Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness
Phil Brennan Wednesday, July 3, 2002
Ask the average American what we are celebrating on July Fourth and the chances are very good you won't get the right answer. Yet today, as never before, knowing that we are commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence and understanding the significance of that document are of paramount importance to our survival as a free and independent people.
It was out of that document that the most stupendous achievement in self-government ever accomplished in all the world's history came. We pretend to revere the Constitution (which we now largely ignore) as the ultimate guarantee of our rights, but fail to understand that without the Declaration of Independence upon which it was built, it could never have had the force with which its founders endowed it.
It all began in Philadelphia on June 7, 1776, when Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution before the Continental Congress that declared: "Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
What a breathtaking event a representative of a colony of the greatest military power in the world telling that power to, in effect, take a walk; from this point on, we're on our own.
The resolution was merely a statement of an already accomplished fact the 13 colonies were already on their own. The Second Continental Congress had been their effective government from 1775. In June of that year, for example, the Congress had already established the Continental Army, a continental currency, and a month later had created a post office for what it called the "United Colonies."
In August the British crown declared that the colonies were "engaged in open and avowed rebellion." Then, in May 1776, the Congress learned that the king had hired Hessian mercenaries to fight in America. The fuse of rebellion was lit.
By May 1776, eight of the colonies had declared that they were in favor of independence from Great Britain. On May 15, 1776, Virginia passed a resolution stating that "the delegates appointed to represent this colony in General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent states."
On July 2, 1776, the Lee Resolution for independence was adopted by 12 of the 13 colonies, with New York abstaining. Congress then turned to the Declaration of Independence, written largely by Thomas Jefferson with some editing by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. More revisions were made and on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was officially adopted.
America would now decide its own destiny. And that destiny would be determined on the basis of truths declared 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." No nation in all the world's history had ever established itself on such truths.
Even more radical was the statement "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." No other government in history had acknowledged that the legitimacy and power of government came from "the consent of the governed," who were "endowed by their Creator" with the authority to give their consent. It had always been the "divine right of kings." It was now the divine right of the people.
Stating that an abused people had the right and the duty to rid themselves of an oppressive government, the founders laid out their grievances against the Crown as their justification for declaring their independence.
Among them were some which may sound familiar to modern ears, such as the often-cited passage: "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance," or this line, which conjures up visions of attempts to impose U.N. authority on Americans: "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."
The document ends with this ringing declaration: "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."
And they went to war, and many did indeed forfeit their lives and their fortunes, but never their "sacred honor."
The Revolutionary War lasted eight long, bloody years, until 1783, when the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the struggle. George Washington's ill-equipped, ill-fed army suffered one defeat after another, and at one point was only days away from falling apart. But they persevered, and in the end, defeated the greatest military power on the face of the earth.
In a little over 150 years, the United States was well on the way to becoming not only the richest and most powerful nation in world history but has also been a beacon light of freedom for all mankind, the "shining city on the hill" Ronald Reagan spoke of.
And it was so because the nation that grew out of the Declaration of Independence adhered to the truths enunciated in that document: "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."
On this anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence I pray that our government and our courts will understand the paramount truth proclaimed in that precious document: that all our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are rights endowed upon us by our Creator, and not by legislative or judicial fiat. |
