How Can We Teach Patriotism to the Rising Generation?

Families, communities, states, and nations are stronger when individuals know the value of historical documents and events. Jordin Bradshaw is a lifelong resident of Utah, a social studies teacher for twelve years, and currently a graduate student at UVU working toward a master’s degree in Constitutional Government, Civics, and Law. In his studies, he has gained greater knowledge and respect for the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. He shares his thoughts in an article published in the Deseret News. 

With the upcoming celebrations for 250 years since the publication of the Declaration of Independence I find myself contemplating what and how I should treat this occasion with my students.

For years, I had stood in front of my students and leaned into a common teaching strategy: comparing the Declaration of Independence to a breakup letter. I’d use the familiar slang of my students with words like “ghosting” and “toxic relationships” to explain why the colonies were moving on from King George III. The students laughed and told me I was cringe, but they engaged, and they got the idea of why the declaration was written.

However, as I’ve progressed through my graduate studies in constitutional government, I’ve come to realize that by oversimplifying the declaration to fit a trendy analogy of a breakup, I was actually not getting into the soul of the declaration at all. The Declaration of Independence is not just a notice of separation; it is a document that demands more from us than a clever and memorable metaphor. To treat it as an ending misses the important fact that it was actually a wonderful new beginning.

Teaching the declaration is much more than memorizing 1776; it is about providing the next generation with the tools to maintain our self-governing republic. Students should be taught that the declaration is a document about rights, specifically that rights existed before governments and continue to exist regardless of any governments.

They should be digging deep into the sources and philosophies related to rights and building connections that when rights become just a list of suggestions from a government it is time for those ruled to withdraw their consent and that government to be changed. By connecting the specific grievances of that breakup letter of 1776 to the broader arguments of rights and limited government they see that authority is earned through trust, not granted as a birthright nor through physical power.

Yet, these written liberties cannot survive on parchment alone. As the document’s closing paragraph reminds us, the founders did not just demand rights; they made a pledge of their lives, fortunes and honor to its defense and continuation. We likewise need to instill this same level of civic virtue among our youth today. We all – adults and children – must understand that a free society is only sustainable when its members are willing to sacrifice, compromise and work together to ensure the common good for all of the citizenry.

To truly understand the greatness of the rights contained in the Declaration of Independence, sometimes we must grapple with the times that are not shiny nor exemplary in our own political history. We must trace the events and how those declaration-based rights were later extended, often through hard work and civil disobedience – may even a terrible war. Students need to continue to recognize the hard processes that led to what we enjoy today.

When students understand that their rights are inherent and that their government exists only by their consent, they cease to be passive observers of history and become active participants in our self-governing republic.

In this modern era we can no longer afford to treat our founding documents as clever metaphors. My journey from teaching the “breakup letter” to exploring the profound depths of our “mutual pledge” has shown me that civic literacy is the only true safeguard of our liberty. When students understand that their rights are inherent and that their government exists only by their consent, they cease to be passive observers of history and become active participants in our self-governing republic.

The Declaration of Independence was never intended to be a final word, but instead a North Star to steer by as we navigate the complexities of a rapidly changing and modern world. By restoring the declaration to its rightful place as a focal point in our curriculum, we do more than teach history; we honor those who came before us and fought for – sometimes with their own lives – the divine rights enjoyed by this generation. When they understand the civic virtues of sacrifice and compromise they are also equipped to lead the next generation in fulfilling the promise of a more perfect union in perpetuity.

Bradshaw wrote from the position of a schoolteacher. However, his words can be applied to parents because parents are the ultimate teachers in the lives of their children. Parents cannot leave the teaching of honor and respect for our founding documents to schoolteachers. We should be teaching them also.

One of the best ways is to take your children to historical sites. Travel to Philadelphia so they can see for themselves the liberty bell and building where the Constitution was written. Take them to Washington, D.C., to see the buildings and monuments there. Use a family home evening to study the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Another way to teach them that is equally or more important than personal experience is to give them an example. Purchase a U.S. flag and fly it daily or at least on important days, such as Flag Day or Independence Day. Make sure that you participate in local, state, and federal elections because this is the way that we give our consent to the government. Become a true patriot and love your nation.

Do You Want to Learn More about the American Founding?

With 2026 being the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is good for Americans to learn more about this historic national document. Dr. Matthew Brogdon, senior director and Miller Family Chair in the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, shared his opinion about the importance of the Declaration. 

