One thing that I really enjoy is History. I would say it is another thing I “geek” for. It’s what I studied in school because I always appreciated it growing up. Now, I know most people don’t always enjoy History. I’ve seen the way people’s eyes begin to glaze over as I start whipping out the historical facts, so I won’t make this to lengthy, but I felt like it was an appropriate topic for today.
Independence Day marks the date that the Declaration of Independence was signed by the Continental Congress. An ironic name for a group of delegates from each of the British colonies in North America. They represented the sentiments of many of the colonists who felt that they were not being properly treated by the British Government. May be that is why it is celebrated as pomp and show in the United States. Going through everything during the colonial era and emerging even stronger has made them extremely proud. The citizens even decorate their homes and businesses with flags, and some purchase aluminum flagpoles to fly their flag high above their homes. Others will simply wear the national flag’s colors. Anyway coming back to the colonial delegates, after that it came down to taxes. They understood that taxes were a necessary evil, but what they did not like was that they had no representation in the parliament back in England, no voice representing their views. That’s where their mantra of “No Taxation without Representation” comes from.
As this group met, they came to a stunning realization. They realized that things had changed in the colonies, that somehow, culturally and socially, they weren’t really British anymore, and that there was no reasonable way for the British Government to, well, govern them anymore. This group realized we as a people had become something else. We were the colonies. Colonies that had been here long enough that many of the people here had been born here and had never gone to England and didn’t consider themselves English, but Virginian or Marylander or whatever.
We look at Independence Day as our country’s birthday, and in a sense that’s true. To be clear, this does not mark that day that the English said, “Forget it, it’s not worth the fight anymore,” and we won the war. Or the day that the Constitution was put into effect. What this date marks is the day that a group representing the colonists committed treason to the crown by signing the Declaration of Independence. Putting down for history why we were wanting to fight against the crown. This was the day where these colonists came together, not as Englishmen or as colonists, but they came together and something new was born: American. They began to identify themselves as Americans, and it started with an act of rebellion…that’s not the right word. It started with an act of standing for something. Standing up to bully, standing up for principles and morals they believed were right. That is how Americans were born. We see it happen today again and again, whatever side of any given issue you might stand on, as an American, you stand for what you believe is right. It’s only natural. That’s how Americans started.
