Was that an example of “a civil manner”?

Jim Johann

Bless you John.

Back in my parents, grandparents and great grandparents day, school children memorized the Declaration of Independence. Not just Pacific Northernwestern children either. No, all USA children.

And they recited it every 4th of July.

Many Baby Boomer children and younger citizens weren’t required to learn this text by heart. But again I attended Campus School up at WWU and most of the professors back then were military men, as well as being liberals. They could recite the Declaration of Independence and they knew the Constitution pretty well too. So I memorized the whole thing and retained the ability to recite the first two paragraphs - rusty but sincere.

Personally I edited the sexist language out of the text long ago, but for old time sake, I invite fellow citizens to read and repeat, all together, right here, the first two paragraph of the text we honor and celebrate every 4th of July!

Happy Birthday USA!

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When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 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, 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 to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them 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.