July 4 each year commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 in which the Continental Congress declared that our thirteen colonies were a 'new nation'. Few people are aware that the actual vote of 'independence' from the British Empire actually was taken by the Continental Congress two days earlier on July 2, 1776.
Today we celebrate this holiday with fireworks, parades, family gatherings, barbecues, picnics, baseball games, ceremonies, and political speeches at governmental monuments and cemeteries. We raise our flag proudly and salute it as an honor to those who conceived that 'we the People' had the rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. That freedom, though it may only be won only by the spilling of blood of those who would defend it against those who would take if from us, is our unalienable right and that 'all men are created equal'.
So when you are eating your hot dogs, and hamburgers, your chips and baked beans, your fried chicken and potato salad, just remember that the true celebration is that as Americans we are free to enjoy this tremendous land we live in and to pursue a life for ourselves by ambition and hard work, from sea to shining sea.