Happy 250th, America!

On July 4th, 1776, after months of heady deliberations in Philadelphia, while the minutemen warred with the British across Massachusetts, 56 colonial men of the second continental congress unanimously inked their names on what would become the most consequential document ever created. Their act was an emphatic cutting of the umbilical cord from Great Britain that would either guarantee their liberty, or most certainly, their death. The odds were stacked for the latter. 

Well regarded for the eloquence of his pen, Thomas Jefferson, the 33-year old polymath plantation owner, had been appointed for the task of drafting it weeks earlier. After some refinements by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and others, the Declaration of Independence was set. The United States of America fired the warning shot against tyranny heard round the world.

"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…"

Twelve years later, the U.S. Constitution was formed replacing the impotent Articles of Confederation. Eighty-four years later, the Civil War impressed upon us our obligation to live up to these words in the fight to end slavery. And now, 250 years on, the United States is the world’s longest running form of government in existence and leader of the free world. Every American, no matter our familial or economic starting point, are each born with a lottery ticket in our hands. A perpetual influx of our tired, poor and huddled masses who yearn to be free remind us, lest we doubt it. 

The work to form and keep a more perfect union never ends. In ways big and small, every American has a solemn responsibility to find the better angels of our nature and ask what we can do for our country.

Like many across America, we are proud and grateful to be American. We make it a point to honor and celebrate our heritage here, and are humbled and invigorated by an indebtedness that can never be repaid to the generations who came before us. May our first Amendment continue to guide us in dignity and humility as we carry the torch of our great American experiment.