July 4, 2007

The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were not fearful men. Had they been fearful, they would not have challenged the world’s leading military power with their declaration. I cannot imagine that they weren’t apprehensive. They knew the risks but their commitment was stronger than their fear; they trusted in themselves and their cause. The rest is history.

Two hundred thirty-one years later America is officially a fearful nation. Our leaders warn us of myriad dangers and tell us that “everything is changed”, that we must accept restrictions of personal liberties that previous generations fought and died to preserve. We are told that we are safe only if we allow the president to act on his own without restraint, that governmental intrusion into all facets of life is essential if we are protect America from the threat of international terrorism.

I much prefer the America of 1776 to CheneyBush’s America. The signers of the Declaration of Independence boldly stated:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness....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.

In the first decade of the 21st century our government issues color-coded fear alerts to remind us how fearful we should be.

The signers were by no means perfect. Some owned slaves even as they declared all men to be equal. Nor did that equality did not include women and much of the working class. But the ideas contained in the Declaration defined human rights and their relationship to government in a way that had never before been asserted by a polity. Those rights have been the basis for expanding freedom, however inconsistent and sporadic, in the two centuries since, a task that is still incomplete. Whatever their faults, the signers were willing to assert these rights against very long odds.

On this 231st Fourth of July, I remind my fellow Americans that fear did not create nor has it sustained this nation. On this day, we should remember Abraham Lincoln’s final words at Gettysburg during a horrendous civil war:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Yesterday I felt hopeless and completely ineffective. Today I remember why I cannot succumb to my fears. The idea of America so eloquently stated by the Declaration of Independence is too important to abandon.