Our past is everything. It is how we have come to find ourselves in the present and lays the foundation for the roads we take into the future. History is more than just the important people, dates, and events we memorize and too soon forget in school. It is part of us all. It gives us a vision of how people lived, the trials they faced and how they survived them. History is also how we will be remembered. It is the basis of legacy.
There are few “once in a lifetime” moments. The founding of the United States of America was one that occurred in the 1770s and 80s that gave a people a nation and the world a shining city on a hill. Some of these moments are missed; risks we never take, a job we pass up, a business we don’t start, that time you didn’t speak up when you know you should have. Our founders seized the moment presented to them.
The American Revolution could not have happened as it did at any other point in history and many knew that should they pass it by it would never happen. Many continental leaders attempted appeasement, petitions, and olive branches to stave off what they thought would be disastrous events that would follow revolution. Truth be told the world as we know it today would be a very different place without the ideals of liberty proven to be successful in the founding of our nation and the eventual organization of our constitutional republic. It was a small group of founders who took a stand in writing the Declaration of Independence. Instead of appeasement and apathy they turned to grievances and disavowed the false nature of tyranny on our shores.