Coastline Pilot/LA TIMES
July 4, 2003

 

Chasing the Muse

By Catharine Cooper    

 

Happy Birthday, America!  May the principles upon which you are founded continue for millenniums to shine as a guiding light for the rest of the world.  May the freedoms you have guaranteed your citizenry stand as the mark for those who are yet oppressed.

 

On your birthday, this fourth day of July, we gather together with families and friends to celebrate with backyard barbecues, beachfront parties, parades and holiday sales.  Anxiously, we wait for the sun to slip beyond the horizon and darkness to take the place of light.  Then, as promised, fireworks displays fill the sky with brilliant explosions of twinkling colors, a harkening to the ‘rockets red glare’ so poignantly described in our national anthem.

 

Somewhere between the hotdogs and the lemonade, I intend to take a few moments to reflect on the Declaration of Independence and the creation of our remarkable country.  I want to ponder the charge of our founders to uphold and protect the structure to which they committed their lives.

 

It was the summer of 1776 when the call for independence rang across the land.  Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented his resolution to the Continental Congress, “… these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States…” A committee of five was selected to expand Lee’s sentiments and present a document to the world as the colonies’ case for independence.

 

The committee selected Thomas Jefferson to write the draft.  Changes by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and members of the Continental Congress, were included in the final draft, presented on July 1.   Debate and discussion ensued for three days.  On July 4, 1776, church bells rang out through Philadelphia, announcing that the Declaration had been officially adopted, the hallmark birth of the United States of America.

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident …”

 

They had no doubt, these men who by their acts committed treason. They were willing to risk everything to confront the King of England, and form a government without precedent.  A government based on the representation of everyone.  A government decided upon by, for and of the people.

 

“… that all men are created equal …”

 

It has taken several iterations and a great deal suffering, to implement legislation to insure that the rights of one are the rights of all.  Racial and sexual equality have been hard fought, and those issues continue to be our challenge.  We know that physically, each of us is different.  But the substance of the declaration is that no man – be he the president or errant tourist – is above the laws of this land.

 

“ … that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

 

What an incredible concept!  The pursuit of happiness, coupled with liberty to flesh out a life.  Every morning I wake up and am grateful to men I never knew for everything I hold sacred. I am free to choose where I live, the people who are my friends, the type of work I want to do.  I am free to travel, unhindered, within our lands.  I am free to recreate myself again and again.

 

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

 

We have the right of participation.  We have voices, and the charge of the framers of our union to utilize them.  Our freedoms are won again and again each time we exercise our right to vote.  Each time we cast a ballot, march in a rally, write a letter to our representatives, we exercise and perpetuate our consent to be governed.  Because of this, we have the freedom to speak out when business is suddenly not as usual.  We have the freedom to express our anger when the system fails us, and/or our elected officials do not represent what we hold to be true. 

 

“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.”

 

The framers stood united, with the solid understanding that their strength was in their unity, not their divisiveness.  From their brave unprecedented move, our nation was born, and has succeeded where others have failed.  It is a triumph of spirit, more than anything, built on that clear and concise belief, that all men are created equal. 

 

It was worth fighting for then. And it is worth fighting for now.  Happy Birthday, America.

 

Catharine Cooper sits on the City’s Open Space Committee.  She can be reached at ccooper@cooperdesign.net.