The 4th of July

July 4th, is also referred to as Independence Day, and is celebrated as the Birthday of the United States of America. The date does not mark the end of the War for Independence, but the beginning of that war. On June 6, 1776 Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, introduced a resolution to the Second Continental Congress stating that “The United Colonies are, and of a right ought to be free and Independent States.”

A committee was appointed to draft a resolution to that effect. On July 4th, 1776 the properly worded resolution "The Declaration of Independence" was adopted. The following words are familiar to all, "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."

Thus, we as a nation declared our freedom. This was a revolutionary document in an age when kings were thought to rule by divine right. It ushered in a new political era establishing equal rights for all persons and separation between church and state, in addition to freedom from British rule. The War for Independence lasted until September 3, 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by British and United States representatives. Take time to pray and thank God for the freedoms we still enjoy.

STATUE OF LIBERTY

For the past century, the Statue of Liberty has watched over New York harbor, welcoming millions of people to the land of the free and the home of the brave. The statue's creator, Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, came from a family of Lutherans. Because of their religious views, Bartholdi's ancestors suffered Counter-Reformation mistreatment and persecution during the Thirty Years' War (1618-48). The family knew about immigration and resettlement; the Bartholdi's lived in Switzerland, Germany, and France. Frederic-Auguste was born in France's Alsace-Lorraine region. Members of the well-educated Bartholdi family served as Lutheran pastors in Europe for an unbroken span of 150 years.

By the early 1800's, both France and the United States had experienced revolution and government overthrows. During much of Bartholdi's lifetime (1834-1904), France was struggling under Napoleon III and the United States was coping with the aftermath of the Civil War. In those times of upheaval, both governments were looking for symbols of stability to express the meaning of their respective constitutions. Edouard de Laboulaye, designer of France's Third Republic, proposed giving the American people a large statue called Liberty Enlightening the World. He enlisted Bartholdi as the sculptor and sent him to the United States to promote the cause. When Bartholdi sailed into New York Harbor in June '1871, he spotted Liberty Island, just off Ellis Island. He envisioned a huge classical statue on Liberty Island, similar to the ancient Colossus of Rhodes.

He returned to Paris to begin his work. Bartholdi first worked with a smaller design, using his Lutheran wife as the model for the body, and his mother- also descended from a family of Lutheran clergy - for the determined-looking face. Bartholdi turned to another Lutheran, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel ( of Eiffel Tower fame) , to assist with engineering the actual 151- foot - high statue. This grad statue, designed by a son of the Reformation, became the expression of spiritual and political freedom.

On June 17, 1885, New Yorkers noted a French ship sailing into the harbor, and then for 18 months they watched the statue being assembled on Liberty Island. The stature was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

The passing years took their toll on the statue, and she needed a complete rebuilding in 1986. The superintendent of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island National Monument Division was David L Moffitt, a member of Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church (LCA) in Manhattan. Moffitt, of German Lutheran and Scottish Protestant heritage, kept an eye on workers as they fully restored the statue for its July 4 centennial celebration.

By: Rev. Dennis Kastens and LCMS Pastor.

HISTORY OF "THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER"

In June of 1813, Major George Armistead took command of Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Armistead ordered that a flag “so large that the British will have no difficulty in seeing it from a distance” be made for the fort. On August 19, Mary Pickersgill of Baltimore delivered the flag. It required 266 yards of red, white and blue English woolen bunting for the stripes and about 10 yards of whiter cotton for the stars, which measured 26 inches from tip to tip. Pickersgill charged the U.S. Army $405.90 for the flag.

Between August and September of 1814, the British sent 16 ships to attack Fort McHenry. Franics Scott Key, a Georgetown lawyer and amateur poet, watched the attack from the British admiral’s flagship, where he had been detained by the enemy. At dawn on September 14, 1814, the British tapered off their bombardment of the fort, Key looked through a telescope and saw from eight miles away the U.S. flag. Key started to write the “Deference of Fort McHenry,” which he later completed at a Baltimore hotel after he was released by the British. He set it to music written for a 1778 English social club song called “To Anacreon in Heaven.” Printers changed the title to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The flag remained flying at the fort for another two years.

Armistead died and passed on the flag to his widow and then to their daughter, Georgianna Armistead Appleton, who then passed it on to her son, Eben Appleton. In 1907 Eben Appleton lent the flag to the Smithsonian in Washington. He made the flag a permanent gift in 1912. The in 1932 Key’s composition officially became the national anthem of the United States of America.