Independence Day

When I woke up this morning, it was to the sounds of a chorus of dulcet-throated NPRers reading our Declaration of Independence. As it does every year, it brought a tear to my eye, specifically at the part where they say "these United States of America" for the first time. Where they speak a country into being where none existed before. There are parts of that document, like where they're bitching about taxes and Hessians and having to hold parliament in uncomfortable places, that are a little querulous, and even quaint. And there are parts like "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes", that are polite and personal and make the thing sound like what it is, the biggest Dear John letter in history. And then there are parts like these:

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

...these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved, and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

that are so powerful and new and weird. I mean, I know they had all kinds of Enlightenment philosophy and Classic democracies as things to build on, but the truth of the matter is that no one had ever built a government this way, just spoken it into being with the only basic axiom not being "god(s) said so", but "we deserve it, because we're human".

these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States

Those are words with some serious mojo. Like "with this ring, I thee wed", only with a whole nation getting hitched instead of just two people.

Like a in a marriage, we've lived with the consequences of those words so long it's pretty much impossible not to take them for granted. And, just like my own wedding vows, whenever I take the time to really contemplate what was said, what was spoken into being, I can't help but get chills.

Happy Independence Day

-- The Prolix Wag
The Hemmingway of Semicolons