On Freedom and Independence Day

It was 232 years ago that a group of 56 men, meeting in the city of Philadelphia, signed a document that, not only transformed their nation, but the entire world. Risking fears of reprisals, including imprisonment and possible death, these patriots declared their independence from Great Britain. Surely such a declaration did not come without much prayerful thought and anguish of soul.

For the greater part of the century and a half since that first colony had been established upon the shores of the New World - Jamestown in 1607 - a healthy partnership with England had been the rule. British ships brought products from the Old World that were absent from the colonies in the New World. British soldiers had helped protect the colonists during that period known as the French and Indian War. But, during the past several decades, the English government, under King George III, made more demands upon the subjects living in the thirteen colonies. Most reprehensible of all were those dreaded taxes...taxes upon almost everything. It was those taxes and the determination of Parliament and the King to enforce them without listening to the logical arguments of the colonists themselves that finally roused the ire of the independent spirit found among many living in the New World.

Bloodshed became inevitable. On April 19, 1775, the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord in what would become known as the War of Independence. Now, months after that event, and after weeks of deliberation, the moment arrived on July 4, 1776, to declare before a body of peers and before the King of England and, yes, before the world itself, the reasons for a separation from England. And so the Declaration of Independence was signed and America was given birth.

Bells were tolled. Bands struck up martial music. People shouted with enthusiastic joy. Freedom to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness had come. Yet, freedom is never truly free. War would rage for the next five years at the cost of nearly 50,000 lives - many of whom died of diseases and infections caused by wounds and camp conditions. During the tragic winter of 1777-78, General George Washington lost over one fourth of his men at Valley Forge due to starvation and disease. Yet, when British General Cornwallis surrendered Yorktown in 1781, the war ended. The Peace Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, guaranteed the freedoms that had come with such a great price.

Freedom is never truly free. Eighty-seven years later, President Abraham Lincoln, addressing a crowd at the dedication of a cemetery for those who died during the Civil War battle of Gettysburg, said, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." Freedom still came with a cost as Lincoln and Americans, North and South, would realize.

Today white marble crosses dot the landscape in cemeteries around the globe reminding us that freedom is never truly free. Exploding fireworks this weekend may recall the joys of celebrating the news "We are free!" But the blood-red strips on the flag remind us that freedom came with a price. We must never forget that!