The so-called Olive Branch Petition, published a year earlier as a last-ditch effort to make the colonists’ case to the crown, had been copied out in manuscript on parchment and signed by the delegates. That hand-delivered document, a personal appeal to the king – who refused to read it – can be seen today at the British National Archives.

By contrast, Congress hired a Philadelphia printer, John Dunlap, to print 200 copies of the Declaration of Independence as broadsides meant for wide public distribution. Copies were sent to each colony’s legislature and to George Washington’s Continental Army, then camped out in Manhattan awaiting a British invasion. Three copies still reside in the British National Archives, but not because Congress bothered to send them. They were collected by British officers in North America and sent to the ministry in London.

The “engrossed” – or signed – copy of the Declaration of Independence on display at the U.S National Archives actually came later, almost as an afterthought, and remained rolled up among documents possessed by federal officials for decades. No one outside that small circle of bureaucrats would have seen the engrossed copy until five decades later, when William Stone produced a copperplate engraving at the behest of the State Department, allowing the handwritten text to be readily copied and distributed.

Charles Thomason, the secretary of the Congress in 1776, even pasted a copy of the Dunlap broadside into the official journal, as if emphasizing that the declaration is a public document for dissemination, not a missive from North American subjects to the crown.

The declaration rapidly proliferated through the ordinary operation of a free press, as colonial printers churned out innumerable copies in newspapers and broadsides. Their counterparts in England and Europe followed, and by the fall of 1776, the entire reading public of Europe had encountered the declaration’s immortal words.

In America then – and in modern times – the Declaration of Independence sits at the center of civic life. It sets a high bar for good government. Our national squabbles and scrums are routinely about whether we as a people and our governments live up to that standard.

In the midst of our national crisis over slavery, and while he himself was cut off from the blessings of American citizenship by the color line, the great orator Frederick Douglass urged his audience to hold fast to the Declaration of Independence as the “ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny…. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”

While Americans spend a great deal of time arguing over the principles of equality, representative government, and the God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we spend precious little time in our educational system learning about them.

These saving principles of our national freedom – the “ringbolt,” as Douglass termed them – did not appear out of thin air. They were and are the hard-won result of long experimentation and serious thinking. They are the fruit of Western civilization in all its complexity, building on biblical religious traditions, classical civic republicanism, natural rights political philosophy and the English legal tradition that gave us the blessings of the common law. Few Americans receive a civic and humane education sufficient to appreciate and savor this constitutional and intellectual inheritance. Indeed, few universities possess a faculty eager to teach it.

As we celebrate the semi-quincentennial of American independence, the time is ripe to recover our love of the intellectual and political tradition that bequeathed us the American Founding. And not just for those fortunate enough to find their way into a classroom where that tradition is being faithfully taught. Like the Declaration, which was sent out into the world for everyone to read, Utah Valley University’s Center for constitutional Studies is offering free master classes to anyone who wants to learn more about the Declaration and the ideas that gave birth to the American experiment in self-government.

Each class, taught by professors from UVU, BYU and the University of Oxford, will introduce viewers to the key ideas and history that animate the fundamental document of American independence….

You can find information about the Declaration classes at this site. 

Why Is Progressivism So Wrong for America?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns enemies of the U.S. Constitution. This year America celebrates 250 years since the time that patriots first declared independence from Great Britain. It may be time for us to declare independence once again.

In his article published in The Daily Signal, Tyler O’Neil reported on a speech given by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The talk was part of celebrating America’s 250^th anniversary, and it exposed “the greatest threat to the Declaration of Independence today – the ideology of Progressivism.” 

“Progressivism was the first mainstream American political movement – with the possible exception of the pro-slavery reactionaries on the eve of the Civil War – to openly oppose the principles of the declaration,” the justice said in a speech at the University of Texas at Austin Wednesday. “Progressives strove to undo the Declaration’s commitment to equality and natural rights, both of which they denied were self-evident.”

With his characteristic brilliance, Thomas cut through the Orwellian masquerade of Progressivism to reveal what it truly is – a fundamentally backward movement. By rejecting the solid footing of the declaration, Progressivism opened America to central planning and administrative rule.

While the declaration bases governmental authority on the consent of the governed and God creating human beings with inalienable rights, under Progressivism, “liberty no longer preceded the government as a gift from God but was to be enjoyed at the grace of the government.”

Explaining Progressivism

Thomas noted that President Woodrow “Wilson and the progressives candidly admitted that they took it from Otto von Bismarck’s Germany, whose state-centric society they admired.

