Concisely summarizing the yearnings of human beings throughout the ages, the American Declaration of Independence is one of the most profound documents of western civilization. Yet its measured case for humankind’s inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness might be as little known as the science of the Aztecs were it not for the feats of arms and sacrifices of the few thousand troops who made-up the Continental Army.
I have a special admiration for those daring patriots who declared our independence and risked all to establish the first and only nation dedicated to preserving the sovereignty of the individual human spirit.
My ancestor, Anthony DeFreese, served in both the Continental Army and the Continental Navy. A skilled carpenter, he first enlisted with an artillery regiment. When his enlistment was up, apparently finding the artillery not exciting enough, he joined the Navy and served in several sharp actions. On the return voyage from selling a prize in Cuba his ship foundered off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. He survived but allegedly vowed to get as far away from the sea as possible. He’s buried in Piqua, Ohio, which was about as far away from the sea as you could get at the time and still be in the United States.
For constitutional conservatives, the words of the “Founders” in the Constitution are so very important because they define the limits on government power. But today, Veterans Day, it is important to remember the patriots who fought our Revolution, and to recall how unique and important our “pre-Constitution” Revolutionary vision was.
The Declaration of Independence recognizes that the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness don’t come from the divine to government, but from the divine to you and me. But when the elected delegates went off to the Continental Congress to represent the people of the 13 colonies, and eventually sign the Declaration of Independence, everyone in America was a “subject.”
Yet alive in the hearts of those “subjects” was a unique vision; a vision of life without kings, where each human being is himself sovereign before God. This patriot vision, found in the Declaration of Independence, articulates our national creed and is the very foundation of American exceptionalism – in it we are truly unique in the annals of time, but its success was not foreordained.
A mere two months after the Declaration of Independence was ratified, the British Redcoats defeated George Washington's army in the Battle of Long Island and Washington's tiny army would be forced to escape into the night – the first of many times that a small group of men, struggling for their lives, was all that stood between the idea of the sovereign individual and the reality of being a subject.
This Veterans Day, as a new enemy whose oppressive ideology is cloaked in religion has arisen, it is more important than ever to remember that the preservation of our revolutionary American idea – that individuals are sovereign – is not foreordained. Its survival hinges, as it always has, on its power to bring forth a new generation of veterans who are willing to lay down their lives to protect it.
