Capitol Considerations
by Senator Micheal Bergstrom
Remembering What We Celebrate on July 4
Independence
Day.
It’s
a great time to hang out with the family, to shoot off some
fireworks, get the grill going and barbecue some burgers, hot dogs
and corn.
But
how much time do we spend really thinking about what the Fourth of
July is all about?
After
all, when you think about it, on July 4, 1776, we were a bunch of
British colonies that were fed up with England and the way King
George and Parliament were treating us. Sure we were saying we wanted
to go our own way, but the battle for freedom from England was going
to take years.
Yet
we celebrate the date we give for our Declaration of Independence.
Why?
Shouldn’t
we celebrate the British surrender by Lieutenant General Charles
Cornwallis in Yorktown, Virginia on October 19, 1781 instead?
No.
Because
what we celebrate is not a battle, not a victory, but a set of ideals
that are the foundation of our nation.
When
Abraham Lincoln penned the Gettysburg Address, he didn’t reference
the constitution or the Bill of Rights as he set forth his
proposition that all men are created equal and that this experiment
known as the United States of America was in a battle for its very
existence.
He
declared, “Four
score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this
continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.”
Standing
there on that podium at the dedication of the cemetery in Gettysburg,
he was humbled by the sacrifice of those who had died there in that
great battle and he directed the attention of his audience to 87
years earlier, to the Declaration of Independence.
He
called on those who heard his words or read his words to
recommit themselves to the preservation of this nation, and to
do
so, in
part,
by trusting in God.
“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, and for the
people, shall not perish from the earth.”
When
Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech a
century later, he did so on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington D.C., and while his words echoed President Lincoln when
he declared, “Five
score years ago a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand
today signed the Emancipation Proclamation,”
he didn’t stop there, but likewise went on to reference the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
When
Dr.
King
said,
“I
have a dream that one day this nation
will rise up, live out the true
meaning of its creed: "We
hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,"
he
was calling for the fulfillment of the promissory note that every
American finds in the Declaration of Independence.
We
are created
equal.
We
are not equal because our government says we are.
We
are not equal because that is how we wish it to be.
We
are equal, as Lincoln and Dr. King and Jefferson knew, because our
God created us equal in His sight, and it is therefore for every
nation “Under God” to see that its citizens are respected and
treated with that in mind.
It
was because of the unfair and unequal treatment of the colonies in
America that they banded together and had Thomas Jefferson pen the
Declaration, announcing the creation of this new nation, this
experiment that has lasted for 242 years, the greatest, most
generous, most powerful country in the world.
Jefferson
wrote,
“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.”
Notice
that it is Nature’s God, our Creator, that Jefferson points to as
foundational in understanding how we should act in relation to each
other as individuals, citizens and nations, and that it is Him that
has endowed us with our unalienable rights.
As
we celebrate this wonderful holiday, maybe as we’re sitting down
with family and friends, it would be a good idea to talk about what
we’re celebrating, the reason for the barbecue and fireworks, maybe
pull up a copy of the Declaration of Independence on a tablet and
read it to each other. Then while we’re at it, it might be a good
idea to thank our Creator, the one that Jefferson and Lincoln and Dr.
King kept talking about, for this great nation, our blessings, and
for His protection and guidance of us and this republic,
this magnificent
experiment in Liberty and Freedom, the United States of America.