Progressives like Wilson argued that America need[s] to leave behind the principles of the founding and catch up with the more advanced and sophisticated system of relatively unimpeded state power.”

Yet Thomas also quoted President Calvin Coolidge, who delivered a powerful address on the 150th anniversary of the declaration.

“If all men are created equal, that is final,” Coolidge said. “If they are endowed with unalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress, can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which they can proceed historically is not forward but backward.”

The Rotten Fruit of Progressivism

Thomas laid out exactly how backward Progressivism would take America.

“Progressives believed that Darwinian science, the idea of ever-advancing progress written into biology itself, had proven the inherent superiority and inferiority of the races,” he noted.

“It was only a small step for Wilson to re-segregate the federal workforce. It was only another step for the government to launch sterilization programs on those deemed by the experts of the day to be unfit to reproduce, upheld by my court in Buck v. Bell.”

The declaration’s central claims trace back to thinkers like John Locke, and Thomas noted that “European thinkers have long criticized America for remaining trapped in a Lockean world with its weak, decentralized government and strong individual rights.”

“But we were fortunate not to trade our Lockean bonds for the supposedly enlightened world of [Georg Wilhelm Friedrich] Hegel, [Karl] Marx, and their followers,” Thomas said.

“Fascism – which, after all, was national socialism – triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed tens of millions,” he noted. “The socialism of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China proceeded to kill more tens of millions of their own people. This is what happens when natural rights give way to the higher good notions of history, progress, or as Thomas Sowell has written, the visions of the anointed.”

(Sowell’s 1995 book “The Vision of the Anointed” exposes the hubris of America’s intellectual and political elite and the mentality behind their destructive policies on education, crime, and family life.)

“None of this, of course, was an improvement on the principles of the declaration,” Thomas added, wryly.

Why the Speech Matters

Thomas’s speech comes as President Donald Trump has attempted to root out much of the Progressivist “woke” ideology out of the federal government and other parts of American society.

Progressivism’s preference for technocratic government today travels alongside other ideas, such as critical race theory (the notion that America is systemically racist and requires a fundamental overhaul), transgender ideology (the idea that a man can become a woman and vice versa), and climate alarmism (the idea that the world is ending due to human use of fossil fuels).

These issues converge into a worldview I describe as “woke,” and that worldview forms the basis of the Left’s infrastructure – which heavily influenced federal policy under President Joe Biden.

Trump has put woke ideology on the back foot, but the Left is not rejecting these ideas. America is strangely fortunate at the 250^th anniversary to have a president who takes pride in its founding, rather than one who rejects the founding as racist, backward, or “transphobic” – but that does not mean the threat is over.

Americans must heed Clarence Thomas’ warning. The battle between the Declaration of Independence and Progressivism isn’t a matter of disagreeing on means to achieving the same ends – such as asking whether raising or lowering taxes will better handle the deficit.

Unfortunately, the battle often boils down to whether America remains faithful to its founding ideals or rejects them in favor of the Left’s latest justification to grasp unlimited power.

Thomas rightly explained that woke Progressivism is actually extremely backward – and America must reject it, not just on the 250^th anniversary of the declaration, but yesterday, today, and forever.

  

Why Are America’s Founding Documents Selling So Fast?

An interesting phenomenon often happens when the national administration changes. When a newly elected President of the United States starts making policy changes, people are understandably concerned. People wonder if the actions are constitutional – especially if the President represents a different political party.

Market research firm Circana began keeping track of purchases of America’s founding documents in 2004 and claims that they are selling faster in 2025 than in any previous year since 2004. Joshua Arnold believes that “the tumultuous state of America’s political affairs” could be the reason for the “rising civic interest.” 

The U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers have sold a combined 162,000 copies this year, Circana noted – and that’s only through mid-April. This is 76% higher than the same period in 2017, President Donald Trump’s first term in office, when these documents sold 92,000 copies, more than twice as many as in 2016. Sales totaled 58,000 over the same period in 2024 and 33,000 over the same period in 2023.

Circana analyst Brenda Connor said the record-high interest “is likely in response to the recent change of administration,” noting rising intrigue in other books about government as well. “We generally see increased sales of editions of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution every election cycle,” said Shannon DeVito, Barnes & Noble’s senior director of book strategy, “but particularly this year.”

In addition to the cyclical election spike in sales, DeVito also noted that the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which will take place next July, may also play a role in the spiking demand.

