I am grateful for our heritage and our [dying] citizenship in this great nation.

We stand today as beneficiaries of their priceless heritage to us, a heritage based on the truth that righteousness brings forth the blessings of God.
May I first pay honor to the founders of our beloved republic.

The Declaration of Independence to which these great men affixed their signatures is much more than a political document.

It constitutes a spiritual manifesto—revelation, if you will—declaring not for this nation only, but for all nations, the source of man’s rights.

The Declaration of Independence was to set forth the moral justification of a rebellion against a long-recognized political tradition—the divine right of kings.

At issue was the fundamental question of whether men’s rights were God-given or whether these rights were to be dispensed by governments to their subjects. This document proclaimed that all men have certain inalienable rights. In other words, these rights came from God.

Therefore, the colonists were not rebels against political authority, but a free people only exercising their rights before an offending, usurping power.

They were thus morally justified to do what they did.

Finally, the document concludes with this pledge.

“For the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Fifty-six men signed the document on August 2, 1776, or, in the case of some, shortly thereafter.

They pledged their lives!—and at least nine of them died as a result of the war.

If the Revolution had failed, if their fight had come to naught, they would have been hanged as traitors.

They pledged their fortunes!—and at least fifteen fulfilled that pledge to support the war effort.

They pledged their sacred honor!—best expressed by the noble statement of John Adams.

He said:

“All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, Independence, now, and INDEPENDENCE FOR EVER.”