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National NewsConservative News
A Time to Remember and Preserve
By Gary Palmer
Posted on: June 27, 2005
Recently, I asked a student about to enter the 10th grade in one of Alabama's top public high schools what she knew about the Declaration of Independence. She said, "The Declaration of Independence is the declaration that gave us our freedom." I asked what the Constitution meant to her and she said, "I really don't know much about it because our history teacher is from Pakistan and all he taught us about in 9th grade history is about Pakistan."
I later learned from her that she was at least required to memorize the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, but still was saddened that she has so little appreciation of the documents that are so central to the formation and continuation of our country.
This intelligent young student is representative of the masses of Americans that are now graduating from our high schools and colleges with little appreciation for the ideas and principles on which America was founded. Most likely, the 4th of July or Independence Day, will not mean much more to most Americans than cookouts at the lake, beach trips, and/or department store sales. But 229 years ago when the Declaration of Independence was first read in public, it meant something to those who heard the words and especially to those that had signed their names to it. It still means something, if not to the masses of under-educated Americans, to the masses worldwide that long for the freedom that we take for granted.
I really wanted to get into a more detailed discussion with the soon-to-be sophomore about the ideas behind the Declaration, especially the concept that our rights are from God, or as the Declaration says, our Creator. My concern is that she, like so many others, has little appreciation for the importance of this concept in terms of the form and function of the American republic.
The Founding Fathers held firmly to truths that they considered self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that governments are established by the people to secure and protect these rights. And they wrote these radical ideals of freedom into the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.
Yet, for many, myself included, it is the last line of the Declaration that gives it power and legitimacy to place demands on you and me to preserve what they gave us. It says, "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."
This was the pact these men made with each other. They were willing to risk everything...their material possessions, their reputations, and even their lives for freedom. They did it because they valued freedom more than they valued their money, their status or their well-being and comfort. They did it because that was what it took to gain freedom for themselves and their posterity. And the only way present day and future generations can keep it is if enough of our citizens are willing to keep that pact with our Founders.
These are the things that American high school students need to be taught and that every American citizen needs to consider as they enjoy the Independence Day holiday. This freedom and these rights that we enjoy, that have been the foundation of the well-being of our nation should not be taken for granted. More importantly, the preservation of these rights requires the same commitment made by those that signed their names to the Declaration of Independence.
In his second Inaugural Address, President George W. Bush made an appeal directly to the young people of America to take upon themselves the same responsibilities that their forebears took and that they are seeing being taken today. President Bush reminded them that freedom can be maintained only as long as we are willing to defend it. He challenged our young men and women to, "Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself, and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character."
The bottom line is that our freedom has been bought at too high a price to be taken for granted and that freedom still depends entirely on the steadfast determination of future generations, on their moral courage and willingness to sacrifice to defend and preserve it. It will also require that we return to teaching our children about the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, and the other lessons of liberty that must not be forgotten.
President Bush called for the renewing of the pact between each generation of Americans. The pact that each of us, in our place and time in the history, must honor to ensure that the freedom and privileges given to us at such great costs will be preserved and passed on to the next generation. That is what Independence Day is really about, that is what our high school students need to be taught.
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