Yet multiple analysts still suggested the record-high orders were due to “the fast and furious current political conversations and policy changes,” as DeVito put it. Indeed, political changes have been fast and furious, as the Trump administration swings the pendulum back from the Biden administration’s lawless leftism.

In less than 100 days, the Trump administration has undertaken massive downsizing and restructuring within the federal bureaucracy, slashed through one agency after another with the DOGE chainsaw, overhauled America’s tariff regime, and nearly abolished both USAID and the Department of Education. As if that weren’t enough, the Trump administration has picked fights with universities like Harvard over their rampant antisemitism, punished states like Maine over their refusal to protect girls’ sports, and played chicken with the federal court system on a host of issues. Not only has the Trump administration embraced rapid political changes, but it has also done so in ways that challenge longstanding liberal assumptions about how government is supposed to work and what it is supposed to do.

These changes evoke a range of emotions across the political spectrum. The Left is outraged, Trump’s base is enthused, while many ordinary Americans – those with only a casual understanding of politics – are merely bewildered. The question that pops into their head is, “Wait a minute, can they do that?”

And that is a legitimate question. Many Americans are not rabid political activists who broach the question merely as a prelude to a more hostile political broadside. They genuinely want to know.

But – due to another seismic shift that helps account for the record-high interest in

America’s founding documents – these curious Americans no longer trust the media to answer this question for them. In days gone by, they were too busy to research arcane legal issues for themselves. They trusted those whose job it was to research and report on the news to track down the answer for them.

Not anymore. In October 2024, Gallup recorded that a record-low 31% of Americans had “a great day/fair amount” of trust in mass media, compared to 33% who had “not very much” trust, and 36% who had “none at all.”

So, if Americans want to know what the Constitution allows, but they don’t trust the media to tell them the truth, the simplest solution is to return to the founding documents and read them for themselves….

Yet the more important – and salutary -- trend is that the increased demand for America’s founding documents indicates increased civic awareness. When Americans are studying the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution, and when they analyze the actions of their elected representatives through that lens, then they are thinking like citizens, not subjects. They will recognize the self-evident wisdom of our system of government. And these ordinary Americans will thereby be empowered to defend their system of government against all manner of authoritarian assaults.

Who Signed the Declaration of Independence?

My VIPs for this week are the 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress who signed the Declaration of Independence. They represented the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule. We know some of the famous signers, such as John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Samuel Adams.

The brave men signed the Declaration, and it was adopted on July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence told Great Britain and the world that the American colonies were free and independent states. Matthew Spalding wrote the following about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. 

So, for the record, here's a portrait of the men who pledged "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor" for liberty 225 years ago:

Fifty-six men from each of the original 13 colonies signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Nine of the signers were immigrants, two were brothers and two were cousins. One was an orphan. The average age of a signer was 45. Benjamin Franklin was the oldest delegate at 70. The youngest was Thomas Lynch Jr. of South Carolina at 27.

Eighteen of the signers were merchants or businessmen, 14 were farmers, and four were doctors. Twenty-two were lawyers — although William Hooper of North Carolina was "disbarred" when he spoke out against the king — and nine were judges. Stephen Hopkins had been governor of Rhode Island. Forty-two signers had served in their colonial legislatures.

John Witherspoon of New Jersey was the only active clergyman to attend. (Indeed, he wore his pontificals to the sessions.) Almost all were Protestants. Charles Carroll of Maryland was the lone Roman Catholic.

Seven of the signers were educated at Harvard, four at Yale, four at William & Mary, and three at Princeton. Witherspoon was the president of Princeton, and George Wythe was a professor at William & Mary. His students included Declaration scribe, Thomas Jefferson.

Seventeen signers fought in the American Revolution. Thomas Nelson was a colonel in the Second Virginia Regiment and then commanded Virginia military forces at the Battle of Yorktown. William Whipple served with the New Hampshire militia and was a commanding officer in the decisive Saratoga campaign. Oliver Wolcott led the Connecticut regiments sent for the defense of New York and commanded a brigade of militia that took part in the defeat of General Burgoyne. Caesar Rodney was a major general in the Delaware militia; John Hancock held the same rank in the Massachusetts militia.

The British captured five signers during the war. Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, and Arthur Middleton were captured at the Battle of Charleston in 1780. George Walton was wounded and captured at the Battle of Savannah. Richard Stockton of New Jersey never recovered from his incarceration at the hands of British Loyalists. He died in 1781.

