On this Independence Day, we are reminded of the words of President Ronald Reagan, who asked that we "celebrate the things that unite us -- America's past of which we're so proud, our hopes and aspirations for the future of the world and this much-loved country -- these things far outweigh what little divides us. And so we reaffirm that Jew and gentile, we are one nation under God; that black and white, we are one nation indivisible; that Republican and Democrat, we are all Americans. With heart and hand, through whatever trial and travail, we pledge ourselves to each other and to the cause of human freedom, the cause that has given light to this land and hope to the world."
May God Bless America and May God Bless our Troops!
J. Patrick Little
National Commander
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