America is 232 today.
That's just shy of two and a third centuries since we claimed our independence from Britain.
We're a nation at war, for the sixth Independence Day in a row.
Look at where we've come as a nation since the late eighteenth century. When Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hancock, and the other fifty-two men put their name to parchment in early July of 1776, they changed the course of history.
They not only created a nation, they put on paper the ideas and ideals that have shaped this nation, and this world ever since. Among those words:
"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."
Happy Fourth to all.