In a July 3, 1776 letter to his wife Abigail, founding father John Adams wrote about how Independence Day should be celebrated. Adams explained;
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
ABOVE QUOTE FROM: https://www.ammoland.com/2019/07/bloombergs-killjoys-target-fourth-of-july-fireworks
INDEPENDENCE DAY & WHAT MADE AMERICA GREAT
IN THE FIRST PLACE
BY C. MITCHELL SHAW
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
July 4 is a purely American holiday that speaks to our faith as a nation. As Thanksgiving Day is about returning thanks for God's providence in sustaining the early colonists through a hard and desolate period, Independence Day is about the faith that compelled us to declare our independence from a tyrannical power. It is interesting that the United States celebrates the day we declared our independence instead of the day we obtained it. It is doubtful that one in a hundred Americans can tell you the date the Brits surrendered or when England recognized us as a free and independent nation, but most Americans are at least vaguely aware that we declared ourselves independent on July 4, 1776. We considered ourselves free when we declared it; we did not need the recognition of our captors to make it so.Now, more than 240 years later, we again stand at a crossroads. We have largely forsaken the founding principles that made America great. We have forgotten the paths we should have remembered. And we are paying for it. Far too many Americans are ignorant of the Constitution that was written to secure our God-given liberty, so we have a government that is running out of bounds while most people have no idea what is wrong or what is to be done to fix it. Worse still, we are divided not on the grounds of principled disagreement, but by party affiliation.And both major political parties are complicit in the ignorance that plagues America as well as in the erosion of liberty that results from that ignorance. America has never been more divided than now. The United States of America is a republic that calls itself a democracy and behaves like an empire. Nothing could be further from the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.A good example is the string of unconstitutional wars we are fighting on several fronts right now. When our Founding Fathers debated the power to make war during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, they applied the principle of separation of powers. The common phrase for going to war at that time was "Make War.” Kings — as sovereigns — "made war" without answering to anyone. No one, the Founders argued, should unilaterally be able to take a nation into war. They recognized that men are fallen, sinful creatures who don't do well with unlimited power. Carry that forward to its natural conclusion and no one body should have that power either. So, they separated the power between Congress (the power to declare war) and the president (commander-in-chief). And that is the way we did it for 154 years. Congress argued and debated and declared war and then answered to the people in the next election. The president acted as commander-in-chief and executed the war and then answered to the people in the next election. But not since 1941 has it been done that way. Now the president can "make war" citing UN Security Council Resolutions or claiming that is in America’s national interests and Congress sits back and does nothing. When Republican presidents do it, Democrats in Congress occasionally make some noise about it and vice-versa, but that's all.Another example is the out-of-control federal budget. Both Democrats and Republicans expand the budget as a way of paying for the expansion of federal power over issues and programs that are not listed as federal powers in the Constitution. It has been estimated that if the federal government were restricted to only those specifically enumerated powers (found mostly in Article I, Section 8), we would have a government five to 10 percent the size it is right now — with a budget five to 10 percent the size it is right now. The War for Independence was fought over less taxes than the average American pays today.Undeclared wars and undeclared bankruptcy through out-of-control borrowing and spending are both threats to the liberty of Americans, but they are far from the only threats. The redefining of marriage, the growing welfare state, socialized medicine, and a plethora of other ways the federal powers-that-be have overstepped their constitutional boundaries (which neither time nor space allows this article to cover sufficiently) serve as an indictment of the current state of affairs.They get away with it because most of the people think this is a Left vs Right/Republican vs Democrat issue. It isn't. But because most think it is, a myriad of false and dangerous “solutions” are proposed to rein in the out-of-control federal government. Most of those “solutions” are at least as bad as the problem. Two good examples are a modern-day constitutional convention and abolishing the electoral college for a popular vote. The first would allow the very people who have built their careers ignoring the Constitution the opportunity to revise it or replace it with something much more to their liking, and the second would shift the balance of power to the large states and cities, causing an even greater erosion of liberty as the federal government would expand even more.No, this is not a battle between political parties; they are two sides of the same coin. It's a battle between those who, like the Founding Fathers, want limited government and those who, because they love power, want unlimited government. The answer is to recommit ourselves to the principles of the founding of our republic. Read through both the Declaration and the Constitution this Independence Day. Start to see the political world around you through the clear lenses of those principles instead of red and blue lenses that have led us to blindly follow avaricious men and women who care more for their position than for the good of this republic. Consider joining yourself to other patriotic men and women to work together in concerted effort to restore the republic by effective activism. This magazine’s parent organization — The John Birch Society — has been working since 1958 to do just that by helping to bring about “less government, more responsibility, and — with God’s help — a better world.” This Independence Day would be a great time to find out what you can do to help in that fight.Have a happy Independence Day, and may we all endeavor to deserve independence.(Oh, just in case you were wondering, Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781 and England agreed to the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783.)
