The Fourth of July has just passed; the day we celebrate our independence from Great Britain and I meant to write something sooner for the holiday but I have been busy with another project.
The meaning of this celebration has all but become lost to many people in our nation who either are not well educated or don’t really care anymore. We have come to equate July 4th with vacation from work, fireworks, barbaque and beer and going to the beach. After all it has been two hundred thirty eight years since that five year long struggle for independence took place. In our modern comfortable lives we don't seem to care to remember anymore.
The Bill of Rights was the first document written in 1764 defining a list of limits on government containing ten amendments. All ten amendments listed in the Bill of Rights were attached to the Constitution written in 1788, ratified in 1789 and put into operation in 1790. Eleven more have been added and ratified down through the years.
The Declaration of Independence was written on July 2nd, 1776. It began when Richard Henry Lee brought a resolution before Continental Congress on June 2nd 1776 which became known as the Lee Resolution. This resolution stated “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states…” Congress debated for four days and a committee of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston and Thomas Jefferson gave the task of writing the Declaration to Thomas Jefferson.
John Adams wrote his wife Abigail on July 3rd: "The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I believe it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It aught to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illumination from one end of this continent to the other."
The Declaration of Independence, though written on July 2nd, was not ratified until July 4th. The fifty six men who signed the declaration, as the last eight words on the declaration said: “we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” These were men of wealth, plantation owners, business men and merchants; they had much to lose however they pledged it all. King George III had denounced all rebels in America as traitors. The punishment for traitors was hanging.
If the revolution was lost they were risking all they had including their lives. If they won, they faced the long hardship of building a new nation, rebuilding all that was destroyed in the many battles. During the five years of the revolution many of them lost their fortunes, their families and their lives in the ensuing battles.
At the start of the Revolution, America had a population of 3.5 million. The enrolled soldiers numbered 200,000, only 5.7 per cent of the population. The total combat casualties (killed and wounded): 10,263 Deaths (Disease or accident): 18,500. Total (Hessian) Combat Deaths: 1,200. Unlike modern warfare, there was no estimated cost of rebuilding towns and homes destroyed by the combat.
I could find no official British Combat Casualties but unofficially there were approximately 13,617. That is the cost in lives for freedom and justice for all in 1776. The war lasted five years and was fought from upstate New York to Savannah, Georgia.
The War of 1812, our second revolution is another story for another day.
