Our country just celebrated its 250th year as a nation. From the very beginning, our nation was established with freedom and the pursuit of happiness as the aim for its citizens.
While I might be a few days late with the celebrating, our freedom is something to celebrate every day when we get up and can choose where we want to live, what we want to do, and where and how we choose to worship. Not everyone has an easy time in life. There are many divisions and difficulties. But we are still a nation where we can breath the air of freedom.
I went to the post office yesterday to buy stamps and send out news about my upcoming Book Party to celebrate the publication of my 41st book, A Chance for Kallie Mae. Since I heard stamps prices were going up on Sunday, I bought a few extra and asked for the ones featuring The Declaration of Independence. I like stamps that look different.
The postal clerk smiled when he picked out the stamps from his drawer and said that for a dollar he’d recited the Preamble to the Constitution for me. So, I said sure. Without the least hesitation, he recited the Preamble.
Preamble to the Constitution
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
I perhaps could have stumbled through it, hitting a few of the highlights. I definitely could have said the first words about being “We, the people.” As I listened to him, I thought that perhaps we all should be able to quote that preamble without hesitation as the clerk did. Oh, by the way, he smiled and said I didn’t have to come up with the dollar.
As he clicked the price of the stamps, he said, “Wait a minute. This is the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.” Then, he said he’d quoted the wrong preamble, but that he could recite the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence too. And he did.
Preamble to the Declaration of Independence
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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.
I think I could have quoted this last line that’s part of The Declaration. We like the idea of our unalienable Rights – Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The documents are attractive and a little hard to read. First they made the s differently at times. And could a young person who was never taught cursive writing read it at all? But that’s a worry for a different day. Today, I’m being patriotic since I got a shot of patriotism from a clerk behind a post office counter. I left smiling in spite of the fact that postage is going up.
Can you quote the Preamble to the Constitution or The Declaration of Independence?
Before I sign off:
I promised to announce the winners of my newsletter giveaway on my Wednesday post here on One Writer’s Journal. Well, I’m only a day late. Sometimes, for some reason, Wednesday sneaks up on me. But I did pick the winners by random. Each person that responded to my newsletter to enter the giveaway got a number. The total number of entries was 157. The winners were #54 Virginia P from NY and #139 Wendy H who hasn’t responded to my email as yet. They both won their choice of one of my autographed books and a $10 gift card. Virginia chose my new book, A Chance for Kallie Mae.
And since we’re are sort of talking about that new book, if you are in the area, you are invited to my book party on July 18th. See the notice below. I know many of you aren’t close enough to come, but it would be fun to all get together if we could.
Thanks for reading!!