From the NFRW Armed Services Committee
This year we celebrate the 245th anniversary of July 4, 1776, in recognition of our country’s Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.
At the First Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia in 1774, the colonial delegates listed their grievances, demanded “no taxation without representation” and opposed British army presence in the colonies without colonial consent. Independence was not their main objective. However, when hostilities broke out at the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, it was clear that Great Britain would not accept the colonist’s reasonable demands including life, liberty, property, assembly, and trial by jury.
By June 1776 when the Second Continental Congress met, more colonists were siding with the concept of complete independence as the only solution to the oppression being inflicted by their British overlords and a declaration of independence was drafted, debated, voted on, revised and finally approved on July 2, 1776. The final edited version was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.
It is a constant struggle to maintain self-governance and freedom. When our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence on 2 August 1776, they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and sacred honor for our freedoms. When a citizenry is not engaged in its own governance process, remaining ever vigilant, tyrants take positions of authority and usurp rights and impose heavy burdens on the citizens.
As members of the National Federation of Republican Women, we remain active in the political process to protect those rights that were fought for and preserved not only in the Revolutionary War, but also in all the wars that challenged our God-given freedoms and national sovereignty. We honor and celebrate those men and women who bravely stepped forward to make our country the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”