“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds 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.

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown 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.”

These are only excerpts of the beautiful document we celebrate this day. We forgot how strange it is that today is a day we are celebrating not a victory in battle, or the birth of a king, but rather the signing of a piece of paper. A piece of paper with an idea. An idea that became a Nation.

We were not brought together as a country as others were; we are not assembled because of religion, or race, or language, or culture. Rather, we are an alliance that shares only an idea. An idea that all of those other things were irrelvant – that regardless of all else we were all “created equal…endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

What we often lose sight of is how fragile then, such an alliance would be, if a threat to those ideas became much more than that. What if we lost sight of those three things under which we stand? What common thread would unite us? Would we be torn asunder as a mere collection of various small groups, with nothing else to bind us?

Two hundred and thirty-three years ago today, a man named John Hancock risked death and signed his name at the end of that document. In the coming weeks, 55 others would join him. And in doing so, “We” were born. Today, we must not forget the supreme risk of those men, and the thousands of men and women who have died defending their risks and the Idea under which we are united. We must not forget the simple, yet elegant “three things” that we take for granted each day; fortunately, at least 56 men did not.

“And 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.”