| How do you imagine present day Americans would have responded to the events of July 4th, 1776, and the years immediately preceding and following, had they occurred today? I shall take literary license and do what most Americans have already been taught to do, namely, compress this time period into one continuous event. Contrary to widespread opinion, the drafters of the Declaration of Independence did not – upon completing this wonderful statement on behalf of human liberty – sit down and draft the Constitution! The latter occurred in 1787. The Declaration was only a statement of philosophic principles, neither establishing – nor professing to establish – a new state apparatus. In the true Lockean spirit in which it was fashioned, it purported to bind none other than the draftsmen themselves, mutually pledging "to each other, our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." |