The fourth day of July is known as Independence Day in the United States because the Declaration of Independence was ratified on the fourth day of July, 1776. As such, I thought it might be interesting to discuss a few of the reasons why a group of people were willing to risk their lives as well as those of their friends and family for something called “independence.”
What is independence? What did it mean in 1776? What does it mean today? Why did those people in 1776 seek independence? Are there contemporary equivalents to those reasons?
Conveniently, the Declaration of Independence includes a list of reasons why the 13 colonies sought independence from Great Britain, and includes a written attempt to capture the essence and importance of the idea of independence.