249 Years After Independence Day

249 years ago, we got this thing kicked off. And it's amazing, if you read the Declaration of Independence, that's what we're celebrating, is its ratification by a second Continental Congress. This foundational idea within that document, which is the foundational idea for our country. And it's absolutely audacious when you think about it in a whole computer history. That we are acknowledging that each and every single one of us is created equally. And what flows from that is that each of us should expect to be treated equally under the laws of this nation. No tyrants, no kings, no one above the law, no one above the law, just a government of, by, and for the people. The Franklin's talk about these unalienable rights, these things that no one, including our government, can take from us. I bet you can quote me on this. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, right? And that we institute a government to safeguard these rights. And it is a government that only has legitimacy with the consent of the people who are governed. This idea, 249 years ago, shocked the world. The idea of self-government, that we could freely and fairly choose those who would represent us in positions of public trust, that we ourselves would have the opportunity to run for those positions of power, absolutely lit the world on fire. And look, it should build without saying, but it does bear repeating that at the time, you had to be white, you had to be a man, and you had to own property to qualify for any of the things that I was talking about. But here's the genius, in my opinion, of this great country, that we never stop working towards fulfilling the promise of those words. As you know, 100 years later, not even, we fought a civil war to determine once and for all whether one American could own another American. And the idea that flowed from that, after we settled at that courthouse in Appomattox in 1865, was not only would we no longer tolerate the institution of slavery, we would actually live up to that promise that we'll all be able to be free under law and order. One brief, shiny moment that lasted a dozen or 15 years during Reconstruction, we actually saw that come to pass months and months across the United States, including the states of Florida, Tennessee, including right here in the state of Texas. Darkness, however, once again, fall upon this country. And for more than 90 years, we saw Jim Crow. We saw people treated less than people under the law, less than citizens, even though they were born here, even though they and their forefathers and foremothers literally built this country and it's a success that so many enjoy. But we never stopped fighting. Countless and unsung, unenabled heroes labored in obscurity. They fought, they marched, they protested. They wanted to be heard, they wanted to be treated as women and men in this country equal to anyone else. And it took a president from the great state of Texas, the name was Lyndon B. Johnson, who used all of the political capital and his men in 1924 to pass what Americans have been working on for decades, the Civil Rights Act of that year. And we all know the story. It wasn't just that he was a genius, that he did the right thing at the right time with the power that he had, and he did. But it was that the American people, when we're talking about the concept of the government, they really pushed him and torched him until he did. And you all apparently haven't heard this story. I read an interview with Andrew Young that's a half this week, so I've taken that as work. On the heels of the passage and signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1964, this is 14th year, Dr. Martin Luther King had just been awarded the Nobel Prize. And he's meeting with President Johnson, with Andrew Young, in the old office of the White House. And he said, Mr. President, that you have used the power of your hand to get civil rights across the line. We owe you a debt of gratitude that we can never repay forever, every generation that follows. Now, Mr. President, we would like to vote. Because in that Civil Rights Act of 1964, there was no provision to address the fact that in Mississippi, or Alabama, or Texas even, you might have to recite the state constitution, or pass a literacy test, or tell the county registrar how many delegates are in the dog, before they will add you to the roll and let you vote. King says to Johnson, in some of Alabama, the vast majority of the residents are black, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a single black person on the voter roll. Mr. President, this is a democracy in name only. And you have got to do something about it. And Johnson responds, Dr. King, you're right. I would love to help. But I used everything I had to get civil rights done. I simply don't have the power. As they leave the White House, the dejected Andrew Young turns to Dr. King and says, well, what do we do now? And Dr. King responds, we go out there and get this man's power. Over the coming days, and weeks, and months, every day in America, coming people just like you and me, we took to the statehouse steps. We wrote our members of Congress. We lit up the switchboard at the White House, demanding that voting rights be passed. Everyone doing their part, and investing in how to somehow break through and make this happen. Until the 7th of March, 1965, that next year, a 24-year-old John Lewis, 24 years old, leads the march across the country's best streets to settle down that very place that King had meant to go. And for having the courage of their conviction, he and his fellow marchers are beaten yearly as ever. One man actually loses his life in the process. But thank God the press, not the enemy of the people, but I think the best defenders of democracy have ever had, they were there. They broadcast their images and their films across the country and around the world. And it is so galvanizing, such a catalyst, that within eight days, eight days in light speed, in eight days, President Johnson convenes a joint session of Congress. Every member of the House, every member of the Senate. He now has the power that he had lacked before, given to him not by politicians, not by millionaire donors, but by the people, including people who did not even have the power to vote. In that speech to that joint session of Congress, Johnson said, as it was at Common Core in Lexington, as it was at that courthouse in mathematics, I thought you always could have said, as it was on those beaches in Normandy in 1944, so it is today in 1965, that everyday Americans are willing to lay down their lives for this country, so that we fulfill that promise to ourselves, the rest of the world, and to every generation that follows. By that summer, Lyndon Baines Johnson, the table of time, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, was abolished, creating a democracy. I tell you that because I want you to think about it. All of the service, all of the struggle, all of the sacrifice that has come through these 249 years, to this moment, on the last day of June, 2025. To us, we are the heirs of all of it, and what we do with this inheritance is gonna define us in the eyes of history, in the conscience of our kids, and it's gonna determine what is possible for this country forevermore. If you think about it, every generation preceding us has been more or less able to keep this thing going, and at some times, those generations that Johnson mentioned in his speech in March of 65, they have taken these huge leaps. Whether they were battling the British Empire, or the Confederacy, or the Nazis in Normandy, or Jim Crow in the South, they prevailed and they overcame. So when you think about what is going on in this country today, and I know that has to be in part what brought you out here tonight, this unprecedented attack on that Constitution, on the rule of law, on the idea that no one is above or below that one, that we will, in fact, not have tyrants, or kings, or fascists, or dictators in this country. The important thing to me on my journey to democracy is right to vote. I just want you to remember where we came from, what we're made of, who we are at the end of the day. We are Americans, the most amazing people on the face of the planet today, as we have been since you were born. That's why we're here, we care about this country, and we want to save it.