July 4 Thoughts

In 1821, in a letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, reflecting on contemporaneous events in Europe wrote: 

I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance...And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the 4^th of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

 

Much to Jefferson's great sorrow, were he to know, in the past 7 1/2 years the cloud of despotism has obscured the science and liberty not of Europe, but of Jefferson's own beloved and hard-fought-for United States. 

 

With the upcoming election. let's seek to rekindle the flames of freedom so that the engines of despotism that have recently been rebuilt in this country will indeed prove feeble and be consumed by the renewed and rekindled flames of liberty and light.