Founders Quote, 7 June 2025

With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves. - John Dickinson & Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms — 1775

There's a pair of individuals on opposing sides of the American Revolution, figuratively speaking - Thomas Jefferson was one of the individuals most closely involved in the writing of the Declaration of Independence while John Dickinson worked until the very last to try and bring peace between the colonists and the British Crown before joining Jefferson and the others.

Founders' Quotes, 7-8 May 2025

A pair of quotes about the American Revolution (a/k/a the "War for Independence") from John Adams and George Washington....

Adams, John: Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, and measure in which the lives and liberties of millions yet unborn are intimately interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of a revolution the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations. - letter to William Cushing, 1776

Washington: - Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life. - Address to Congress on Resigning his Commission — 1783

In both quotes we see the beginning and end of the Revolution; in Adams' quote, we see one of the ringleaders of the Revolution reminding his fellow revolutionary of the period they were living in, a period that would ultimately result in America gaining her independence from Great Britain. Washington, meanwhile, puts an ending to the Revolution by resigning his commission as Commanding General of the Continental Army, the same spirit of self-sacrifice he would later show by retiring from the Presidency after two terms in office.

"The Shot Heard Around the World..."

250 years ago today, on the commons in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, militia of the Massachusetts Colony engaged with British Redcoats sent from Boston to seize the guns and ammunition in the local storehouses. Their actions began the American Revolution, turning it from a rhetorical and diplomatic problem into a shooting war....

While its' causes were many, ultimately what the colonists wanted was freedom and representation in the halls of Westminster, believing that if the Crown was to rule over them, they should have the right of representation in Parliament; otherwise, why remain a part of the British Empire?

Now, their struggle was perilous; had the rebels lost, odds are most of them would've either executed for treason there in the Colonies or dragged back to England and tried for treason there. No wonder John Hancock, Speaker of the Continental Congress, signed his name as he did...after all, he wanted King George III to see his signature (along w/those of the other Signers of the Declaration of Independence).

Samuel Adams asks a valid question: why would Americans risk their lives for freedom and liberty? Should we be free men or slaves?

It is a question every American generation asks; Ronald Reagan once said (paraphrasing) "Freedom is but one generation away from  extinction." It isn't something passed down from generation to generation like a bloodline, it is something to be cherished, claimed and fought for, at the ballot box, on the soap box and in the jury box. And every generation, we as Americans must ask the same question each and every generation.

It is but the least we can do as Americans.