“Refresh our Recollections of These Rights”

Happy Independence Day. Whatever you do today to celebrate our nation’s birth, take time to follow the advice of Thomas Jefferson and reflect on the document that gives this day its meaning:

[M]ay [the Declaration of Independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be… the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government. [T]hat form which we have sub...