As we celebrate the 249th year from when British colonial subjects, who called themselves Americans, declared their independence from both king and country, might we ask ourselves, “What does it mean to be an American?”
We are, as written in that July 4, 1776 document, “created equal” and bestowed by our “Creator with certain unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
We are, as J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur wrote in 1782, “…that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country…individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world… here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever happened…The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born…”
We are the people of the United States and charged with the responsibility of continually striving to “form a more perfect Union,” not make a perfect country in our own individual image. We must, as written in our Constitution’s preamble, “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” for every citizen and our progeny, not the few whose shouting voices and destructive methods demand special consideration.
We are believing, feeling, thinking, and understanding human beings who ought deeply consider the Freedom and Liberty bestowed upon us citizens of this magnificent nation. Adopting “The American’s Creed” is not too much to ask as payment for living in what many have called the great and glorious American experiment.