Point of fact, Mr Jefferson...

The Fourth of July is a HUGE deal for me! I love studying the writings of our Founding Fathers and Founding Mothers. They were so well-read and passionate about their causes! They were an elect group of citizens. 

"The Committee of Five" approved Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence and gave it to the representatives of the Second Continental Congress for approval. Congress declared independence on July 2, 1776 and approved their edited version of the declaration on July 4, 1776. On the third of July, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail explaining how generations to come would celebrate independence:

"I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. 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."

And yet, John recognized the cost associated with earning such independence:

"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."

Wow! Powerful words! I'm grateful and humbled to be celebrating this day of Independence and freedom as John so rightly foretold.

(The original letter is available here: http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc…)

And here's a bit concerning the very definition of a "good citizen"... 

James Madison, in a National Gazette article on 3 March 1792:

"The class of citizens who provide at once THEIR OWN food and THEIR OWN raiment, may be viewed as the most TRULY INDEPENDENT and HAPPY. They are more: they are the best basis of public liberty, and the strongest bulwark of public safety. It follows, that the GREATER the PROPORTION of this class to the whole society, the more FREE, the more INDEPENDENT, and the more HAPPY must be the society itself."