Thomas McKean of Delaware wrote John Adams that he was "hunted like a fox by the enemy — compelled to remove my family five times in a few months …". Abraham Clark of New Jersey had two of his sons captured by the British during the war.

Eleven signers had their homes and property destroyed. Francis Lewis's New York home was razed and his wife taken prisoner. John Hart's farm and mills were destroyed when the British invaded New Jersey, and he died while fleeing capture. Carter Braxton and Nelson, both of Virginia, lent large sums of their personal fortunes to support the war effort but were never repaid.

Fifteen of the signers participated in their states' constitutional conventions, and six — Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Franklin, George Clymer, James Wilson, and George Reed — signed the U.S. Constitution.

After the Revolution, 13 signers went on to become governors. Eighteen served in their state legislatures. Sixteen became state and federal judges. Seven became members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Six became U.S. senators. James Wilson and Samuel Chase became Supreme Court justices. Jefferson, Adams, and Elbridge Gerry each became vice president. Adams and Jefferson later became president.

Five signers played major roles in the establishment of colleges and universities: Franklin and the University of Pennsylvania; Jefferson and the University of Virginia; Benjamin Rush and Dickinson College; Lewis Morris and New York University; and George Walton and the University of Georgia.

Adams, Jefferson, and Carroll were the longest surviving signers. Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Carroll was the last signer to die — in 1832 at the age of 95. (Emphasis added.)

 

Are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution Racist?

             The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the recent announcement that both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are racist. This is according to the agenda for the Biden administration, and the National Archives is working with the regime. It has added a “harmful language alert” to the images of the Constitution and Declaration. Imagine that! This regime is condemning our founding documents because they do not approve of the wording found in them. Fox News is reporting that references to the two documents should no longer be known as “charters of freedom.”

            This is another attempt to show that America has been a racist nation from its beginning, and that the founding documents are rooted in racism and slavery. They claim that the Revolutionary War was fought over slavery, which is patently wrong. The American colonists fought for freedom to live according to their own consciences. The Constitution did not immediately end slavery in the nation, but the Framers included in the Constitution instructions of how to end slavery. Michael Austin gave the following explanation. 

All of this feeds into a larger narrative pushed by President Joe Biden and the left in general: the idea that racism and slavery are both rooted in the founding documents and that, therefore, America itself was founded on racist principles.

This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

America isn’t rooted in racism or even slavery. Quite the contrary is true: This country was built on the ideals of freedom and individual liberty.

            Austin then quoted historian Matthew Spalding, who pointed out in a 2002 report for The Heritage Foundation that many of the founding fathers were against slavery and attempted to end it. However, they were forced to work around the demands of the representatives from the southern states. They did not end slavery, but they “designed the founding documents so that slavery could one day be abolished.” Spaulding’s statement is as follows:

In order to get the unified support needed for the Constitution’s ratification and successful establishment, the framers made certain concessions to the pro-slavery interests. The compromises they agreed to, however, were designed to tolerate slavery where it currently existed, not to endorse or advance the institution.

            The bottom line is that the Constitution included a deadline of twenty years to end the importation of slaves. The importation of slaves stopped in 1808, as soon after the ratification of the Constitution as could be done.

Declaration of Independence

                    The United States Declaration of Independence was an announcement that the thirteen American colonies "regarded themselves as independent states and no longer part of the British Empire."  The document was "ultimately a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain."  The Americans declared independence more than a year after the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired.

The responsibility for drafting the Declaration was given to a committee, but "John Adams persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which congress would edit to produce the final version."  The wording was perfected over a period of time before being approved and adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.  John Hancock signed the handwritten paper and sent it to the printing shop of John Dunlap, who worked through the night to print about 200 copies for distribution.  The Declaration was read to audiences and reprinted in newspapers. 

John Hancock sent one copy to General George Washington with instructions for Washington to "have it proclaimed" "at the Head of the Army in the way you shall think it most proper."  The troops were at that time in New York City - not far from the British forces.  Washington and Congress "hoped that the Declaration would inspire the soldiers, and encourage others to join the army."  The document was read to the colonial troops on July 9.  I am convinced that the Declaration had a great effect on the soldiers as it caused their fellow Americans to tear down and destroy "signs or statues representing royalty.  An equestrian statue of King George in New York City was pulled down and the lead used to make musket balls." 

