“We Mutually Pledge…..
Aug/090
“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.” The Declaration of Independence. July 4, 1776
Read this again and think about what is being said. Fifty six men signed their names to this document. Fifty six men, pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for the defense of a dream of a free nation. A nation where all men are created equal. A nation that would be governed by the people.
If you read this document slowly and read it more than once, you will see why it is the most important document in our nations history. In it were the words that would start a revolution and a war, that would create a nation that these very brave men had dreamed and prayed would be possible. But it would come at a very high price. It has been said many times, but it is so true.
Freedom is never free.
We make decisions every day. Most of the time, these decisions are small in nature and don’t really touch or effect our lives very much. But there are those times, when we must make decisions that will change, not only our lives, but the lives of people around us. People that we love and care about. When those times come, how heavy and weighty are those decisions. How many hours, or days, or weeks, do we agonize over the choices that we have, and the final one that we must make. What do you do? Where do you go? Who do you confide in? Where do you find your strength?
I believe that the Declaration of Independence, if it were written today, and had to pass the house and the senate, would fail. It would never get through.
The first reason for that is, God is mentioned. They wrote about their “reliance on the protection of Divine Providence”. Our politicians today can never use the word “God” or make any reference about “God”. That would be politically incorrect. Never can you use your religious beliefs in any way that shows you use God to help you make your political decisions. That’s called the separation of church and state, which is not in the constitution by the way, but that’s another day and another blog.
The second reason is, they speak of truth. Truth! Since when does the word truth and politics even go in the same sentence? It did with our fore fathers. They believed in the truth. Now, I know there were some who were not about truth at all, but that stands to be true in any day or age. Truth has been in a war with lies since the dawn of time, but one thing that we would all have to agree upon…morals, truth, God, and the Bible were all looked at in a very different light back there, than they are today. In fact, the bible was a text book in our public schools, until 1963.
Weather you like it or not, this country was founded on Judea Christian values. God was referenced, talked about and prayed to on a very open plane. Nobody was offended. Quite the contrary. It was an offense not to mention your God and Christian heritage. Just read some of the speeches and books that were written. How can you miss it?
But, I guess that I have to be fair. God is mentioned on a daily basis today also. I was in a store the other day and I heard some young people referring to God quite a few times. As a matter of fact, they couldn’t stop using the name God in almost everything they said. But it was not in the same meaning or the same frame of mind that our forefathers meant it to be. There was no respect, dignity or honor in the way they used it. Three other words that are on a rapid decline in our society today.
Back to the men who signed this document.
It is said, that John Hancock was the first to sign and used large letters, so that King George, would not miss his signature. Hancock inherited a great fortune, when his uncle died, and became involved in revolutionary ideas that would lead to independence from Great Britain.
Lewis Morris, and Francis Lewis, from the state of New York, lost all of their land and wealth during the war. Francis Lewis was taken prisoner and shipped off to France. When he returned, his home and property were destroyed.
Richard Stockton, after moving his family to safety, was captured and imprisoned by the British. Badly treated and in very poor condition, he died a pauper.
Joseph Hewes, who had a shipping business, and amassed a great fortune, gave the use of his ships to the service of the Continental Armed Forces. Let’s see if any members of Congress are willing to go this route.
Carter Braxton used his wealth to sponsor the war efforts and eventually lost everything.
Thomas Nelson Jr. commanded the Virginia Forces, which were very instrumental in the siege of Yorktown in the autumn of 1781.
These men knew what they were doing when they signed their names to this document, and many of them paid a great cost securing the freedoms that we take for granted in this great country today. These were men of integrity, honor, respect, and brave. They did not ask people to do anything that they were not willing to do. They were true leaders, paving a way for all of us to follow. But it goes much deeper than that. Words are cheap. Actions are what prove your words to be real.
Sadly, as I look around at the leaders that we have today, I don’t see any of these qualities in them. The leaders of today, are the first ones out the back door the minute something goes wrong. They have their hands in the cookie jar, as they tell you to go without. They are all about what feeds them, not you.
I think of the statement that President John F Kennedy said; ” Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” This is what we need today.
” If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14
I think all these men would be in agreement with this statement.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident”…
Jul/093
I would like to initiate as my first blog post, a document that was penned and signed by our government officials some two hundred years ago. I don’t know if you have ever read it, but please take a moment and read this document, that started the march, that lead to establishing The United States of America.
The Declaration of Independence
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. — 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
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.
I have not put the signatures of these very brave men, who signed this declaration of independence from British rule, on this post, but I will talk in my next post about who they were and the high cost they personally paid for signing this document.
May God bless America.
