Independence Day!

                           

Today is July 4th. It's an important day in U.S. history because we celebrate our freedom and independence. We celebrate how unique our country is. We celebrate the rights that our forefathers died to give us. So today, our nation forgets the divide between Democrat and Republican. Forgets the tensions with North Korea. Forgets the battle over health care. Forgets the immigration problem. And forgets the issue of gun control. Today is important because we are able to look past all the problems that divide our country, everything politicians debate over, and everything we as a nation complain about, and we focus on what we do have: Freedom. We look back over what we have accomplished and what our Founding Fathers gave us, and we celebrate. So I think it's important that we remember exactly what that freedom entails, exactly what we have soldiers fighting for today. Because independence day is one of the only days that we really take a step back and count our blessings. I compiled a list of quotes and ideas that our nation was founded and help us remember what the 4th of July is all about.

• Patrick Henry from a speech he made to the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775, "Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

• Preamble to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, 1776. "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."

• Declaration of Independence conclusion, "....that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — 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."

• Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, signed 1787, ratified 1788, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

• The Star Spangled Banner. Inspired by the sight of the American flag flying over Fort McHenry, Francis Scott Key scribbled the initial verse of his song on the back of a letter. Later, he completed the song by adding three more verses. The first verse became our National Anthem.

(Verse 1) "O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

(Verse 4) "O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto - “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

• Emma Lazarus’ sonnet, New Colossus,

"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”"

• Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863.
  

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

• Ronald Reagan "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."

Remember what today is all about. Freedom. Rights. Independence. Look past the imperfections of our country and focus on what God gave us: The United States of America.