Freedom . Democratic Republic
The Roots of our USA Founding Documents Trace Back to the Magna Carta of England.
Source: CDM
A Fourth Of July Salute To The Anglo-Saxons
We Americans love to celebrate our diversity. We have Columbus Day, St. Patrick’s Day and Martin Luther King Day. Various ethnic groups have parades to honor their culture; and this is fine. But we often forget about the one group to whom we owe our freedom and prosperity – the Anglo-Saxons.
Tenth century England was a primitive place. It was barely an Iron Age culture, with marauding tribes engaged in internecine struggles among themselves and against the invading Vikings. Illiteracy was the norm. Meanwhile, Japan had established an advanced culture of writing and literature. Thirteenth century China built ships ten times the size of those Columbus used to cross the Atlantic. The Arab world invented algebra, advanced architecture and a body of literature that delights children to this day. Meanwhile, the English survived by subsistence farming, lived in huts and walked around in clothing that was nothing more than a burlap sack. Yet the people from this small island established global hegemony. Why? Because while other cultures lived under Rule of Men, the English developed Rule of Law.
Ever since King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215, the English people chipped away at privilege and power, enabling all citizens to be equal in the eyes of the Law. The Magna Carta allowed heirs to inherit property without confiscation by the State. It ended the practice of forcing wealthy widows to marry politically connected nobility and merchants. Parliament was eventually established. The much maligned Richard III promulgated the concept of a free press and bail for the accused. The Petition of Right in 1628 prohibited excessive taxation and the quartering of soldiers in one’s house. It created the concept of habeas corpus – meaning you could not be arrested without being accused of a crime. The English fought for the right to bear arms, worship freely and not have to pay damages for a crime one did not commit. These became known as the Rights of Englishmen and when King George III refused to extend these rights to the American colonies, our forefathers rebelled.
It has become fashionable among our cultural elite to disparage our forefathers as racists, homophobes, misogynists and elitists. But they were great men. The entire planet dreams of living in England or one of its children – whether it be the United States, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Iran does not have an illegal immigration problem.
So this Fourth of July, permit me to raise a glass of cognac to the man who sailed to Sicily and convinced my grandfather and my great uncles to immigrate to the United States and work in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. My grandfather despised this man, disparaging him with the term “Johnny Bull.” He felt he had been deceived as this life-threatening, back breaking work paid poorly. But when my grandfather made money, he got to keep it. And when he built a house for my grandmother, my father and his five siblings; no Mafia thug could take it away from him. And his children became college professors. And his grandchildren became doctors and lawyers. And his great grandchildren went to fine universities and live a life style and have opportunities my grandfather could never have conceived.
So I hope the descendants of this man are as fat and happy as we are; and I hope that at some time in my career, one of his descendants came into my office, shook my hand and thanked me when I handled his eye problem competently.
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Happy Independence Day!
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, 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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, 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; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Note: Ela Family genealogy in the Declaration of Independence Signors: MA Robert Treat Paine, our American Revolution ancestry and RI Stephen Hopkins, in extended ancestry
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Source: Martin Armstrong
As the story goes, the famous last words attributed to John Adams on July 4, 1826 (the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence) were:
“Thomas Jefferson survives.”
The profound historical irony was that Jefferson actually died first. Thomas Jefferson died several hours earlier that same day at Monticello on July 4th – the day of American Independence. Adams was unaware that, lying on his deathbed in Quincy, Massachusetts, he had no way of knowing Jefferson had already passed away. His final words reflected his belief that his longtime friend, staunch rival, since Adams was a Federalist, yet both were fellow Founding Fathers, was still alive.
Adams and Jefferson, the 2nd and 3rd Presidents of the United States, were central figures in the American Revolution and the nation’s founding. Their relationship was complex: they were initially close collaborators, then bitter political enemies, and finally reconciled friends through correspondence in their later years. Their deaths on the same day – the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which they both helped create – was seen by the nation as a divine sign affirming the American experiment.
Adams’ last words, mentioning Jefferson, underscored their intertwined legacies, even in death. The fact that he was mistaken about Jefferson surviving added a layer of poignant irony that captivated the nation. What Adams truly said (Slight Variations), according to eyewitness accounts (like his son John Quincy Adams and others present), reported slight variations, but the core meaning is consistent.
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“Thomas Jefferson survives.” (Most common version)
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“Thomas Jefferson still survives.”
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“Jefferson lives.”
In essence, John Adams’ final thoughts and words were of his fellow Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, expressing a belief in Jefferson’s continued life that was tragically and poetically incorrect, cementing their shared destiny in American history and memory.