Did you ever think that the maybe the Confederates & south, in the Civil War, weren't the rebels but that maybe the rebels were really in the North? I was sitting down tonight pondering over some excellent history that I had recently read as well as the moral groundlessness upon which slavery was built.

At the time of the Declaration of Independence, 25% of the Continental United States was made up of slaves. I do not have the figure, but there was also a large number of Indentured Servants in the colonies at that time. To be conservative, I will say it was only 8%. Combined, 0ne third of our country was in servitude to a master and had nearly no rights - even that basic right of protecting their own lives in many cases. Women were in a similar state with no right to hold property or to have a voice in their government. Out of this situation emerged for the first time a document, penned by a Representative of the People and assented to unanimously by the Continental Congress of the United States of America, alleging certain unalienable rights - those of Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness.

Sadly, those rights initially were only granted to land holding white men since not even a free black or Indian could enjoy those rights. For all of the rest, the world wasn't ready for the realization of what the enjoyment of those rights for all meant and thus it was written into law - even within our own constitution when it deemed all other non-free persons to be only three-fifths of a person. At that time, this notion of the master and the servant was deeply entrenched in our culture and stemmed all the way to Jamestown & the first colonists.

However, something changed - the North. They began to move away from this notion of servant and master, oppressor and oppressed. They heard the pleas of their fellow humans and organized the abolitionist movement as well as Women’s Suffrage. The people in the North began to rebel against the old order and to form a new one founded on the principles penned and ascribed to decades earlier. They began to rebel against the old order of States Rights and the Confederation under the old Articles. They began to truly form a more perfect Union.

This change, this rebellion against the old order & the way things were, finally encroached too much on the South who were determined not to change but to keep the status quo. When the Northern rebellion against the status quo became so powerful that America elected a president from the abolitionist Republican Party – it was time to fight back and to defend that which was their own – their history, their heritage, what they viewed to be their property and their way of life.

No, the south didn’t rebel and sadly that was the problem. The North did and thank God they did so that in very deed the blessings of our more perfect union and the unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness could be more fully enjoyed by more of God’s children.

I believe in freedom and in its boundaries. When another person's freedom infringes on the freedom and rights of others, they have exercised their freedom in an unjust fashion. Such an exercise becomes a crime.

Regarding the boundaries of free exercise, I would like you to consider part of the original draft of the Bill of Rights for Pennsylvania's first Constitution. In that first draft it read:

"An enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness, of mankind; and therefore every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property."

Is that true? Does the holding of an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals create a danger and destroy the common happiness of mankind? This isn't a question you should answer with your knee jerk as you may be inclined to do.

As I look in my minds eye at the vast expanse of humanity around the world, and knowing that the majority of wealth is owned by a minority of the earth's population, and knowing that wars are generally waged over wealth (i.e., gold, land, resources) and to get more of it either because the poor don't have it or the rich want more of it, and whereas wars cause so much misery to the people involved, and knowing that the lack of opportunities afforded to so many around the world is a factor in crime, social ills, disease and death, I can see the danger and destruction that the incredibly disproportionate distribution of wealth can create.

Does therefore the endless accumulation of wealth infringe on the rights of others? It may. It may cause people to be pressed into war who have no true interest in it. It may push others into poverty. It may keep people from basic services. It may cause so many of the ills we see and hear around us and in our world.

The endless accumulation of wealth was never meant to be the American Dream as so many think it is. The American Dream was about Freedom, Liberty, Justice, & the protection of Natural Rights. Let us never forget what our country was and should be really about - Liberty & Justice for all. We as a Nation have never been perfect at that but we have gotten better as we have looked to our foundation - the principles the founders aspired to. That foundation has continued to transform the way we have built & changed our society since 1776.

May Liberty and Justice for all continue to form how we look at the true American Dream versus the fraud so that our American home, and therefore our world home, can be one of freedom, justice and protection of natural rights for all mankind. And may each one of us consider again the question "Does the holding of an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals create a danger and destroy the common happiness of mankind?" and then live and act accordingly.

Long has the Star Spangled banner waived over the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Its stars shine forth in the night, giving light and guidance to the mariners on the see of adversity. It waves to them. It calls to them.

Its stripes remind us of the blood and purity of the brave and tells us with not only those stripes, but the stripes of One other, we are healed and made free.

This land, this new nation, has transformed our world in a way that no other has since the beginning of time. Our Constitution is more than just a document that preserves ours rights as Americans. It is a document that has set the standard for the preservation of human rights across the world.

No matter the stain of current politics - the principles of Freedom that shine forth as the stars of the night call and set the standard of a higher humanity for all the world to see and for all the world to be guided by. America calls to the world. It calls to loose the bonds of slavery. It calls to end the bonds of ignorance. It calls to end the false hegemony of high birth. It calls to bring all to the level of human brotherhood. It calls to the soul to worship their Divine Creator how, where and when they may. It calls to individual to reach out, to look higher, and to lift up. This is America to me. This is my County - the United States.

Thank God for this land of Liberty - for by it, all of mankind is or will be blessed by it. Freedom and human conscience create a foundation of happiness. This freedom which was established first here will go forth across all the world - not by aggression but by progression. It truly has begun a Novus Ordo Seclorum - a New Order for the Ages. Thank God for that Order.

Thank you for reading.