04 Jul Happy 4th of July! What great American thinkers and leaders have said….
Celebration of American Independence
The quotations gathered here are a sampling of the ways America’s founders and other leaders thought and wrote about the importance of the Bible, faith in God, and the inherent right of men to live in liberty—in the formation, development, preservation, prosperity, and power of the United States of America.
We collected them as a special way to celebrate Independence Day and the greatness of America!
We hope you enjoy them.
Debbie and Eric Georgatos
July 4, 2023
Contents
Introduction
Setting the Stage: The Bible and Christianity in America’s Identity
The Declaration of Independence AND Celebrating July 4th
Inspiration throughout America’s history
Introduction
From The Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,–that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …”
“…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing inevitably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce [mankind] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security….”
For the support of this Declaration, with the firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.
Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan November 3, 1980
“…it is always when things seem most unbearable—that we must have faith that America’s trials have meaning beyond our own understanding. Since her beginning America has held fast to this hope of divine providence, this vision of ‘man with God.’
President Ronald Reagan September 9, 1982
We are a nation under God. I’ve always believed that this blessed land was set apart in a special way, that some divine plan placed this great continent here between the oceans to be found by people from every corner of the Earth who had a special love for freedom and the courage to uproot themselves, leave homeland and friends, to come to a strange land. And coming here they created something new in all the history of mankind — a land where man is not beholden to government, government is beholden to man.
It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
Setting the stage: The Bible and Christianity in America’s Identity
Benjamin Franklin July 28, 1787
As chronicled in Bill Bennett’s “The American Patriot’s Almanac”, when an impasse had been reached in the drafting of the Constitution, and the fear was growing that the entire endeavor would collapse in rancor and confusion, the 81 year old Franklin “…made a simple but profound suggestion: they should pray for guidance. He reminded the others that the Continental Congress had asked for divine aid at the start of the Revolutionary War.”
“Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered,” he said. “And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?”
President George Washington First Inaugural, April 30, 1789
No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.
President George Washington Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
Benjamin Rush Signer of the Declaration of Independence (miscellaneous letters and essays, 1788-1807)
I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration, but I am as satisfied that it is as much the work of a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament.
By renouncing the Bible, philosophers swing from their moorings upon all moral subjects… It is the only correct map of the human heart that ever has been published.
[T]he greatest discoveries in science have been made by Christian philosophers and . . . there is the most knowledge in those countries where there is the most Christianity. [T]he only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible.
The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effective means of limiting Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools.
The Bible, when not read in schools, is seldom read in any subsequent period of life… [T]he Bible… should be read in our schools in preference to all other books because it contains the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce private and public happiness.
President Zachary Taylor (President 1849-1850)
It was for the love of the truths of this great book [the Bible] that our fathers abandoned their native shore for the wilderness. Animated by its lofty principles, they toiled and suffered till the desert blossomed as the rose [Isaiah 35:1]…the Bible is the best of books and I wish it were in the hands of everyone. It is indispensable to the safety and permanence of our institutions; a free government cannot exist without religion and morals, and there cannot be morals without religion, nor religion without the Bible. Especially should the Bible be placed in the hands of the young. It is the best school book in the world…I would that all of our people were brought up under the influence of that holy book.
President Abraham Lincoln September 7, 1864
The Bible is the best gift God has given to men. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong.
President Teddy Roosevelt June 11, 1901
The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally—I do not mean figuratively, I mean literally—impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed. We would lose almost all the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals—all the standards toward which we, with more or less resolution, strive to raise ourselves. Almost every man who has by his life-work added to the sum of human achievement of which the race is so proud—of which our people are proud—almost every such man has based his life-work largely upon the teachings of the Bible.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt October 6, 1935
In the formative days of the Republic, the directing influence the Bible exercised upon the fathers of the Nation is conspicuously evident… This Book continues to hold its unchallenged place as the most read and pondered of all the volumes our libraries contain…We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity….I suggest a nationwide reading of the Holy Scriptures…for a renewed and strengthening contact with those eternal truths and majestic principles which have inspired such measure of true greatness as this nation has achieved.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt September 2, 1940
There is, moreover, [an] enemy at home. That enemy is the mean and petty spirit that mocks at ideals, sneers at sacrifice and pretends that the American people can live by bread alone. If the spirit of God is not in us, and if we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction.
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What shall we be defending? The good earth of this land, our homes, our families-yes, and far more. We shall be defending a way of life which has given more freedom to the soul and body of man than ever has been realized in the world before, a way of life that has let men scale whatever heights they could scale without hurting their fellows, a way of life that has let men hold up their heads and admit no master but God.