"The most famous version of the Declaration, a signed copy that is usually regarded as the Declaration of Independence, is displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.  Although the wording of the Declaration was approved on July 4, the date of its signing was August 2.  The original July 4 United States Declaration of Independence manuscript was lost while all other copies have been derived from this original document."

The preamble to the Declaration begins "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  "This has been called `one of the best-known sentences in the English language," containing `the most potent and consequential words in American history.'  The passage came to represent a moral standard to which the United States should strive.  This view was notably promoted by Abraham Lincoln, who considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his political philosophy, and argued that the Declaration is a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted.  It has inspired work for the rights of marginalized people throughout the world."

The Declaration is essentially divided into five sections.  The first sentence states that natural law is the foundation upon which any group of people assumes political independence.  The second section is known as the Preamble and includes the ideas, ideals, and principles upon which independence was declared.  The third section contains a list of colonial grievances and charges against King George III and the attempts made by the colonists to solve the problems. The fourth section explains the disappointment that the attempts were not successful.  The last section declares that the colonists had no choice but to declare independence because of the conditions caused by the King.

                    Every American citizen should read or hear the entire Declaration of Independence at least once each year.  Independence Day is an ideal occasion for reviewing why the United States of America came to be; therefore, I am including a copy of the Declaration of Independence in my post today.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteenunited States of America

                    When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the power of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

                    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.  --  Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.  The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

                    He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

                    He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

                    He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

                    He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

                    He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

                    He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

                    He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

                    He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

                    He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

                    He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

                    He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

                    He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

                    He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

                    For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

                    For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

                    For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

                    For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

                    For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

                    For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

                    For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

                    For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

                    For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

                    He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

                    He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

                    He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

                    He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

                    He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

                    In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms:  Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.  A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

                    Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren.  We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.  We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.  We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.  They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.  We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

                    We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right out to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.  -- 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.

New Hampshire:  Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:  John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:  Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:  Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:  William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:  Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:  Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:  Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:  Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:  George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:  William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:  Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:  Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Happy Birthday, America!

                    Tomorrow we will celebrate the birthday of our great nation.  Last year I wrote about the difference between celebrating Independence Day or just observing the Fourth of July.  This year I feel a need to write about the men who performed extra-ordinary deeds in discovering, founding, and organizing the United States of America.  I believe that our younger generations have not been taught properly the importance of these men - and the women who supported them - and the events they shared.  I believe that each of these men became great because they were led by God in the best performances of their lives.  They each exhibited great "human virtues such as courage, reason, and strength of character" in their roles in the establishment of the United States of America.

                    I want to start with Christopher Columbus because he played a very important role in what eventually became the establishment of our great nation.  Columbus was a God-fearing man as well as a "scientifically-oriented" sailor.   People in the time of Columbus called the Atlantic Ocean "the Sea of Darkness" because they "believed that huge, dangerous sea-dragons lived there."  They also believed that the ocean sloped downward and that people could go so far down the "hill" that it would be impossible to go back to the top.  The people considered the sea to be a "dangerous and terrifying place."

                    Columbus was convinced that the world was a sphere and that he could find a shortcut to Asia in order to avoid traveling through country controlled by the Ottoman Turks.  After many years of searching for sponsors for his mission, he finally convinced Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain to fund and support his journey.    Columbus eventually acquired three ships - the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria - and crews for the ships. 

Columbus, an Italian, captained the Santa Maria while two Spanish brothers captained the other two ships.  The crews of all three ships were Spanish.  The ships left Spain on August 3, 1492, and about one month later the Spanish sailors (approximately ninety) became anxious because they had been at sea so long without finding land.   Columbus did not disclose to the men how far the ships had traveled, but the men continued to become more anxious.  "Threatened with mutiny by his crew, Columbus was forced to promise his captains on October 9 that if they failed to sight land within three days, they would all turn about and head back to Spain" (Bennett, America, p 4). 

                    The sailors soon started to see land-based birds, coastal seaweed, and other signs of land.  The three ships landed on an island in the Caribbean Sea (named San Salvador - Spanish for Holy Savior) on October 12, 1492, - the date we now celebrate as Columbus Day (Lunenfeld, World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, 860).

                    Why did Columbus choose three days?  Why didn't he choose two days or five days?  Was he simply guessing or did he have divine knowledge?  I believe that he was being guided by divine revelation.  "And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land" (Book of Mormon - Another Testament of Jesus Christ, 1 Nephi 13:12).

