Sunday, July 3, 2011
To our national shame, a recent study reveals that most American students do not know the purpose of the Declaration of Independence. Like many holidays, its meaning is lost in the very celebration. The years of debates and collaborations among our Founding Fathers, which culminated in a sweltering Philadelphia hall on July 4, 1776, changed history. Of diverse personal backgrounds, from independent colonies with different regional interests, and with no historical model to follow, these men declared something new in the course of man — the belief that all men are created equal and that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights. Already at war with Britain as colonies but not yet declaring independence, the signers' 56 signatures were death warrants unless victory was achieved. None faltered.
Great Britain considered the 13 colonies and the people in them to be subjects. But while King George collected taxes and imposed his sovereignty upon them with a strong hand, the colonists had no representation in Parliament. Taxation without representation and other harsh regulations rankled those in the new world - the Sugar Act, the Currency Act, the Stamp Act and the Quartering Act in turn generated deep resentment. A Continental Congress was formed to create a unifying voice. A decade of discontent grew more intense as evidenced by the famous Boston Tea Party in 1773. Resistance led to military occupation by British troops, including the removal of the colonial government in Massachusetts and in its place governance by a British general. In the environment leading to the Declaration of Independence, political rebellion erupted into open warfare. In April 1775, the Battles of Lexington and Concord marked the first formal military conflict, as immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
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