AMERICA: The Blog

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

7/4/2023

When I was a little girl, my mother told me, "Lenora, 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. . . .”

Then came the long and terrible list of the crimes of the King.

Who's Playing "Joe Biden" Today?

6/11/2023

"In this holy season we thank God for his infinite love and we pray that the light of his glory will forever shine on this magnificent land."~ President Trump

"This isn't the biggest house... this isn't the finest house, but this is the best house. It's the best house because it has something far more important ... than numbers of rooms...magnificent pieces of art... This house has a great heart. And that heart comes from those who serve."

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"In this holy season
we thank God for his infinite love
and we pray that the light of his glory
will forever shine on this magnificent land."

~ President Trump

"This isn't the biggest house...
this isn't the finest house,
but this is the best house.

It's the best house because
it has something far more important ...
than numbers of rooms...magnificent pieces of art...

This house has a great heart.
And that heart comes from those who serve."