“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

…And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

238 years ago today, 56 men signed their names to this document.  Seven years after it was signed, Great Britain formally acknowledged American independence.  And then we were a country.  We just…created one.  We became Americans.

There is so much we have achieved and may yet achieve in the future all because of a lucky stroke of fate that assembled the right people, with the right temperament, the right intellect, and of the same mind, in the same place, where they met and shared ideas and argued with each other and, ultimately, built the forge in which our union has been and will continue to be perpetually perfected.  It is our right – it is our duty – to recognize the immensity of what that means: that our fellow American citizens, all of these “every day people” with different opinions and religions and creeds, are living monuments to that beautiful circumstance.  What an extraordinary thing.  What an extraordinary country.

Happy Independence Day.