Happy Birthday, America!

When we keep to our founding principles, we are indeed a great nation. When we lose sight of those principles - as we have in recent years - we become decadent and soft. I urge all Americans to devote at least a little time this 4^th of July to a serious examination of the current state of our nation -- followed by a meditation on what we must do as a people to restore the traditions on which this country was based.

It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not. --John Adams, 1776