                    We know that the Spirit of God does not interact with wicked men; therefore, we know that Christopher Columbus was a good man.  We also know that Columbus had a great impact on the history of the Western Hemisphere.  His search for a westward route to Asia changed the ideas of Europeans about the world and led to contact - good and bad - between Europe and America.  The Native Americans were freedom-loving people who exhibited personal liberty, and this new idea of man governing himself formed the foundation of the American Revolution and influenced the structure of the government for the future United States of America.

                    The Puritans and Pilgrims were also led to the Americas by the Spirit of God in order to enjoy freedom of religion.  "And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.

                    "And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise" (Book of Mormon - Another Testament of Jesus Christ, 1 Nephi 13:13-14).

                    The people who came to the Americas worshipped God, and God continued to bless them.  "And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; ….

"And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles who had gone forth out of captivity did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them.

                    "And I beheld that their mother Gentiles were gathered together upon the waters, and upon the land also, to battle against them.

                    "And I beheld that the power of God was with them, and also that the wrath of God was upon all those that were gathered together against them to battle.

                    "And I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles that had gone out of captivity were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations.

                    "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that they did prosper in the land…." (Book of Mormon - Another Testament of Jesus Christ, 1 Nephi 13:15-20).

                    There were many brave and courageous men and women who played major roles in the fight for American independence, and there were hundreds, maybe thousands, more who played minor but important roles.  I consider George Washington to have been the star performer. He was raised up by God and chosen by his peers to lead the colonial army because the people trusted him and would follow him.  He led the American army - a bunch of volunteers dressed in rags - against the strongest and best-equipped navy and army forces in the world at the time and won.  This was no small achievement!  In fact, I consider it to be a grand miracle!  There were times when General Washington placed his life in danger while leading his men.  There are reports that he had two horses shot out from under him and that he had bullet holes through his hat and his jacket but was not hurt.  He was offered the opportunity to be the king of this new nation, but forcefully rejected the idea.  [This is particularly interesting because Nephi prophesied hundreds of years previously that "this land shall be a land of liberty unto the Gentiles, and there shall be no kings upon the land" (Book of Mormon - Another Testament of Jesus Christ, 2 Nephi 10:11).]  The Constitutional Convention happened because George Washington was willing to attend it and later became the "president" of it.  He was unanimously elected to be the first President of the United States of America.  He was a great man who was surrounded by other great and honorable men and women.

                    Several miracles happened to help the Americans win the battle for independence.  When the Americans were trapped in New York, fog rolled in and covered their retreat across the river to safety.  The Americans crossed an ice-choked river and surprised the enemy on Christmas Day.  When the British army was cornered at Yorktown, weather conditions arose that kept the navy from rescuing them and thus causing them to surrender.

                    Heavenly Father raised up George Washington and his associates in order that they could establish independence and liberty in this land; He also inspired the writers of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution to prepare the land and its people for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  God decreed that America would be His latter-day base of operations for His church.  Nearly two thousand years before the founding of the United States of America, our Savior Jesus Christ visited this promised land and told the ancient inhabitants of the land:  "For it is wisdom in the Father that they should be established in this land, and be set up as a free people by the power of the Father, that these things might come forth" (Book of Mormon - Another Testament of Jesus Christ, 3 Nephi 21:4).

                     We know that our Founding Fathers believed and trusted in God because the Declaration of Independence affirms this knowledge.  "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

                    God inspired the Prophet Joseph Smith to write:  "We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life" (Doctrine and Covenants 134:2).  The three great gifts of God to mankind were decreed by God:  life, liberty, and property (the pursuit of happiness).

                    Thomas Jefferson and his associates concluded the Declaration of Independence with these words:  "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 Signers knew that their Declaration would demand great sacrifice, but they signed it any way.

                     Nephi recorded that the Founders "were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations" (Book of Mormon - Another Testament of Jesus Christ, 1 Nephi 13:19).  The Prophet Joseph Smith recorded the following words of the Lord:  "And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood" (Doctrine and Covenants 101:80).

                    The years between 1783 and 1787 were not easy years due to the fact that the Articles of Confederation were not adequate to govern the new nation.  Delegates were appointed to attend the Constitutional Convention, and the attendees spent four hot, miserable months in Philadelphia before the new Constitution was completed.  Nearly ten more months passed before the required nine states ratified it.

The new document was described by Gladstone as being "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man" (William Gladstone, North American Review, Sept.-Oct. 1878, p. 185).

The Prophet Joseph Smith called it "a glorious standard … a heavenly banner" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith, 1938, p. 147).

