Harsh times for Britannia

A state of high dudgeon was the norm for the haughty monarch we remember as George III, who went by another title given by his upstart American colonies --- that of TYRANT. This was writ large in the year 1776, in a hot Philadelphia July.

Men who made up the First Continental Congress gathered to indict the sovereign for the many crimes and misdemeanors he and his Parliament had committed against the people who had rebelled against his having stripped his subjects of liberties and rights.

These were enumerated in the Declaration of our Independence which declared that we were, "and ought to be" the United States of America. We rightly honor the men who would become our first three presidents of the new nation so conceived in liberty. Washington, Adams and Jefferson wrote the document under the advice and tutelage of our first elder statesman, Benjamin Franklin.

It is important, as we celebrate our birthday as these Untied States, to call up our memories of other sentences written in fire. Jefferson reminded King George "that all men were created equal and were endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Fourscore and seven years later, another president, Abraham Lincoln, wondered at a battlefield called "Gettysburg" if any nation, so conceived and so dedicated could long endure. For Jefferson's "all men" referred to white males, property-owners, excluding women, slaves and poor white men. Can we not wonder if a civil war leading to a century of reconstruction were but steps in a work in progress? Shall this nation of the people, for the people and by the people, ever perish from the earth?

Each year that passes brings to this scribe a promise that we are getting closer to our goal of equality under law and the consent of the governed. We have grown to become the greatest country on earth --- one which has spent her largesse to lift the fallen every day of our existence. If the arrogant tyrant had the gift of foresight, he might have learned that one must govern with peace and amity, holding the needs and desires of his subjects high and heavenward.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!