Celebrating Independence Day

If you’ve spent any time on this blog, you know that I enjoy sharing the origins of holidays.  Today is the 4th of July, or Independence Day.  This is the holiday that celebrates America’s independence from Great Britain.  This came, in large part, because of a document that details America’s ideals – the Declaration of Independence.

 

One helpful resource states, “Many times casual students of history tend to bypass the Declaration of Independence declaring that the document was written as a response to the taxation without representation that King George was imposing on the American people.  While this is in part true, this is far from the whole story.  The Declaration of Independence came about after a long period of suffering and even bloodshed on the part of the new American colonies.  The events leading up to the Declaration of Independence can constitute a whole study in and of themselves.  The document was carefully crafted to include all the reasons that separation was being demanded by the young country against the most powerful force in the world (on land or sea) Great Britain.

“The timeline of the Declaration took place over several weeks.  The Declaration was the result of several meetings and several different drafts: not a single copy as history would have us to believe.”  The article goes on to cite that from June 12-27, 1776 “Thomas Jefferson, at the request of the committee [appointed to compose the document] drafts a declaration [of independence].”  It also states that from July 1 to July 4, “Congress debates and revises the Declaration of Independence.”  (Source: https://www.surfnetkids.com/independenceday/265/what-any-citizen-should-know-about-the-declaration-of-independence/ )

Something that caught my attention was the high price for signing the document.  “There were 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence…In the time following the signing of the Declaration of Independence we see that the British threats were serious, as five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died…Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned, losing all of their earthly possessions.  Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.  Nine of the fifty six fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.”  (Source: https://www.surfnetkids.com/independenceday/258/who-signed-the-declaration-of-independence/ )

The just cited article concludes with this: “These men had everything to lose and risked it all to declare that citizens of America would no longer be forced to subject to the whims of unfair British rule.  Because they did, we live in a nation with liberty and justice; a nation that is united and seeks to foster general welfare and justice for all of us who have the privilege of being Americans.”

Kevin