President Ronald Reagan February 3, 1983
Of the many influences that have shaped the United States of America into a distinctive Nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible…The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers’ abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual—rights which they found implicit in the Bible’s teachings of the inherent worth and dignity of each individual.
The Declaration of Independence AND Celebrating July 4th
The Declaration of Independence is the ringbolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.
Daniel Webster, American patriot 1805
Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.
President Abraham Lincoln Summer of 1858
“Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines (in) conflict with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated in our charter of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the revolution. Think nothing of me—take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever—but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence.”
President Abraham Lincoln February 22, 1861
I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that Independence. I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. …This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
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Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? … if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, …I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.
…My friends, this is wholly an unexpected speech, and I did not expect to be called upon to say a word when I came here. I supposed it was merely to do something toward raising the flag. I may, therefore, have said something indiscreet. … I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die by.
President Calvin Coolidge July 5, 1926
We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. … how our interest and wonder increase when we behold the miracle of the birth of a new nation. It is to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty event that we annually observe the fourth day of July.
… At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgement of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent support of free government throughout the world.
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. . . About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. … If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
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… If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self-government—the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that “Democracy is Christ’s government.” The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty…
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Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions, we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meeting-house. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures. … They were a people who came under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power.
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No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.
Matthew Spalding – A Note on the Signers of The Declaration of Independence
Reminder: the concluding paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:
For the support of this Declaration, with the firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.
Fifty-six individuals from each of the original 13 colonies participated in the Second Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence. …
Nine of the signers were immigrants, two were brothers, two were cousins, and one was an orphan. The average age of a signer was 45. The oldest delegate was Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, who was 70 when he signed the Declaration. The youngest was Thomas Lynch, Jr., of South Carolina, who was 27.
Eighteen of the signers were merchants or businessmen, 14 were farmers, and four were doctors. Forty-two signers had served in their colonial legislatures. Twenty-two were lawyers–although William Hooper of North Carolina was “disbarred” when he spoke out against the Crown–and nine were judges. Stephen Hopkins had been Governor of Rhode Island.
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Although two others had been clergy previously, John Witherspoon of New Jersey was the only active clergyman to attend–he wore his pontificals to the sessions. Almost all were Protestant Christians; Charles Carroll of Maryland was the only Roman Catholic signer.
Seven of the signers were educated at Harvard, four each at Yale and William & Mary, and three at Princeton. John Witherspoon was the president of Princeton and George Wythe was a professor at William & Mary, where his students included the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson.
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Seventeen of the signers served in the military during the American Revolution. Thomas Nelson was a colonel in the Second Virginia Regiment and then commanded Virginia military forces at the Battle of Yorktown. William Whipple served with the New Hampshire militia and was one of the commanding officers in the decisive Saratoga campaign. Oliver Wolcott led the Connecticut regiments sent for the defense of New York and commanded a brigade of militia that took part in the defeat of General Burgoyne. Caesar Rodney was a Major General in the Delaware militia and John Hancock was the same in the Massachusetts militia.
Five of the signers were captured by the British during the war. Captains Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, and Arthur Middleton (South Carolina) were all captured at the Battle of Charleston in 1780; Colonel George Walton was wounded and captured at the Battle of Savannah. Richard Stockton of New Jersey never recovered from his incarceration at the hands of British Loyalists and died in 1781.
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Colonel Thomas McKean of Delaware wrote John Adams that he was “hunted like a fox by the enemy–compelled to remove my family five times in a few months, and at last fixed them in a little log house on the banks of the Susquehanna . . . and they were soon obliged to move again on account of the incursions of the Indians.” Abraham Clark of New Jersey had two of his sons captured by the British during the war. The son of John Witherspoon, a major in the New Jersey Brigade, was killed at the Battle of Germantown.
Eleven signers had their homes and property destroyed. Francis Lewis’s New York home was destroyed and his wife was taken prisoner. John Hart’s farm and mills were destroyed when the British invaded New Jersey and he died while fleeing capture. Carter Braxton and Thomas Nelson (both of Virginia) lent large sums of their personal fortunes to support the war effort, but were never repaid.
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Fifteen of the signers participated in their states’ constitutional conventions, and six–Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Benjamin Franklin, George Clymer, James Wilson, and George Reed–signed the United States Constitution. …
After the Revolution, 13 of the signers went on to become governors, and 18 served in their state legislatures. Sixteen became state and federal judges. Seven became members of the United States House of Representatives, and six became United States Senators. James Wilson and Samuel Chase became Justices of the United States Supreme Court.
