Declaring Independence
I believe that it is crucial to remember what it is that we celebrate here in the USA on July 4th and why. July 4, 1776 is the date the Continental Congress formally adopted the resolution on independence from Great Britain. The draft written by Thomas Jefferson can be found here and the revised text as adopted by the Continental Congress can be found here . For the purposes of this post, I will be pulling quotes from both versions of the document. Unless specified otherwise, all quotes in this post are taken from the Declaration of Independence. In the Declaration, a list of grievances is given detailing why the colonies decided that it was necessary to declare themselves a new nation and separate from the British Empire. I highlight some of those grievances here in order to portray why I believe we should neither take freedom for granted nor think of July 4 as a day to celebrate independence, but rather as a day to remind ourselves of how precious and fragile freedom...