The Shot Heard 'round the World

As April 19th approaches, I think back to that spring day in Massachusetts when Americans were chafing under the bridle of the British Empire. When the British army marched to take weapons away from honest citizens; farmers, bankers, tradesmen, and merchants. And the honest citizens used those arms to resist tyranny. In 1775, the British army was the most professional and well equipped in the world. The British navy ruled the high seas. And a handful number of free men, honestly armed, stood up to tyranny at Lexington and Concord, sending the British army in full retreat to the safety of Boston. American blood was spilled along with British from that day and for eight long, bitter, desperate years until the birth of an infant, free nation. Thomas Jefferson said: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." The article reprinted in the companion www.gadsden2006.wordpress.com is a powerful statement of what our founders would think of us today, and what their actions would be. July 4, 1776 was the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, but April 19, 1775 was the day free men stood up to tyranny and began the war for independence, without a national government telling them to do it. They did it because it was the right thing to do.