THE TTALK QUOTE 
On Global Trade & Investment


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NO. 48 of 2014
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FRIDAY, JULY 4, 2014
  Filed from Portland, Oregon 
 
Click here for Tuesday's SOE quote from Alan Wolff. 
 
Editor's Note:
This is he third time we have published this Fourth of July TTALK Quote. It's a tradition now.  
 

TEXT FOR A SUMMER HOLIDAY
 
"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."
 
The Representatives of the United States of America
in General Congress Assembled
July 4, 1776
 
Blackberry Blossoms
Oregon Blackberries   June 2010  rkm.
Context
and Comments (Part I):  We doubt that any words in the canon of American political thought are more famous than these.  They constitute the first sentence in the second paragraph of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, proclaimed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.  It is a marvelous essay, one we have read with admiration countless times and hope to read still many times more.  And we don't skip over the complaints against King George III and Parliament for various offenses, including "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world."
 
We think it auspicious that the authors of that document should have referred, even in the very first paragraph, to "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."   
 
We know of no better introduction to the subject of government and its purpose than the one set out in the Declaration.
 
And as to authorship, we could perhaps have credited Thomas Jefferson.  If his tombstone is any guide, it was his proudest achievement, and neither the fact that he had help nor awareness of the significant precursors to the document undermines his claim. Quite the contrary.  But the declaration "That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States," was above all a political statement.   Put differently, the literary excellence of the Declaration is but a small part of its importance.  The larger part is the fact that fifty-four leaders of colonial America were willing to put their names to it, that an army was willing to fight for it, in short, that those involved on the American side of the issue were, after a long war, able to make it stick.
   
One more thing about the fifty-four men who arrived in Philadelphia as British subjects and left as Americans.  They pledged to one another "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."  We are in fact quite confident that liberty is not only alive but thriving.  We would like to think that the same is true for the notion that honor is a sacred thing.

Comments (Part II).  So what does the picture have to do with the Declaration of Independence? The key is in the phrase "the pursuit of happiness."  It is a wonderful, almost whimsical phrase that transforms the Declaration from a polemic to something that, for all its seriousness, is charming and personal.  
The flowers are blackberries.  They are all around us here in the outskirts of Portland, Oregon.  Now you see the blossoms, and in a few weeks we shall have the berries.  You couldn't ask for sweeter fruit.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! 
ENJOY THE WEEKEND!
 
 
 
 

NOTE AND LINK
By colony/state, the signers of the Declaration were:
 
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.

The Declaration is a link to one of many editions of the Declaration of Independence to be found on the web. 
   

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