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Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Elbridge Gerry each became Vice President, and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson became President. The sons of signers John Adams and Benjamin Harrison also became Presidents.
Five signers played major roles in the establishment of colleges and universities: Benjamin Franklin and the University of Pennsylvania; Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia; Benjamin Rush and Dickinson College; Lewis Morris and New York University; and George Walton and the University of Georgia.
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Carroll were the longest surviving signers. Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Charles Carroll of Maryland was the last signer to die — in 1832 at the age of 95.
John Adams – letter to Abigail Adams, 1776
[The Fourth of July] ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. 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.
Thomas Jefferson – letter to John Adams, 1821
[T]he flames kindled on the 4 of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.
John Quincy Adams… speaking at a July 4th celebration in 1837
Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day (July 4th)? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity…?
Inspiration throughout America’s history
General Douglas MacArthur 1951
In this day of gathering storms, as moral deterioration of political power spreads its growing infection, it is essential that every spiritual force be mobilized to defend and preserve the religious base upon which this nation is founded; for it has been that base which has been the motivating impulse to our moral and national growth.
History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual reawakening to overcome the moral lapse or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.
Martin Luther King – Letter from a Birmingham Jail April 16, 1963
…just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.…
[Civil disobedience] was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. … In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained.
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We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. … our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny. … We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
President Ronald Reagan February 9, 1982
It’s been written that the most sublime figure in American history was George Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge. He personified a people who knew that it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness, that they must seek help from God – their Father and Preserver. Where did we begin to lose sight of that noble beginning, of our convictions that standards of right and wrong do exist and must be lived up to?
Do we really think that we can have it both ways, that God will protect us in a time of crisis even as we turn away from Him in our day-to-day life? … The Book of St. John tells us, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” We have God’s promise that what we give will be given back many times over.
And we also have His promise that we could take to heart with regard to our country – “That if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land.” To preserve our blessed land, we must look to God.”
A few years ago I began researching a book on Ronald Reagan…
I began with the official presidential-documents collection, a record of every presidential statement. I read innumerable Reagan letters and vetted the massive presidential handwriting file at the Reagan Library, which included all documents in his hand. …
I was surprised to find, in all this material, a long record of religious comment. I was startled, for instance, to note that Reagan offered a parable about Jesus and Judas at the Garden of Gethsemane for a toast at the 1988 Moscow Summit–in the heart of the evil empire itself. Speaking of the “evil empire,” it was a revelation to me to learn that Reagan wrote probably half the speech that made that phrase famous, delivered to the National Association of Evangelicals in 1983. …
It became clear that, for all the sniping of his detractors, Reagan was a devout Christian, a Protestant who felt a keen fellowship with Catholics and Jews. … …
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And how, exactly, did Reagan’s faith affect his presidency? In many ways, but perhaps most of all in his view of Soviet communism. … It wasn’t just the regime’s repressive nature that inspired a sense of mission in him, or its ghastly record of blood and suffering. It was the official atheism of Soviet communism that especially angered Reagan and convinced him that he was dealing with an “evil” adversary.
“There is sin and evil in the world,” he told the evangelicals in March 1983, “and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might.” He saw his confrontation with communism as a spiritual one. He told a joint session of the Irish National Parliament in June 1984 that the “struggle between freedom and totalitarianism today” was ultimately not a test of arms or missiles “but a test of faith and spirit.” It was, he said, a “spiritual struggle.”
For a time [while in the Gulag], [Sharansky] was able to study the Bible alongside a fellow zek, a fellow prisoner, a Christian named Volodya. They called their study sessions “Reaganite readings.” Why? Because they had heard that the American president declared a particular year — 1983 — the “Year of the Bible.”
[Sharansky famously owned a] Psalm book. …A pocket book of Psalms was given to him by his wife, Avital, a few days before he was arrested [by Soviet police]. He went through hell to hang on to this book. The authorities often deprived him of it. Once, he went on a “work strike,” entailing several months of the punishment cell — until he got that book back. In another period, “I took my Psalm book and for days on end … recited all one hundred and fifty of King David’s psalms, syllable by syllable.” …
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Toward the very end of his ordeal, at the airport in Moscow — Sharansky had no idea what was happening to him — he refused to board the plane before they gave him back his Psalm book. In front of photographers, he dropped to the snow, yelling for it. They gave it back to him. Once aboard — when they told him he was being released — he recited the Psalm he had always designated for his liberation day, Psalm 30: “I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.”
