‘…the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America..’

The Housing Hour July 2, 2013

It’s important to look back at the words of founding fathers. After deciding to declare their Independence, John Adams’ penned this famous letter on July 3, 1776. John thought the country would celebrate the actual day Congress approved the resolution to declare their independence from Great Britain, July 2nd. But history chose 2 days later, July 4th, the date that Congress approved Thomas Jefferson’s final draft of The Declaration of Independence. Whether the 2nd or the 4th, the excitement and real meaning of the events are clear. John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail with his thoughts about how to celebrate the monumental day:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to becommemorated, 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. 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. ( The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784, Harvard University Press, 1975, 142).

The words of John Adams reflect the exuberance of the pursuit of liberty while acknowledging the dreaded cost of that freedom. But its as if he had some divine look into the future when he wrote, ‘ 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.’

Mortgage Investors Group and The Housing Hour salutes all of our fellow countrymen who have fought and died to ‘… maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States…’, God Bless You!