The Fourth of July is without question the most important nonsecular holiday in the United States. It is the day we celebrate what is the most successful and important experiment in self-governance in the history of Mankind. No country has been as successful, as powerful, and as advanced as the United States.

For most of us, Fourth of July is about BBQ, ribs, family, friends, and having a good time watching parades, waving the flag, and of course, fireworks. This weekend, I’ll be taking the kids and family into the District for yet another Capitol Fourth. There is nothing better than celebrating the wonder of America in the Nation’s Capitol.

It is especially important to remember our heritage at a time when many are questioning our values, our beliefs, and the righteousness of our cause - the formation of our Republic and the American desire for freedom, liberty, equality.

When I was in college, I remember reading an article by Howard Zinn. His thesis was essentially one that said the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, was not about freedom, rather about property rights and ensuring the wealthy remain wealthy. This is echoed in statements like Gore Vidal’s, “There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party, and it has two wings.” These critics, which you hear so often echo’ed by the left, see America merely about enhancing the power of the wealthy. America is exploitative. Americans consume to much, take too much, and give back nothing. Nothing could be so farther from the truth. Shame on our leaders for trying to convince Americans of this nonsense.

I read an article - I think it was the New York Times - saying we shouldn’t celebrate this Fourth of July. Thanks to Bush - everything was screwed up. Our prestige was diminished. America was responsible for all that was wrong in the world and we shouldn’t celebrate our birth this Fourth. What a crock.

America is unquestionably the greatest social experiment and Americans should be proud and awed by what we as a people have accomplished. We are what most of the world aspires to be - our wealth, our power, our social and civil liberties. In part, our adversaries and critics hate our success. And for whatever one may think of the Bush Administration - the spirit of the American dream, and the ideas that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution represent, are alive and well. All nations have difficulty, and this time is a perilous time for the Nation. I have faith, however, that the Republic will survive. The best for America lies ahead of us - and will always lie ahead of us - so long as our spirit remains.

America is about a simple idea - individual achievement being rewarded. It’s also about being a part of something greater than yourself. Our history is one of sacrifice, of adventure, and of achievement. We put men on the Moon. We brought about the information revolution. We have produced more wealth than any civilization in history. We are the champions of freedom and liberty. Our flag is a symbol of all that we stand for - and despite what our critics say - wherever it flies it is regarded as a beacon to all who yearn to be free.

Reagan said it best:

There is a legend about the day of our nation’s birth in the little hall in Philadelphia, a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words “treason, the gallows, the headsman’s axe,” and the issue remained in doubt.

The legend says that at that point a man rose and spoke. He is described as not a young man, but one who had to summon all his energy for an impassioned plea. He cited the grievances that had brought them to this moment and finally, his voice falling, he said, “They may turn every tree into a gallows, every hole into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever.”

He fell back exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by his eloquence, rushed forward and signed that document destined to be as immortal as a work of man can be. When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.

Well, that is the legend. But we do know for certain that 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor.

What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough.

John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead, his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died of exhaustion and a broken heart.

Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton. Nelson personally urged Washington to fire on his home and destroy it when it became the headquarters for General Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt.

But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, 3 million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world. In recent years, however, I’ve come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.

It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.

Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.

We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. I for one feel lucky, and proud, to call myself an American.

Happy Fourth of July!

(I will return to blogging on Monday - enjoy the holiday with your family and friends.)