American Revolution Unique; V. Drosdik, III

VINCENT A .. DROSDIK, III THIS YEAR marks the 197th anni versary of the signing of the· Dec laration of Independence. The War for Independence began officially on July 4, 1776. The war had been fought for more than a year up to that point. The famous battles at Lexington Green and Concord Bridge, Fort Ticonderoga and Bunker Hill in 1775 preceded the signing of the historic document by the Second Continental Congress in Philadel phia., The events of 1775-1781 are called the War for Independence, but also the American Revolution. But was it a revolution? I may be nitpicking, but this is an important point. The real revoSP4 Vincent A. Drosdik, III is editor of a weekly newspaper published for personnel of the U. S. Army in Berlin, The Berlin Observer, in which this editorial first appeared. American Revolution Unique lution was a long process of change in the ideas and ideals on the part of the American people, the set tlers from the Old World. The rev olution was this idea: that each person is a sovereign individual, with certain inalienable, God-giv en rights, and that the purpose of government is not to dispense rights, but to protect them. Gov ernment would be the servant, not the master of the people.

Among these rights are those to life, liberty and property. One by one, specific liberties were fought for and secured during the colo nial period. The freedom of the press was recognized in the fa mous Peter Zenger case in New York in 1735. Freedom of religion and conscience was one of the ma jor reasons for the settling of our country, and by the time of the Declaration it was fairly well es387 388 THE FREEMAN July tablished. It was formalized In the Bill of Rights and the various sta tes as they ended the practice of official state religious establish ments. Other freedoms and rights were reaffirmed and protected in the years before independence - the rights to bear arms, to own· prop erty, to have a. fair trial by jury, to representative government, the right to be left alone. When Parliament and the King stepped beyond their rightful pow ers, the colonists cried that their rights as Englishmen were being violated. The Navigation Acts, which restricted freedom of trade; the Stamp Act, which imposed a tax on the colonies without their approval or consultation; and other usurpations of power, all enumerated in the Declaration, eventually got to the unbearable point. The Americans then de clared independence from tyranny, "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world in the Rectitude of our Intentions."