May be the most incredible document there is in our nation's history.

As a ten year old I knew my parents had made a big mistake when they gave me a chemistry set in which there were the directions telling me how I could make gun powder. The 4^th of July was a big bang occasion after that but it was not much more than fireworks and maybe a picnic, but always fun.

It was not until much later that I learned to appreciate the Declaration of Independence we now celebrate and I now understand just how incredibly unique this document is when compared to other revolutionary documents.

What is missing from our Declaration of Independence is that it does not call for the violent overthrowing of society as other revolutionary documents have most often called for. Our Declaration of Independence is not a call for lawlessness. The colonists deeply believed that what they were asking for was just. They were not out to smash the legal order, but rather they were seeking their legitimate rights within the legal system and they wanted the freedom to do so.

Understanding how absolutely unique this document is, you have to compare the American Revolution to what took place just a few years later in the French Revolution.

The French revolutionaries were driven by a determination to tear down the existing social order. Its leaders were devotees of Jean Jacques Rousseau who held that individual corruption is caused by social corruption. The logic that followed was to pull down the corrupt society and from that would come a better and more just system. It would then make possible a world that would lead to a better life and society.

The goal of the American Revolution was just the opposite. It was to preserve society and to have the freedom to let it grow. Based on the premise that: “All are created equal,”(no royalty) and with God given inalienable rights, it called for our country men to take up arms to protect their lives and the country from all forms of tyranny.

But there is one huge difference. The French Revolution was centered in atheistic beliefs. By contrast, many of the leaders of the American Revolution were devout Christians. A big element of our revolution was a strong passion for religious freedom, and by law the free exercise of religion by all citizens with no government interference or restraint.

The French revolutionaries were seeking the same freedom they saw in America, but it was an idealistic utopian freedom. To have such an idealized society they had to tear down and do away with all the corrupt social institutions. With those corrupt institutions out of the way, they felt there would arise from the people’s native “will to virtue” the new utopian institutions. Therefore no restraints were placed on the new government that was formed. Soon it was evident that the new government was more corrupt than the one it replaced.

The American founders held the Biblical teaching that humanity is intrinsically capable of, if not prone to evil, so the checks and balances were written into the new government to keep in check the government’s power over the people it was to govern.

The saddest part of the French Revolution was that it eventually put to death its own idealists. Many of the leaders lost their heads to the guillotine, even the guillotine inventor. Order was restored but the order came because of the iron fist of a dictator, Napoleon.

In contrast the American Revolution affirmed law in its social order which in freedom led to its prosperity, and all of its leaders died peacefully in bed and not under the blade of the guillotine. Not one leader of our revolution was executed as they were in France. Our revolution was so successful that its uniqueness has faded into the background. Maybe the founding Fathers realized this could happen and that is why they put Moses holding the tables on which are written the Ten Commandment at the top and center of our highest court of law.

I will fire my cannon on the 4^th, but will do so in celebration of an incredible, unique document that has been and is a lamp to our path of freedom and envied prosperity.