Thread by @SteveSchmidtSES

245 years ago today on July 2, 1776 the Lee Resolution was passed unanimously and the United States of America was born. The Continental Congress had formed a five person committee in early June to prepare a Declaration of Independence. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1)

Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman were the members. There were two passages rejected by the whole of Congress. One was a denunciation of the English people and the other a condemnation of the Atlantic Slave trade. (2)

The Declaration of Independence was approved two days later by 12 of the 13 States and signed by 56 men. The document concluded with the following lines, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other (3)

our Lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” Every man who signed that document had perfect clarity around the consequences. Their signatures fated them to certain death at the end of a Hangman’s rope under a British gallows if the cause failed. (4)

The Declaration of Independence was viewed as a utilitarian document in its time. It enumerated grievances against the Crown and established the causes of permanent separation. It was Lincoln who would infuse the Declaration of Independence with a grand moral purpose. (5)

158 years ago today; exactly 87 years after the Lee Resolution, a blood soaked death struggle was underway at a crossroads town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg. At the extreme end of the Union line an incompetent General and former New York Congressman named Dan Sickles was (6)

out of position and being overrun . Mostly he was famous for scandal, including the shooting murder of his wife’s lover; in the middle of the day in Lafayette Square Park. General Winfield Scott Hancock saw the chaos unfolding at the end of the line and knew the battle was about

to be lost. The Confederates were about to turn the end of the Union line and be in position to seize the high ground from which it could obliterate the Northern Army. Hancock would later say that he was trying to buy minutes; he needed to reinforce the line at all costs in order

To prevent the Confederate Army from being in position to March on Washington DC with nothing to stop it. The West Point grad knew the war was about to be lost when he galloped at full speed towards the Union Soldiers at the end of the line. “ What unit is this?” he thundered. (9

“ 1st Minnesota” came the response. He ordered them to fix bayonets and charge. Hundreds charged thousands and turned them back. To this day it remains the highest casualty action in the history of the United States Army, 84 percent were casualties. (10)

When Lincoln came to Gettysburg in November of that year he delivered a short speech that redefined the purpose of the war and reframed the Declaration of Independence as a moral document and beacon. 100 years after Lincoln delivered the speech , a young Black minister from (11)

the South led a March to the secular temple where the memory of Abraham Lincoln is preserved. Dr. King said he came to collect a promissory note. He came to speak to the promise of the nation and what it could be. He came to assert the truth of our greatest ideal and the most 12

Revolutionary idea ever put to paper by the mind of man which is the perfect idea that we are all created equal and that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are bestowed, not by a king or tyrant but rather a Creator. 13

This is the core of the great struggle underway in this country. It is a fight between people who do not want us to live equally and those that do. It is a fight between democratic values and autocratic darkness. It is a fight between Patriots and cowards. We have a profound

crisis of Courage in our politics. @GOPLeader is a coward who has betrayed his oath and country. He presides over an autocratic faction of Holocaust deniers like Paul Gosar and an assemblage of self interested degenerates like @mattgaetz and Jim Jordan. He presides as the

stumblebum leader of a faction of weirdos, racists, conspiracy loons, crooks and extremists where appalling ignorance and malice are coins of the realm. Boiling stupidity has combined with blazing cynicism and the result is the greatest threat to the continuity of the Republic

since the Civil War. Our Democracy is in a moment of great crisis. It cannot be defended by indifference and apathy. This July 4th will fall 6 short months after a murderous insurrection that was incited by Trump. The architects of that murder and poisoning of faith and belief

in our democracy are known to all of us. @HawleyMO, @tedcruz @DonaldJTrumpJr @GOPLeader and the 147 members who voted to throw out millions of Black votes on the basis of Trumps delusions and lying have brought eternal shame and dishonor to themselves. They have earned the

contempt of history and the judgement of the American people will be as harsh towards them as it is with men like Joseph McCarthy, Benedict Arnold and J Davis These people will lie to all of us and claim to be celebrating the 4th with us. The truth is that they have betrayed the

American revolution and ten generations of sacrifice to maintain and expand American Liberty. They are not celebrating with the rest of us. They are scheming to take it all away. When they attacked and ended the tradition of the peaceful transition of power in this country it

was an attack on America. Don’t forget that.