Today is Independence Day.
Independence Day just happens to fall on July 4, but it is not a celebration of some date on a calendar.  It is the day we commemorate the birth of a nation that would become the United States of America.
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. Â That declaration was a letter to the king of England, and a public announcement to the world, that Congress had on July 2 declared 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 to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
By declaring themselves free, each one of the signers of the Declaration made themselves traitors to the crown and had, in essence, signed their own death warrant. Â Each of the signers knew full well what wrath the Declaration would invoke.