It was July 4, 1776, when 56 men finished hammering out America's birth notice, put their signatures to it and adopted it.
Among them, eight were immigrants from England, Scotland and Ireland. The rest were mostly first- or maybe second-generation American colonists - not citizens, colonists - born to other immigrants who had streamed to one or more of the 13 colonies then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain.
Altogether, the 56 opted to become Americans - the first Americans - rather than British subjects in a colonial empire. Today, by the hundreds, modern immigrants born outside America also seek to transform their lives.
The first sentence of the Declaration of Independence, drafted by a committee of five and fine-tuned by Thomas Jefferson, puts it well for 1776 and 2018: "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 entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
But it's really the second sentence that spoke to that moment and continues to bind us all together as freedom-loving Americans.
"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."
Eleven years later, some of those Declaration signers went on to write that foundation - our Constitution - which begins with the empowering words, "We the people "
Happy 242nd birthday, America.
These days, new immigrants - if they don't get arrested and separated from their children when they come to the border and try to seek asylum - have to take a test to become citizens. They have to answer these and other questions: What is the supreme law of the land? (The Constitution.) What does the Constitution do? (It sets up the government, defines the government and protects the basic rights of all Americans.) Name just one right or freedom from the First Amendment? (There actually are five: speech, religion, assembly, press, petition the government.)
To become a citizen, immigrants also have to know what is the "rule of law"? (Everyone must follow the law. Leaders must obey the law. Government must obey the law. No one - not even the president - is above the law.)
And they have to name one branch or part of the government. (The legislative branch, which is Congress; the executive branch, which is the President; the judicial branch, which is the courts.) They are expected to know what stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful? (The separation of those three powers or branches of government, and the checks and balances that those separation of powers bring.)
These are things, frankly, that too many of our American-born citizens - and apparently even our current president - have not learned or do not understand.
Today, too few students are learning basic civics. In Arizona and Oklahoma studies, for example, the vast majority of high school students failed the same basic civics test that 91 percent of immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship passed.
As for President Donald Trump, remember that he campaigned that he could shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue in New York and not lose any voters, i.e., get away with it. He has said he wanted to have control over courts and law enforcement. He fired James Comey, the head of the FBI, because Comey wouldn't drop the investigation of Michael Flynn and wouldn't say that certain allegations about the Russia probe were untrue. Trump tried three times to institute a Muslim travel ban to America (freedom of religion? What freedom of religion?) before the Supreme Court recently choose to implement a slightly softened version of it by completely ignoring Trump's public statements about why he wanted one.
Seemingly weekly, the president or his surrogates assert that he is able to pardon himself or is immune to subpoena or indictment should the special counsel probe into Russian meddling in our election get uncomfortable. He has claimed he is immune - and acts as though he is - to the emoluments clause that makes it a conflict of interest for the president to enrich himself or his family on the government dime.
Though he acts as though he should be king (president for life, he has entoned), we believe the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will prevail.
"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. -"
We believe in America.