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USA - Patriotic Medley - This is my
Country, God Bless America, This land is your land, America
the Beautiful - USAF Band © .
This recording is
for your listening pleasure only and there is no monetary gain
made by us from this recording whatsoever.
227 years ago...on July 4th, 1776
The American Dream of Independence was
born, for it was on this day America adopted the Declaration of Independence.
America was now free and Independent from the Kingdom of Great Britain.
This great nation, the United States of America, which consisted of only 13
colonies on this day
was proudly born...
Americans stand proud and celebrate this day across the Nation with gatherings
and festivities.
Celebrating the freedom which our forefathers fought so bravely for ...
This 4th July celebrate Freedom, the birth of a Nation and the Pride of being an
American. The togetherness and spirit of a Nation and its people are what makes
America such an awesome place.
Happy Birthday America for the Fourth of
July!
Please take time to remember the troops
who are still away from home and family. These men and women are proudly and
bravely fighting for freedom for America and all Americans.
Keep them and their families in your
prayers
A quotation from the Virginia Gazette on
July 18th, 1777:
"Thus may the 4th of July, that glorious
and ever memorable day, be celebrated through America, by the sons of freedom,
from age to age till time shall be no more. Amen and Amen."
"One day some of the other
teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a
prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way
on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the
wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse."
Katharine Lee Bates
America the
Beautiful - 1913
O
beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife.
Who more than self the country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enamelled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!
O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America ! America !
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!
O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life !
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!
Katharine Lee Bates wrote the original version in 1893.
She wrote the 2nd version in 1904. Her final version was written in 1913.
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United
States of America
When
in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected
them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and
of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions
of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right
of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed,
will dictate that Governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a
long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off
such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future
security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these
Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them
to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of
the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To
prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his
Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the
public good.
He has forbidden his
Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance,
unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be
obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to
attend to them.
He has refused to pass
other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people,
unless those people would relinquish the right of
Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them
and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together
legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and
distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the
sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his
measures.
He has dissolved
Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly
firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a
long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be
elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their
exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all
the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to
prevent the population of these States; for that purpose
obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners;
refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither,
and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the
Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for
establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges
dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices,
and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a
multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers
to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us,
in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our
legislatures.
He has affected to
render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil
Power.
He has combined with
others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his
Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large
bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them,
by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they
should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our
Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on
us without our Consent:
For depriving us in
many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us
beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the
free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging
its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit
instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these
Colonies
For taking away our
Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering
fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own
Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to
legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated
Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and
waging War against us.
He has plundered our
seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the
lives of our people.
He is at this time
transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat
the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun
with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in
the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a
civilized nation.
He has constrained our
fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms
against their Country, to become the executioners of their
friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited
domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to
bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless
Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of
these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most
humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only
by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the
ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been
wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned
them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded
them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement
here. We have appealed to their native justice and
magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our
common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would
inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They
too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of
consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity,
which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the
rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the
Representatives of the United States of America, in General
Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name,
and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies,
solemnly publish and declare, 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. — And for the support of
this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of
Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives,
our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
— John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine,
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver
Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John
Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton,
George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson,
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of
Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin
Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter
Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr.,
Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
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