Our Glorious Independence Day: "Every Man Jack of Us a Free and Independent Citizen of God’s Country"

When I was a little girl, my mother told me, "Always be grateful you're an American. There's no greater blessing."

Mom was right and no one expressed this more beautifully than pioneer Laura Ingalls Wilder in "Little Town on the Prairie" when she described DeSmet's 1882 Independence Day Celebration:

Beside the flagpole a man rose up tall above the crowd. He was standing on something. The sound of talking died down, and he could be heard speaking.

“Well, boys,” he said, “I’m not much good at public speaking, but today’s the glorious Fourth. This is the day and date when our forefathers cut loose from the despots of Europe. There wasn’t many Americans at that time, but they wouldn’t stand for any monarch tyrannizing over them. They had to fight the British regulars and their hired Hessians...those fine gold-laced aristocrats turned loose on our settlements and paid for murdering and burning...women and children.

A few barefoot Americans had to fight the whole of them and lick ’em, and they did fight them and they did lick them. Yes sir! We licked the British in 1776 and we licked ’em again in 1812, and we backed all the monarchies of Europe out of Mexico and off this continent less than twenty years ago, and by glory! Yessir, by Old Glory right here, waving over my head, any time the despots of Europe try to step on America’s toes, we’ll lick ’em again!”

“Hurray! Hurray!” everybody shouted. Laura and Carrie and Pa yelled, too, “Hurray! Hurray!”

“Well, so here we are today,” the man went on, “Every man Jack of us a free and independent citizen of God’s country, the only country on earth where a man is free and independent. Today’s the Fourth of July, when this whole thing was started, and it ought to have a bigger, better celebration than this. We can’t do much this year. Most of us are out here trying to pull ourselves up by our own boot straps. By next year, likely some of us will be better off, and able to chip in for a real big rousing celebration of Independence Day. Meantime, here we are. It’s Fourth of July, and on this day somebody’s got to read the Declaration of Independence. It looks like I’m elected, so hold your hats, boys; I’m going to read it.”

Laura and Carrie knew the Declaration by heart, of course, but it gave them a solemn, glorious feeling to hear the words. They took hold of hands and stood listening in the solemnly listening crowd. The Stars and Stripes were fluttering bright against the thin, clear blue overhead, and their minds were saying the words before their ears heard them.

“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds 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 impell 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 inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. . . .”

"For a century and a half, forces were at work creating a new man in the New World--an American." That's what it says in my old homeschool History textbook and I like the sound of it!

From the very beginning, Americans have been the most patient and peaceful of people. A nation of great forbearance. Persuing ever avenue, exhausting every possible course of action before the last and most horrible option: taking up arms to protect their rights against the Crimes of the King.

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.

Long before our July 4th, 1776 Declaration of Independence, the British Parliament passed the Proclamation Line (1763) "which forbade the colonists to settle beyond the Appalachian Mountains."

In 1764, imported sugar, molasses and coffee were taxed with no say nor input from the colonists nor their own legislatures. In 1765, newspapers, diplomas and other legal and commercial documents were taxed under the Stamp Act. Again, the colonists and their local governments had no say.

To enforce this tax, Britain kept a standing army in the colonies, supplied by the colonists who were even forced to accept their oppressors being quartered in the colonists' private homes. (The Quartering Act 1765)

In every era, the more tyranny puts the screws to the little people, the brighter Liberty grows. As Col. Barré said, "[The colonies] flourished not by our care but by our neglect. They have increased while we did not attend to them. They shrink under our hand."

And the more King George III taxed, controlled, terrorized and tyrannized the colonists, the more the colonies shrank from England, drawing together in cohesiveness, identity as Americans and a shared vision of Freedom.

The first colonial Congress took place in 1765 but it would take more than a decade before colonists drew that line in the sand and listed the Crimes of the King in our beautiful Declaration of Independence.

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 endeavoured 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 protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

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.

The founding fathers were men of wealth, of land, of education and of faith. Men with families and businesses to protect. Men like John Hancock whose ship, the Liberty, had been seized by the British while its owner had a price on his head.

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.

If you can read the soaring, timeless words of our Declaration of Independence without a lump in your throat and tears welling up in your eyes, you're made of sterner stuff than I am.

Laura Ingalls Wilder describes how the Dakota Territory pioneers felt after hearing those very same words in 1882:

“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.”

No one cheered. It was more like a moment to say, “Amen.” But no one quite knew what to do.

Long may our land be bright With Freedom’s holy light. Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King!

The crowd was scattering away then, but Laura stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new thought. The Declaration and the song came together in her mind, and she thought: God is America’s king.

She thought: Americans won’t obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he has to boss himself. Why (she thought), when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn’t anyone else who has a right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good.

Her whole mind seemed to be lighted up by that thought. This is what it means to be free. It means, you have to be good. “Our father’s God, author of liberty—” The laws of Nature and of Nature’s God endow you with a right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God’s law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free.

From the mouths of babes. Laura was only 14 or 15 when she understood Freedom more profoundly than many adults will ever understand it. It's like discovering fire!

As we celebrate our Great and Glorious Independence Day, Patriots, never forget that our patriot forefathers experienced much greater tyranny and vanquished the most powerful nation on Earth to win our Liberty and Freedom as Americans. With their example to inspire us and "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence" we cannot and will not fail to re-establish their perfect Vision for America.

“Our Glorious Independence Day: “Every Man Jack of Us a Free and Independent Citizen of God’s Country””

Tell that to the Jan 6 political prisoners rotting away somewhere.

Winning our independence back in ‘76 is sure something to be proud of. Something to be grateful for. Something to celebrate.

But we can’t let the celebration take our focus off of what happened just six months ago. We lost a big one. They stole an election from us.

We have a right to be angry. We need to be angry and stay angry until things are put right.

I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time standing next to these enemies of MAGA, waving flags with them, watching fireworks with them, and acting like nothing is wrong.

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