Most Americans will celebrate “The Fourth of July” this weekend, however nearly one quarter of Americans failed to identify Great Britain as the country the US colonies fought to gain its independence. The poll by Marist College found 20 percent who were “unsure” and another six percent who thought the US fought a revolution, starting in 1776, against another country — a list that included France, China, Japan, Mexico, and Spain.
I wonder what percentage of Americans know that the 13 colonies actually declared independence on July 2, 1776 and not July 4. Though, the “Declaration of Independence” was ratified on the more popular date, independence was officially declared on July 2 with the adoption of Lee’s Resolution which states:
“Resolved, 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.
That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances.
That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.”
It would be another year before the Second Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation for ratification on November 15, 1777. The Articles became the first constitution when ratified on March 1, 1781 with the following men serving as President of the United States in Congress Assembled:
* Samuel Huntington (March 1, 1781– July 9, 1781)
* Thomas McKean (July 10, 1781–November 4, 1781)
* John Hanson (November 5, 1781– November 3, 1782)
* Elias Boudinot (November 4, 1782– November 2, 1783)
* Thomas Mifflin (November 3, 1783– October 31, 1784)
* Richard Henry Lee (November 30, 1784– November 6, 1785)
* John Hancock (November 23, 1785– May 29, 1786)
* Nathaniel Gorham (June 6, 1786– November 5, 1786)
* Arthur St. Clair (February 2, 1787– November 4, 1787)
* Cyrus Griffin (January 22, 1788– November 2, 1788)
The British recognized independence of the United States of America on September 3, 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. The United States Constitution took affect on June 21, 1788, though according to their own terms for modification (Article XIII), the Articles would still have been in effect until 1790, the year in which the last (Rhode Island) of the 13 states ratified the new Constitution.
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, (The Constitution as Counter-Revolution: A Tribute to the Anti-Federalists) “The American Revolution, like all great social upheavals, was brought off by a disparate coalition of competing view-points and conflicting interests. At one end of the Revolutionary coalition stood the American radicals – men such as Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson. Although by no means in agreement on everything, the radicals objected to excessive government power in general and not simply to British rule in particular. They viewed American independence as a means of securing and broadening domestic liberty. Spearheading the Revolution’s opening stages, the radicals were responsible for all the truly revolutionary alterations in the internal status quo: the abolition of slavery in the northern states, the separation of church and State in the southern states, the rooting out of remaining feudal privileges everywhere and the adoption of new, republican state constitutions containing written bills of rights that severely hemmed in government power.
At the other end of the Revolutionary coalition wore the American nationalists – men such as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Representing a powerful array of mercantile, creditor and landed interests, the nationalists went along with independence but opposed the Revolution’s libertarian thrust. They sought a strong and effective American central government, which would reproduce the hierarchical features of the eighteenth century British State, only without the British.”
In a similar manner there is a revolution happening today; Adam Kokesh said, “The revolution that we speak of is a revolution of values, a paradigm shift, and a renewed commitment among the American people to patriotism, not loyalism. Our patriotism is resisting state power and being ever-ready to defend this country . . . from the government. This is in direct opposition to the current propaganda driven definition that has perverted patriotism into loyalism, the worship of power and authority and willingness to cede the rights of self-ownership to an external power that is the source of all unjust powers in the world. As a political force, they should fear us.”
I urge you to stay true to the concepts that formed this country; the belief that all men are created equal & endowed with rights that cannot be taken away, Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness and that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.