The delegates understood that they had been the recipients of heavenly inspiration.  James Madison - known as the father of the Constitution - wrote:  "It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution" (The Federalist, no. 37).

                    Alexander Hamilton, originator of The Federalist papers and author of fifty-one of the essays, said:  "For my own part, I sincerely esteem it a system, which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interest" (Essays on the Constitution of the United States, ed. Paul L. Ford, 1892, pp 251-252).

                    In his first inaugural address in 1789, President George Washington said, "No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States.  Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency" (First Inaugural Address, 30 April 1789).

                    The new Constitution received the approval of God.  When the Kirtland (Ohio) Temple was dedicated, the Prophet Joseph Smith gave the dedicatory prayer - previously dictated by the Lord:  "May those principles, which were so honorably and nobly defended, namely, the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever" (Doctrine and Covenants 109:54).

                    The men and women who discovered, founded, and established our nation were good and honorable people.  We know that they were great people for two different reasons:  1) Nephi saw them in vision and saw them following the Spirit of God; and 

2) They recognized the importance of temple work and wanted their work to be done.

                    President Ezra Taft Benson  shared the following experience.  "Shortly after President Spencer W. Kimball became President of the Church [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints], he assigned me to go into the vault of the St. George Temple and check the early records.  As I did so, I realized the fulfillment of a dream I had had ever since learning of the visit of the Founding Fathers to the St. George Temple.  I saw with my own eyes the record of the work which was done for the Founding Fathers of this great nation, beginning with George Washington. 

                    "Think of it:  the Founding Fathers of this nation, those great men, appeared within those sacred walls and had their vicarious work done for them."

                    The Founding Fathers appeared to President Wilford Woodruff, and he shared his experience with these words quoted by President Benson:  "Before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them.  Said they, `You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us.  We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God'" (The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, sel. G. Homer Durham, p. 160).

                    President Woodruff spoke about his experience in General Conference in the Fall of 1877 and stated:  "Two weeks before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them.  … These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they waited on me for two days and two nights.  … I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon Brother McAllister to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and fifty other eminent men, making one hundred in all, including John Wesley, Columbus, and others."

                   The following is another version of President Woodruff's experience: "These were the Founding Fathers, and they waited on me for two days and two nights.  I thought it very singular, that notwithstanding so much work had been done, and yet nothing had been done for them.  The thought never entered my heart, from the fact, I suppose, that heretofore our minds were reaching after our more immediate friends and relatives.  I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon brother McCallister to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration, and fifty other eminent men, making one hundred in all, including John Wesley, Columbus, and others; I then baptized him for every President of the United States, except three; and when their cause is just, somebody will do the work for them" (source unknown).

                    After President Woodruff became the President of the Church, he declared that "those men who laid the foundation of this American government were the best spirits the God of heaven could find on the face of the earth.  They were choice spirits … [and] were inspired of the Lord" (in Conference Report, April 1898, p. 89).

                    After relating the words of President Wilford Woodruff, President Benson added:  "Unfortunately, we as a nation have apostatized in various degrees from different Constitutional principles as proclaimed by the inspired founders.  We are fast approaching that moment prophesied by Joseph Smith when he said:  `Even this nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground, and when the Constitution is upon the brink of ruin, this people will be the staff upon which the nation shall lean, and they shall bear the Constitution away from the very verge of destruction' (19 July 1840, as recorded by Martha Jane Knowlton Coray; ms. in Church Historian's Office, Salt Lake City).

                    "For centuries our forefathers suffered and sacrificed that we might be the recipients of the blessings of freedom.  If they were willing to sacrifice so much to establish us as a free people, should we not be willing to do the same to maintain that freedom for ourselves and for future generations?

                    "Only in this foreordained land, under its God-inspired Constitution and the resulting environment of freedom, was it possible to have established the restored church.  It is our responsibility to see that this freedom is perpetuated so that the Church may more easily flourish in the future."

                    The Lord said, "Therefore, I, the Lord, justify you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land" (Doctrine and Covenants 98:6).

                    The men and women who labored over hundreds of years to discover, found, and organize our nation were choice people who followed inspiration from God.  We should honor them for their extra-ordinary accomplishments.  They are the reason why we can celebrate the founding of America.  We can thank them for their efforts by protecting and defending the nation they founded as well as truly celebrating Independence Day.  My hope and prayer is that the United States of America can always remain "the land of the free and the home of the brave."  Happy Birthday, America!