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Cultural Revolution: Charlottesville Replaces Jefferson’s Birthday With a Slaves Day
SEE: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/32761-cultural-revolution-charlottesville-replaces-jefferson-s-birthday-with-a-slaves-day?vsmaid=5171&vcid=3987
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Self Evident Truth – What Does it Mean?
SEE: http://the-trumpet-online.com/self-evident-truth-mean/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and 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 rights from the consent of the governed.”What did Jefferson mean when he wrote “All men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence?Origin of Thomas Jefferson’s use of the phrase – WikipediaThomas Jefferson, through his friendship with Lafayette, was heavily influenced by French philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, such as Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu. In their often censored writings, those philosophers advocated that men were born free and equal. This later led to the French Revolution of 1789 and the concept of Human Rights (Droits de l’Homme in French). At the age of 33, Jefferson may have also borrowed the expression from an Italian friend, born in Prato, and neighbor, Philip Mazzei,[6] as noted by Joint Resolution 175 of the 103rd Congress as well as by John F. Kennedy in A Nation of Immigrants.[8][9]In 1776 the Second Continental Congress asked Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman to write the Declaration of Independence. This Committee of Five voted to have Thomas Jefferson write the document. After Jefferson finished he gave the document to Franklin to proof. Franklin suggested minor changes, one of which stands out far more than the others: “We hold these truths to be sacred and un-deniable…” became “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence starts as follows: “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.”[10]The Virginia Declaration of Rights, chiefly authored by George Mason and approved by the Virginia Convention on June 12, 1776, contains the wording: “all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights of which . . . they cannot deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”[11]George Mason was an elder-planter who had originally stated John Locke‘s theory of natural rights: “All men are born equally free and independent and have certain inherent natural rights of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”[12] Mason’s draft was accepted by a small committee and then rejected by the Virginia Convention. Thomas Jefferson, a competent Virginia lawyer, saw this as a problem in legal writing and chose words that were more acceptable to the Second Continental Congress.The Massachusetts Constitution, chiefly authored by John Adams in 1780, contains in its Declaration of Rights the wording: “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.”[13]The plaintiffs in the cases of Brom and Bett v. John Ashley and Commonwealth v. Nathaniel Jennison argued that this provision abolished slavery in Massachusetts.[14] The latter case resulted in a “sweeping declaration . . . that the institution of slavery was incompatible with the principles of liberty and legal equality articulated in the new Massachusetts Constitution”.[15]The phrase has since been considered a hallmark statement in democratic constitutions and similar human rights instruments, many of which have adopted the phrase or variants thereof.[17]Slavery and the phrase[edit]
The contradiction between the claim that “all men are created equal” and the existence of American slavery attracted comment when the Declaration of Independence was first published. Before final approval, Congress, having made a few alterations to some of the wording, also deleted nearly a fourth of the draft, including a passage criticizing the slave trade. At that time many members of Congress, including Jefferson, owned slaves, which clearly factored into their decision to delete the controversial “anti-slavery” passage. Jefferson, an abolitionist at heart, believed adding such a passage would dissolve the independence movement. Jefferson, decades before the Declaration of Independence, argued in court for the abolition of a slave. The court dismissed the case outright. In writing the declaration, Jefferson believed the phrase “all men are created equal” to be self-evident, and would ultimately resolve slavery.[18] In 1776, abolitionist Thomas Day wrote: “If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.”[18](Publisher’s comments: Wikepedia totally ignores the well documented fact, that Jeffersonalso gave credit to his ideas of government, to his observation of a small Baptist churchnear his home in Virginia, as the purest form of Democracy in the world at that time.(Wiliam Cathcart)
