On July 2 the members of the Continental Congress voted to accept the proposition introduce by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, “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.”
Following the vote, John Adams was heard to say that this would be the day we would remember throughout history. But we celebrate July 4, not July 2. The Continental Congress realized it needed to produce a document to explain the decision. The draft of our founding document had been presented by the committee to its members and it took two days to edit it for printing.
The musical 1776 does conflate portions of the debate over “independency,” as it was called, but many of the essential elements remain: the basic belief that we human beings are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, giving us an intrinsic value no government can take away from us. The coming holiday should bring to mind the lives it cost to obtain our liberty and continue to broaden our idea of justice.
Prayer for the Day
Wanderers in the wilderness of our own making, we search for direction,
Bound to a past of our imagination, we seek a future we cannot see;
Aimless in a world that is always changing, we want a fixed point of certainty,
But You, O Unbinder of our preconceptions, push us into new worlds,
Where the quest finds more truth than the answers of other times,
And our actions are more important than our words,
As shown by the One who lived for others,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen
Thoughts for the Day
For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them,
- Thomas Jefferson, his last letter July 1826 (1743-1826)
Because power corrupts, society’s demand for moral authority and character increases as the importance of the position increases
- John Adams, Member of the Continental Congress (1735-1826)
Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry;
Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit.
From you let my vindication come; for your eyes see the right.
Psalm 17: 1