Today Americans celebrate the 248th anniversary of the founding of the United States. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress, back then the governing body of a confederation of the 13 North American colonies, approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence. By this action, the future 13 States declared to the world, their independence from the British Empire.
The Declaration of Independence, although written more than a year after the War of American Independence had already begun, engendered not one, but two revolutionary ideas. The first, that given a certain set of circumstances, in this case "repeated injuries and usurpations" of the American colonists’ rights and liberties by the government of King George III, “it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.”
The second was the affirmation that everyone is created equal. This phrase, which is usually interpreted to mean that all persons are entitled to certain innate rights, including the right to dignity; the right to be treated on par with other citizen; and to be afforded a fair chance to create a good life for themselves — is at the center of the principles that underpin the formation of the United States. They serve as the basis of the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land.
And while we have often failed to live up to those principles — the most glaring failure being the institution of slavery that lasted for another 80 years after the Declaration of Independence was written — it did sow the seeds of change that over the years eliminated such failures and continue to do so as new challenges arise.
“Today, we celebrate our independence. We celebrate our liberty and our freedom,” said President Joe Biden.
“While the other nations were formed based on things like geography, ethnicity, religion, America is the only nation in history founded on an idea — an idea. And that is that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal — all people — endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights — among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“We haven’t always lived up to those words, but we’ve never walked away from them. And today, and all days, we have to say clearly: We never will,” said President Biden. “We never will.”
