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This Commentary was written on July 3, 2009. It's relevance is of greater significance to day than one year ago. |
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"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty."
John Adams - July 3, 1776 - Signer of the Declaration of Independence - Second President of the United States |
| Greetings!
As we celebrate our Founder's bold and courageous declaration that the American Colonies would no longer be subject to the over reaching tyranny of Great Britain, we should ask ourselves if we are not again becoming subject to the power of fallen men who threaten our liberties and assert power over our lives they have no right to assume.
It was Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander of Allied Forces in World War II, and fortieth President of the United States who said, "Freedom from fear and injustice and oppression will be ours only in the measure that men who value such freedom are ready to sustain its possession--to defend it against every thrust from within and without." |
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The famous "Liberty Bell", cast in 1752, reflected the convictions of the Founders and generations since, that the liberty revealed in the Bible and won by Christ through the Cross, was the great desire of men's hearts. The Bell symbolized to all Americans, then and now, freedom from the power and undue control of fallen men over our lives.
The conviction of our Forefathers is seen in the instructions Isaac Norris, Pennsylvania's Assembly Speaker, gave to the Assembly's agent in London in 1752. He wrote:
"Let the Bell be cast by the best Workmen & examined carefully before it is Shipped with the following words well shaped in large letters round in vizt. /By order of the Assembly of the Province of Pensylvania for the State house in the City of Philada 1752// //and Underneath//Proclaim Liberty thro' all the Land to all the Inhabitants thereof. - Levit. XXV.10"
The history of the casting, care, and even the clarion ring of the Liberty Bell has not been without challenges, much like the call - down through the centuries - and to this very day, for freedom and it's blessings. | |
The onward march toward happiness through virtuous liberty is clear. Since its earliest days the Liberty Bell has tolled for the meeting of the Assembly (1757) which would send Benjamin Franklin to England to address Colonial grievances; the repeal of the Sugar Act (1764); when ships carrying tax stamps sailed up the Delaware River in 1765; after a resolution in 1770 claiming that Parliament's latest taxation schemes were "subversive;" to call the Assembly to petition the King for a repeal of tea duties in 1771; and the "Intolerable Acts" which included the closure of the Port of Boston in 1774. It tolled for a town meeting in which the citizens of Philadelphia pledged over 4,000 pounds in aid for the suffering residents of Boston, in 1774.
It tolled to announce the Battle of Lexington and Concord; the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in 1776; upon ratification of the Constitution; and at the death of Franklin, Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, John Marshall and Lafayette. The final 'zig-zag' fracture in the Bell occurred in 1846 while the Liberty Bell was being rung for Washington's birthday.
The bell has traveled to New Orleans; to Chicago for the World's Fair; to Atlanta, Charleston, St. Louis, San Francisco, and to Boston to take part in a celebration of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
On D-Day in June of 1944 the Bell was tapped during a national radio program to symbolize "Independence." As the program ended the Bell was "tapped seven times to symbolize "Liberty."
In August of 1962 it was tapped on the first anniversary of the Berlin Wall "to show solidarity with East Germans." Liberty. . . around the world, for all people, is the heart's desire of most Americans, a desire so strong that our young men and women are still shedding their blood to preserve it and win it for others.
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What will it toll for in the coming months and years?
Will it toll for the loss of our rights to keep and bear arms? To select our doctors and medical services? Our freedom of speech and conscience? Our freedom to do business without government interference and oversight? Will it toll for our parental rights, and right to be governed under the Constitution for which hundreds of thousands have died to preserve? Will it toll for the burden of taxation placed on our children by the arrogance and unenlightened foolishness of our current and past elected officials? Will it toll for the loss of the Constitution and the usurpation of legislative power by an out of control judiciary? Will it toll for a one world government that sees our children as theirs, not ours?
Or will the bell and all it symbolizes grow silent, a symbol of the past, and the dispiriting of America?
You and I will decide by what we do, or do not do, in the next sixteen months. |
"The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a
lasting liberty."
John Adams -June 21, 1776 | |
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Quotes to Think About
"There comes a time in the affairs of men when they must prepare to defend, not their homes alone, but the tenets of faith and humanity on which their churches, their governments, and their very civilization are founded."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
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"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them."
Justice Joseph Story, U.S. Supreme Ct. 1811-1845 |
"Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, great and awesome, and fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses."
Nehemiah 4:14 NAS | |
