Happy 4th of July, Jasper County

“The British are coming, the British are coming!” Today, it could be the Queen or maybe that cute couple, William and Kate, followed by an army of paparazzi, but 236 years ago, it was the army of the most powerful nation in the world, the Kingdom of Great Britain.

So, just why do we celebrate July 4th as a national holiday? It was the day the Continental Congress printed and read the Declaration of Independence. It would be another eight years and 137 days before the United States gained their true independence when the colonies and Great Britain signed The Treaty of Paris. France was the largest financier of our revolution.

Recently on a visit to the United States Archives in Washington, D.C., we lined up with tourists from all over the world, and seemingly thousands of school children to enter the Archives to see our country’s most important government documents, one being The Declaration of Independence. We entered the darkened room, slowly wound our way to see the document. Unfortunately, since the last time I saw it some 20 years ago, the ink has faded more, some words are now not even visible. Regardless, its power lives on.

Celebrate the birth of our nation in 1776, let your Red, White and Blue wave, most of all, let us remember the unselfish generations that gave us this opportunity. Happy 4th of July, Jasper County.