Innovating a Nation – Happy 4th of July!
Posted by Plish on July 4, 2012
The Original Declaration. Click to go the National Archive to learn more.
When people talk of innovations, they speak of business models, products and services. In the United States, people forget that we areable to be an innovative society because of a great innovation in the governmental realm:
A new type of government formed by the people, to secure their rights to, “…Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Thanks to the chutzpah of the Founding Fathers (they were speaking treason after all) we are the inheritors of one heck of an innovation.
They saw the situation, knew it needed to be changed, and did something about it. They put their lives and livelihoods on the line. They collaborated to come up with a statement of purpose and followed up relentlessly until their dream became reality in, and through, the US Constitution.
This was innovation!
Thank you to all the following who pledged their ‘Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor’ in signing the Declaration of Independence (which you can read by clicking on the link)
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn South. Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Thank you to all those that have worked and fought to keep this nation and her people, free and able to be, a nation of innovation!
Happy Birthday, United States!
