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Two hundred and forty -nine years ago, 56 men met at the Casa de Ensylvania state in Philadelphia to commit a betrayal against the most powerful empire in the world.
Representing 13 colonies of that empire, these men, a mixture of landowners, businessmen, politicians and others, had fallen in love with a new set of ideas that flow from the thinkers of Christian enlightenment and teaching. Those convictions led them to start a war, no sensible person believed he could win.
Remember how the government was at that time. Now we live in the world that those 56 men created, a world in which even dictatorships such as North Korea are chained in the language of “Republic.”
Detail of John Trumbull's painting, “Declaration of Independence”, which represents the writing committee of five men from the statement that presents his work to Congress. (“Declaration of Independence” – Detail of John Trumbell's painting)
But in 1776, freedom, equality and self -government were nascent concepts proposed by philosophers and adopted only incompletely in a few small enclaves. The vast majority of countries in the world were monarchies and hereditary empires under which equal rights and individual freedom were not contemplated. The founders' fight seemed incomprehensible.
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When launching it, the second continental congress largely commissioned a man, Thomas Jefferson, with the writing of the document that would articulate his vision for humanity and this new country and remodel history.
Imagine how you should have felt. Jefferson departed from June 11 to June 28 at a house rented in Market Street to write the document. He was 33 years old at that time. In isolation, in that rented town he wrote what I think is one of the most beautiful passages in history:
We maintain that these truths are evident, that all men are created the same, that their creator gives them with certain inalienable rights, which among these are life, freedom and the search for happiness.
The second continental congress largely commissioned a man, Thomas Jefferson, with the writing of the document that would articulate his vision for humanity and this new country and the history of remodeling.
Read it again. Read it as if they were living under a Spanish colony in South America or under the iron fist of the Qing dynasty in China. Read it as if you were a poor tenant farmer under the oppressive rule of King Jorge in Virginia or a enslaved person in Georgia (whose freedom under the principles of the statement was still decades away).
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Read it as if it grew in a system that assumed that it was worth less than its neighbor by virtue of its social station, and under which its future was limited by the circumstances of its birth.
The statement was, in fact, a “revolutionary” statement that articulates the ideological and objective basis for a coup against the empire. But spiritually, it was more important than that.
It was a revolution against history. It was a revolution against the idea that some men (and women) are worth more than others. It was a revolution for the idea of dignity, human rights and equality before the law.
The American settlers knocked down a statue of King Jorge III on Bowling Green at Bajo Manhattan on July 9, 1776. (William Walcutt (1819-1895). Painted 1857)
And when Jefferson presented his document to Congress, and those 56 men signed him and sent him to King Jorge and other rulers around the world, lit a war in the colonies of America that would become a war of centuries to transform the world of tyranny to freedom.
Read: The declaration of independence
War they obtained. Five of the signatories were captured, tortured and killed. Nine died of wounds or difficulties that fight in the war. All were impacted, rake by violence, their homes and devastated properties, their children pushed the violence they created. They hungry. They lost battles.
They must have wondered if it was worth it, these ideals that made a nation immerse violence. And then, unexpectedly, they won.
By creating America, those founding parents reformed the story. Now we live in a world in which almost half of the countries are democracies. The combination of political freedom, free markets and technological innovation unleashed by these systems have taken thousands of millions of poverty, creating a world more than 100 times richer than the one that existed at the time of the declaration of independence.
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The dominant ideology now worldwide is articulated in the statement. And the revolution in the United States has become a revolution in human history.
This weekend in the United States we celebrated Independence Day. We celebrated 56 men who risked everything. But we also solemnly reflect on the position of the statement and its authors.
All people are created the same. We are all endowed by our creator with inalienable rights. Each of us deserves life, freedom and the ability to follow our own unique paths towards flowering. But those inalienable rights are not guaranteed. While our ancestors, we are called to hug and fight for them.
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Abraham Lincoln once noticed that the great men “thirsty and burned by distinction” and will have it, “either at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving free men.” And around the world the powers that oppose freedom, dignity and opportunity fight incessantly to master others.
That, on this Independence Day, we defend. That we have the audacity and conviction of opposing the enemies of freedom and continuing to fight for the promise of the declaration and spiritual basis of the United States. Let us do it for love, for our neighbors and for the blessings of the creator. And that we can obtain courage from the example of those 56 men, their hundreds of thousands of compatriots and the war impossible to win. Happy Independence Day.
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