July 4 - Our Sacred Honor

Only three days remain until the two hundred thirty-sixth anniversary of the day when fifty-six men affixed their signatures to the most important document in our nation’s history.  Each year there are patriotic celebrations punctuated with flags flying, fighter planes in formation, and displays of aerial repeaters, flying spinners, roman candles, and every variation of fireworks fountains.  The most often cited excerpt from that Declaration signed so long ago, “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...”, is again recited with multitudes of patriotic backdrops.  Professional actors give dramatic voice to the written words of our Declaration.

This is the day each year when the glow from fireworks exploding in the sky softly dances on the faces of awestruck children and reflective adults.  It has become a time to be thankful for our good fortune - a day to be grateful for the courage, wisdom, commitment and sacrifice of those people who delivered this great, good fortune to us.  Evidence abounds that we are the fortunate recipients of vast natural resources, well stewarded by our forebears, are individually free and empowered by such gifts, to pursue happiness in our own way.

But what about the other words in that Declaration?  What about the messages written there that cause reflection on doing our duty to further the tradition?  The first and last lines of the text require more than the declaration of our rights, they require understanding of the actions people must take to “secure these rights” by instituting “Governments.”  The opening sentence begins, “When in the Course of human events,...”  

In these seven words, those fifty-six men, who decided the only just course was to create a new nation, understood that governments were human enterprises.  Their understanding of humanness included all of the frailties that possessed people then, before, and now.  They knew that the accumulation of human behavior would move through periods of honorable outcomes separated by periods when the wave receded into times when sight of the declared role was lost.  

Those signers of our Declaration were steeped in history - thousands of years of governmental experiments conducted always by fallible, and sometimes despotic, human beings.  I wonder how Josiah Bartlett (the signer from New Hampshire - not the character played by Martin Sheen on The West Wing), James Wilson, John Hart, or Joseph Hewes might assess the nation they midwifed.  Would they have joined with their compatriots if they could have foretold the course of their nation two hundred and thirty-six years in the future?

The last sentence of the Declaration includes these words, “... we ... pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”  These men who immediately after such words signed their name with the full intention of binding themselves to each other and to the task of securing the inalienable rights of all people through the institution of a new government.  Many of these men would later work to establish a constitution and new government institutions.  Some others were hanged or shot and nearly all spent their worldly fortune in pursuit of fulfilling the Declaration.

Upon reading that final sentence, I always wonder what would need to occur now in the course of human events to cause the fifty-six most respected leaders of our country to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to each other and to the people they serve.  Unless we colonize the moon or another planet, there is no unsettled land to bring forward a new nation.  The soil of this nation, in this place, in this time, and in this crest or trough of history’s tide is a very fertile place to plant a pledge to each other.  It is humbling to ask myself under what conditions would I sign a declaration that pledges my life, my fortune and my sacred honor to others - knowing this duty is mine to fulfill.

Finally, if I don’t skip past them, there are three words in the title of the document that can stun me, “The unanimous Declaration...”   July 4, 1776, may be the last date on which our elected representatives were unanimous on an important question.  Those fifty-six knew their job was to seek a Declaration that could earn unanimity.  By doing so, they acknowledged the historical course of human events, they gave us a foundation of unanimously shared values, they described institutions to sort out our differences, and they lead by example under a sobering reminder of the total commitment required to carry forward - “... our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

--td