The Pursuit of Happiness (Not The Right): Ride The Horse, Not For Crowd
Oh say, do you see?
Great blue heron with a hatchling snapping turtle in its beak. Photo by John Harrison, CC, linked to his work.
Freedom and the open road. Big flag. The rider is on a three-wheeled vehicle – not two, not four.
Independence is not without peril in nature or human affairs. Life feeds on life. In an instant a hatching turtle is consumed by a great blue heron. On a hot summer day, a deer jumps out across a two-lane road – and what happens is the combined result of two drivers traveling in opposite directions. One slows. The deer walks across, and a bad collision is avoided by self-control, patience, and combined life experience.
The “simple” definition of independence via Merriam-Webster is “freedom from outside control or support; the state of being independent; the time when a country or region gains political freedom from outside control.”
What audacity. That determination to choose a path that did not exist – to think fledgling British colonies could stand on their own – and must – also meant the responsibility of life and death to answer for the results of that choice to state their independence.
And what powerful words.
From the American Treasures of the Library of Congress – “This is the only surviving fragment of the broadside of the Declaration of Independence printed by John Dunlap and sent on July 6, 1776, to George Washington by John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. General Washington had this Declaration read to his assembled troops on July 9 in New York, where they awaited the combined British fleet and army. Later that night, American troops destroyed a bronze-lead statue of Great Britain's King George III that stood at the foot of Broadway on the Bowling Green. The statue was later molded into bullets for the American Army.” Images is linked to the LOC collection of amazing artifacts and stories.
The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
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.”
(Jefferson then makes his case – and lists grievances point by point. To read these magnificent words written, forged, honed by Jefferson with the men and events around him, here is the link to the USA national archives.)
“On June 11, 1776, anticipating that the vote for independence would be favorable, Congress appointed a committee to draft a declaration: Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and John Adams of Massachusetts.” See the process by which this happened, step-by-step, draft by draft, at the Library of Congress online.
“Independence Day of the United States, also referred to as the Fourth of July or July Fourth in the U.S., is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, by the Continental Congress declaring that the 13 American colonies regarded themselves as a new nation, the United States of America, and no longer part of the British Empire.” – Wikipedia
Freedom. A horse, a dog, miles of trails.
Independence Day 2016. No fireworks for me, thank you. Fly the flag, yes.
Story continues, updated for 2018. Link here.