Note On The Fourth

Watermere Steer
Southlake, TX

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Declaration of Independence
July 4th, 1776

On July 4th, we commemorate the birth of our nation and the anniversary of an American idea that others now refer to as democracy. Our form of democracy was founded by these remarkable words penned in the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence:  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Today the children of slaves and immigrants from all over the world, men and women, enjoy "these truths" within our fifty united states. But few realize that buried in the bowels of our declaration in the ninth paragraph is this grievance about the tyrant King George: "He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."


Immigration legal or otherwise was already an issue on July 4th, 1776. Today, it remains a controversial issue. As Americans who believe in the democracy outlined by these self-evident "truths", its our obligation to strike a balance between what we believe in paragraph #2 (Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness) and paragraph #9 "Laws for the Naturalization of Foreigners".


It appears to me that 236 years into our history those "truths" are not as self-evident as many would like. It's our moral obligation to address them in the best interest of the principles of our own democracy. It's UnAmerican to do so without referring back to our own declaration of democracy. The answers lie within it.