EDITORIAL: July 4 throughout history

Jul. 3—What is there left to say about a document that inspired "Silent Cal" to oratorical heights? That a man who followed in Lord North's political shoes as prime minister of the United Kingdom praised? And that those born to power and those born enslaved both found worthy of admiration and applaud?

Herewith, their own words:

"You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

— John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776.

"The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. ..."

Yet, the same speaker also went on to say.

"The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions."

— Frederick Douglass, July 5, 1852

"Our faith is firm and unwavering in the broad principles of human rights proclaimed in 1776, not only as abstract truths, but as the corner stones of a republic. Yet we cannot forget, even in this glad hour, that while all men of every race, and clime, and condition, have been invested with the full rights of citizenship under our hospitable flag, all women still suffer the degradation of disfranchisement."

— Susan B. Anthony, awaiting trial on the centennial

of the Declaration of Independence "If our nation had done nothing more in its whole history than to create just two documents, its contribution to civilization would be imperishable. The first of these documents is the Declaration of Independence and the other is ... the Emancipation Proclamation."

— Martin Luther King, Sept. 12, 1962

"We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.

— Winston Churchill, delivered

in Fulton, Mo., on March 5, 1946

"When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it is but natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence should open with a reference to Nature's God and should close in the final paragraphs with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and an assertion of a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Coming from these sources, having as it did this background, it is no wonder that Samuel Adams could say, 'The people seem to recognize this resolution as though it were a decree promulgated from heaven.'

— Calvin Coolidge, July 5, 1926