Two-Hundred and Forty years ago today, 56 men signed a document that today is know to us as the Declaration of Independence. I guess we should consider it the very first “Brexit.”

It was signed by these men after tumultuous meetings over the span of years; severe disagreements over a myriad of issues, including slavery; and uncertainty of what the future would bring. The immediate future brought years of war, because the British didn’t just unambiguously accept our declaration. It still had to be earned on the battlefields. At the time, it’s doubtful that these delegates at the 2nd Continental Congress In Philadelphia concerned themselves with fireworks, days off from work, or backyard barbecues. More likely, they worried about their families, their land, and their own mortality. But with courage and fortitude, to a man they mutually pledged to each other and to generations of people, “Our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

It is for that courage – and the courage of many that followed the signing – that we celebrate. I love this video clip from the outstanding series, John Adams. I share it with you today..

VIDEO

Quote of the Week:

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.

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