President George W. Bush, in his Second Inaugural Address: January 20, 2005
“We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom… We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our founders declared a new order of the ages, when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner of ‘Freedom Now’–they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of liberty.”
Peter Ferrara, American law professor
“An American is English…or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan. …
An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God-given right of each man and woman to the pursuit of happiness.…
So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo and Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung, and every bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world.
But in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.
The National Anthem of the United States of America; fourth verse:
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”.
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Dean Alfange – “An American’s Creed”, 1952
I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon. I seek to develop whatever talents God gave me—not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any earthly master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say – ‘This, with God’s help, I have done.’ All this is what it means to be an American.
Don Feder – “An American credo” published in Jewish World Review, 1999
… we should ask what it means a citizen of this republic.
Here are the thoughts of one American, a credo for the coming millennia.
I am an American. I was conceived at Plymouth, born in Lexington and Concord, and reached maturity at Philadelphia.
I went through the fires of Shiloh, Gualdacanal, the Chosin Resovoir, Khe Sanh and a thousand other battlefields, and emerged rededicated to the ideals on which America was founded.
I am an American. Ever ready to defend my liberty and independence, to make any sacrifice and bear any burden – still, I seek no quarrel.
I march to the sound of the guns out of necessity alone. I fight not for glory or territory, or to make others bend to my will, but to vindicate my rights and preserve my freedom.
I am an American. I’m proud of my past. Words like Valley Forge, Gettysburg Address and Pearl Harbor — names like Washington, Jackson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt — make my blood stir.
Glancing behind me, I see generations of men and women who labored and struggled, lived and died to let me stand where I am today — who cleared the land, planted the crops, built the factories, raised the cities and made the discoveries that created a civilization which all the silent, suffering ranks of slaves, serfs and subjects who came before them could never imagine.
I am an American. While recognizing the errors that were made in nation-building (has a nation ever been built exclusively on light?), I proclaim America’s past glorious indeed, a boon to humanity, and consider myself among the blessed of the earth to share this nation’s destiny.
I am an American. Liberty is my birthright. To speak my mind, choose my leaders and legislators, defend my home and family, and worship the Creator in my fashion — these are not privileges, but God-given rights. Governments can respect or deny them; they cannot change them.
I am an American. I have no rulers. Those who make, interpret and enforce our laws are servants. When they no longer recognize that verity, their authority loses legitimacy.
I am an American. My rights are a sacred trust to be exercised in the cause of justice and virtue. They are not the playthings of a spoiled child or mechanisms of self-indulgence.
I am an American. English is my language. Our ancestors arrived on these shores speaking everything from Chinese to Yiddish. It was English that united us, that allowed us to overcome age-old antagonisms.
From the Mayflower Compact to the latest piece of legislation introduced in Congress, our history and heritage are written in the tongue of the Magna Carta and the King James Bible.
I am an American. I have no distinctive race, religion or ethnicity. I am black, white, yellow, brown and red — Catholic, Protestant, Jew and Hindu. I came here from the hamlets of Old England, the bogs of Ireland, Napoli’s sunny shore, the Pale of Settlement and the villages of Vietnam. American isn’t a color or creed, but a state of mind.
I am an American. I welcome immigrants who are here to work and build, who identify with our past and ideals, who were spiritual Americans before they landed. Broken English is fine, as long as faith remains unbroken. An American speaks with the heart as much as the lips.
I am an American. My ism is Americanism. I reject all dogmas and ideologies. Collectivism, racism, militarism and imperialism have no place here. The rot that’s eaten away at the soul of so many nations and cultures must be fiercely resisted.
I am an American. I recognize only one loyalty higher than allegiance to our flag — faith in God. I acknowledge that America and God, the physical and the spiritual, are inseparable. America was founded by people of faith and grew to greatness by His grace. I pray that we will always be the instruments of His will.
I am an American. I weep over the fact that American history is no longer taught in our schools. In its place is a worldly, cynical skepticism inculcated by authors and educators at war with our basic values.
I am an American. I cringe at the collection of connivers, cowards, clowns and quacks that passes for our political leadership. I wonder that so many of my compatriots have no idea what America means and show no gratitude for the blessings that are theirs.
I am an American. My ranks grow thin; the night closes in. Whether I will be the last of my kind or the vanguard of their resurgence, only time will tell.
Again – Samuel Adams
It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
| America the Beautiful |
(condensed)
| O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet O beautiful for heroes proved |
| Battle Hymn of the Republic | ||
| (condensed)
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, While God is marching on. |
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