A friend forwarded me an e-mail, one of those that are making the rounds as the Independence Day holiday nears, you may have also received it. The subject is “The Price They Paid,” and it describes the high price that the signers of the Declaration of Independence paid for their rebellion. It relates what we all know, that they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, but also says that many of them were captured, tortured, and killed by the British, and those that survived lost their families, their homes and died in poverty. Intrigued, I looked up this e-mail on Snopes.com to see if it was an urban legend and sure enough, it was. To be sure, some of it was true, but it mixed in some exaggeration (no torture) with the truth of our shared history. The Snopes report can be found here and I encourage you to take a look at it as it demonstrates clearly that even if it is easy to exaggerate the risks and dangers the signers faced (and there were many), there is no exaggerating the power of the idea that they unleashed upon the world. The American Revolution was not a revolution of ideology, and unlike the French, Communist or Islamic revolutions it did not unleash forces of persecution or pogroms, nor did it sacrifice entire generations to ideological fervor. Quite the opposite in fact. The American Revolution stood in opposition to the idea that government could or should ever visit such horrors on the people. The idea that government is a contract entered into by the people to protect their pre-existing rights and remains always subservient to the people is a perpetually revolutionary idea, one that challenges us today as much as it challenges the legitimacy of other governments. As we look back upon 233 years of independence let’s take time to honor the founders of our republic, those who defend it today, and look forward to a future enriched by the promise of liberty. Long live the revolution!