Above / Standing and flying for freedom, the American flag is the centerpiece of Central Park. Especially on the Fourth of July, the Naperville community recognizes cherished and protected freedoms of expression, tolerance and independence.
Happy Birthday to America!
As you celebrate Independence Day with 4th of July parades, picnics in the park, a day at Centennial Beach, barbecues in the backyard, a 6PM Naperville Municipal Band Concert in Central Park or the noon-to-10PM 2019 Ribfest Last Nights at Knoch Park with spectacular fireworks at dusk, also remember to notice signs of patriotism and appreciation throughout Naperville that are present every day.
When you a have a moment, take time to reflect about the sacrifices and what it took to become a free and united nation. Consider the issues that were on the minds of our Founders on July 4, 1776, “When in the course of human events…” the Declaration of Independence was written…
Did you know?
Before reading roughly 1,300 historic words written by Thomas Jefferson posted below, here are a few facts about the original document.
- Before Jefferson was selected to write the historic document, four other members of the Continental Congress (Ben Franklin, John Adams, Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman) had served on the Committee of Five with him to write a document expressing reasons to declare independence. In the end, Livingston did not get to sign the final copy.
- 56 members of the Continental Congress representing 13 colonies signed the Declaration of Independence.
- John Hancock is distinguished as being the first to sign the document and his famous signature is nearly five inches long. (Some historians say he signed his name so big to fill the space… He didn’t know all the others were expected to sign, too.)
- The word “independence” is not found within the text of what’s known as the Declaration of Independence.
- One member of Congress, John Dickenson, did not sign the Declaration of Independence because his desire was to establish peace with Britain and remain a part of the British Empire.
- Two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, later became President of the United States. (At the time of the signing, General George Washington was involved with the Revolutionary War.)
- The Declaration of Independence is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Locally, you will find the Freedom Shrine, a case containing reproductions of historic documents on display behind the Naperville Municipal Center (near the Sept. 11 Memorial), at the Judd Kendall VFW Post 3873 and in many Naperville schools, thanks to the Americanism Committee of the Exchange Club of Naperville.
Declaration of Independence
Original by Thomas Jefferson et al.; Engraving & fascimile by William J. Stone (1798-1865). Created in vector format by Scewing (Library of Congress) [Public domain].
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;*** that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
For imposing taxes on us without our consent;
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;
For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
WE, THEREFORE, the REPRESENTATIVES of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
[Signed by] JOHN HANCOCK [President] (Massachusetts)
New Hampshire
JOSIAH BARTLETT, WM. WHIPPLE, MATTHEW THORNTON.
Massachusetts Bay
SAML. ADAMS, JOHN ADAMS, ROBT. TREAT PAINE, ELBRIDGE GERRY
Rhode Island
STEP. HOPKINS, WILLIAM ELLERY.
Connecticut
ROGER SHERMAN, SAM’EL HUNTINGTON, WM. WILLIAMS, OLIVER WOLCOTT.
New York
WM. FLOYD, PHIL. LIVINGSTON, FRANS. LEWIS, LEWIS MORRIS.
New Jersey
RICHD. STOCKTON, JNO. WITHERSPOON, FRAS. HOPKINSON, JOHN HART, ABRA. CLARK.
Pennsylvania
ROBT. MORRIS BENJAMIN RUSH, BENJA. FRANKLIN, JOHN MORTON, GEO. CLYMER, JAS. SMITH, GEO. TAYLOR, JAMES WILSON, GEO. ROSS.
Delaware
CAESAR RODNEY, GEO. READ, THO. M’KEAN.
Maryland
SAMUEL CHASE, WM. PACA, THOS. STONE, CHARLES CARROLL of Carrollton.
Virginia
GEORGE WYTHE, RICHARD HENRY LEE, TH. JEFFERSON, BENJA. HARRISON, THS. NELSON, JR., FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE, CARTER BRAXTON.
North Carolina
WM. HOOPER, JOSEPH HEWES, JOHN PENN.
South Carolina
EDWARD RUTLEDGE, THOS. HAYWARD, JUNR., THOMAS LYNCH, JUNR., ARTHUR MIDDLETON.
Georgia
BUTTON GWINNETT, LYMAN HALL, GEO. WALTON.
Celebrate Safely!
Happy Independence Day!
Wherever you stand, pause, reflect and be grateful for supreme sacrifices made in the name of independence and freedom throughout the history of this enduring nation, imperfections and all.
Naperville is blessed to show its patriotism every day with monuments, Freedom Shrines and other commemorative messages along the Riverwalk and at the Judd Kendall VFW; as well as tributes in Veterans Park, Burlington Square Park, Central Park and Fredenhagen Park.
Note! For 2019, the annual “Salute to America” featuring the 1812 Overture, a tradition when Independence Day and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s are celebrated in Central Park with music by the Naperville Municipal Band, happened on June 27.
For July 4, 2019, the NMB Band’s Fourth of July Concert paying tribute to American composers will begin at 6PM. (Photo Gallery from June 28, 2018, “Salute to America.”)
Thanks for reading!
Related PN Posts / Flags along the Riverwalk on Flag Day, June 14
Last updated July 2, 2019
