© 2023 Don Pinson (To download, right-click on the gray play bar and select “Save Audio As”)

The time had finally come. After twenty years of growing government interference into the affairs of the American Colonies, the patience of Americans was exhausted. The Representatives of America had appealed to their British King and the Parliament over and over during those twenty years, and had only been insulted for their efforts. Over and over the King had treated their appeals with disdain. Finally, Thomas Jefferson would sum up the attitude of the majority of Americans when he wrote in The Declaration of Independence,

“A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

The final break with England began on March 16, 1776. The Continental Congress, representing each of the thirteen colonies, called upon the American people to observe a day “of fasting, humiliation, and prayer”. The Congress stated:

© 2026 Don Pinson (To download, right-click on the gray play bar and select “Save Audio As”)

The Bible says, “Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1)

Ladies and Gentlemen: The following document is the reason you and I, in America, are free:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

“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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world…”