Can you imagine what must have been going on behind the scenes on this day all those years ago in Philadelphia? The discussions, the arguments, the compromises all to commit…treason. Each and every signer of the Declaration of Independence was putting his head in a noose for what he believed in. After the resolution of independence passed the Continental Congress on July 2nd, the debate and the discussion over the wording went on for two days until the Declaration of Independence was accepted late in the evening on July 4th, 1776.

It appears that the threat of death has a beneficial influence on the prose that pours forth from the quill…

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 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.

(continue reading on Wikipedia)

Keep those words in mind tomorrow as you celibate the birthday of this nation.

Have a safe and happy 4th…