“I wish nothing but good. Therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel.” ~ King George III
Happy 249th birthday, America! I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that my fond memories of our nation’s 200th birthday are almost 50 years old. I have a set of 1976 coins my grandmother gave me that I’ve held onto, and I remember all the excitement that year. Next year, God willing, is the nation’s semisesquiquincentennial, and the state of Colorado’s 150th birthday, and celebrations are already being planned.
As in previous years, we have dedicated the front page to a reprinting of the Declaration of Independence, the document drafted by our nation’s founders to delineate all the specific reasons they were renouncing the chaotic rule of “mad King George III.” (It turns out he really was unwell. King George III suffered from mental illness of an unknown nature, resulting in “periods of erratic behavior,” mania, and physical ailments.)
I encourage you to read the Declaration closely. I find something new and applicable to current events every time.
It’s easy to imagine those early American patriots all being unified and in perfect agreement, raising their voices against a foreign army. But that wasn’t the case. In my own family history I discovered a few branches of the family tree were Revolutionary war soldiers in New Haven, Connecticut, where they first settled in 1638, but another branch were Tories — Americans who supported continued British rule. I’m sure the disagreements were loud and the tension palpable. They didn’t even have screens and keyboards to hide behind while they spat insults at each other. And the “foreign army” was embedded with the colonists, quartered in towns and villages, to enforce British rule and law.
May we always celebrate our independence from oppressive rulers on July 4, and remember the cost to attain and preserve the freedoms we now enjoy.
