Independence Day

Yesterday, I read the Declaration of Independence for the first time in a while.

It's a really amazing document. The writing is beautifully fluid. The rhetoric is brilliant. And it really helped restore in my mind a modicum of hope for our government. I feel that any government that is born from such a hopeful document has a prayer of recovery.

My favorite sentence from the whole essay is the second:

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 to 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.

This post isn't an homage to the Founding Fathers. For all I know, they may have been as crooked as the folks currently in government. They probably weren't, but that's not the point. Whatever their personal valor, they wrote an incredible essay. The best part of the quoted part, of course, is that all men are created equal. Heck, the people who wrote it didn't even believe that bit (or they didn't believe that slaves were men; but that's not plausible, is it?). And yet they chose not even to debate this issue; rather, they said it is so blindingly obvious that it is self-evidently true. This, in a time of kings and slaves! And government, whose purpose is to effect the People's Safety and Happiness, derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. So, any government that derives its powers otherwise has unjust powers.

The final bit, that breathes life into the brand-new nation, is equally stunning:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, 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; and 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.

This part sends a shiver down my spine and moistens my eyes every time I read it.

Though it bothers me endlessly to hear politicians reflexively say that "We are the greatest country on Earth", we truly are the results of a great political experiment. We have lost our way, but we have to believe that we can find it once again.