[Adam Freedman, the host of the Legal Lad podcast at quickanddirtytips.com, is a lawyer.]

Tomorrow night, as you watch the fireworks, don’t forget to raise a toast to George III. After all, it was the annual celebration of that king’s birthday on June 4 that gave Americans the habit of summer “illuminations.” After 1776, the ritual was cleverly rebranded to commemorate the republic’s birthday, just one month later.

That was just one example of the founders’ uncanny ability to cast British traditions in a new mold. Another example is the document we celebrate today: the Declaration of Independence. Little noticed today is that the Declaration co-opted the very language of English law to reject the mother country.

Four members of the committee assigned by Congress to write the Declaration were lawyers (Ben Franklin was the odd man out). As lawyers do, those draftsmen began by looking for a suitable precedent: was there a handy document available to...

[Carl M. Cannon is the senior Washington correspondent for PoliticsDaily.com.]

Martin Luther King Jr., in his famous 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech on the National Mall, memorably described the Declaration of Independence as a "promissory note" that had guaranteed freedom to Americans of every color. Redeeming that note required a bloody Civil War. Redeeming it fully required a Second American Revolution -- the civil rights movement.

A century and a half ago, the logic and morality of that great struggle for equality was framed indelibly by a black man who asked a haunting question that challenged a nation's conscience, and rang through the decades. Frederick Douglass spoke on July 5, 1852 to an audience of abolitionists who had come to Rochester, N.Y., to hear the acclaimed orator – himself a runaway slave – address the meaning of America's great national holiday. In reference to its most memorable line, the speech is usually called "...

[Duncan Currie is managing editor of The American. Prior to joining the magazine in September 2007, he spent more than three years writing for The Weekly Standard. He has been a “Publius” fellow at the Claremont Institute and a Phillips Foundation journalism fellow. His essays have been featured in a number of publications, including The National Review. (Courtesy, The Journal of American Enterprise Institute).]

Ramesh has a smart piece in the latest NR on the right and wrong lessons to draw from Ronald Reagan. “When invoking Reagan,” he writes, “conservatives are prone to two characteristic vices: hero-worship and nostalgia. To hear some conservatives talk, you would forget that Reagan was a human being who made mistakes, including in office. You would certainly forget that movement conservatives were frequently exasperated with Reagan’s administration.”

Indeed, during Reagan’s final years in the White House, many conservatives became disillusioned with his...