Independence Day
For me, the Fourth of July has always been a very important
celebration of the freedoms that make our country the greatest
in history IMO… and this is one of my all-time favorite political
heroes and one of his most famous speeches…
Ronald Reagan
Washington, DC
January 25, 1974
“We Will Be As a City upon a Hill”
…[ excerpt ]…
You can call it mysticism if you want to, but I have always
believed that there was some divine plan that placed this
great continent between two oceans to be sought out by those
who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a
special kind of courage.
This was true of those who pioneered the great wilderness in
the beginning of this country, as it is also true of those
later immigrants who were willing to leave the land of their
birth and come to a land where even the language was unknown
to them.
Call it chauvinistic, but our heritage does not set us
apart. Some years ago a writer, who happened to be an avid
student of history, told me a story about that day in the
little hall in Philadelphia where honorable men, hard-
pressed by a King who was flouting the very law they were
willing to obey, debated whether they should take the
fateful step of declaring their independence from that king.
I was told by this man that the story could be found in the
writings of Jefferson. I confess, I never researched or made
an effort to verify it. Perhaps it is only legend. But
story, or legend, he described the atmosphere, the strain,
the debate, and that as men for the first time faced the
consequences of such an irretrievable act, the walls
resounded with the dread word of treason and its price—the
gallows and the headman’s axe.
As the day wore on the issue hung in the balance, and then,
according to the story, a man rose in the small gallery. He
was not a young man and was obviously calling on all the
energy he could muster. Citing the grievances that had
brought them to this moment he said, “Sign that parchment.
They may turn every tree into a gallows, every home into a
grave and yet the words of that parchment can never die. For
the mechanic in his workshop, they will be words of hope, to
the slave in the mines—freedom.”
And he added, “If my hands were freezing in death, I would
sign that parchment with my last ounce of strength. Sign,
sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, sign
even if the hall is ringing with the sound of headman’s axe,
for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the
bible of the rights of man forever.”
And then it is said he fell back exhausted. But 56
delegates, swept by his eloquence, signed the Declaration of
Independence, a document destined to be as immortal as any
work of man can be. And according to the story, when they
turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he could not be
found nor were there any who knew who he was or how he had
come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.
…[ end excerpt ]…
Hope that your Fourth was great!
