1776 – The 250th anniversary of the egg hatching
An evening pause: Two hundred and fifty years ago today a small group of men gathered in Philadelphia to ratify a very radical document. They called it the Declaration of Independence, with its main purpose to declare to the world the reasons the thirteen North American British colonies wanted to break free from the rule of Great Britain. The job to write it had been given to a committee comprised of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman, but in the end the committee dumped the job on Thomas Jefferson.
He produced a document that will be read for many generations into the future, long after the United States falls into dust, because it outlines the basic fundamentals of freedom, government, and human existence. The full text and some background information can be found here, but all you really need to know is this line:
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.
Americans were declaring to the world that their nation would be built on the idea that its people would be free, and its government’s sole function would be to let them pursue happiness. Think about how simple and almost silly that idea is. And yet, 250 years later, it still rings true, and produces a nation more prosperous and joyous than any nation on Earth.
The song below, called “Hatching an Egg,” is from the 1976 musical 1776. I have posted it many times before, because it is not only a great song, but it is remarkably accurate. It captures the personalities of these Founding Fathers perfectly. We are a nation of freedom-loving eccentrics, founded by individuals as eccentric and as freedom-loving.
Enjoy! And celebrate our anniversary this weekend, as John Adams proclaimed, with “pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other.”