Experience the American dream with today’s Patriots of the Past interview. I’m your host, John Gillespie.
It’s May 10, 1775, over a year before the Declaration of Independence. A dedicated group of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians met as delegates of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Many of them were preachers. Here’s what they declared:
“Be it resolved that we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people, that we are and of right ought to be a sovereign and self-governing association under the control of no power other than that of our God and the general government of the Congress.”
Ideas of freedom under God came not only from the pen of Thomas Jefferson, but from throughout the colonies as well.
Read the full text of The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.
John and Jan Gillespie are the founders of the Rawhide Boys’ Ranch; they have fostered 351 teenagers and wrote the book Our 351 Sons; they have also assisted numerous churches in developing youth programs and expanding their total church ministries. After running for U.S. Senate, John founded 1776 American Dream, which exists to demonstrate the vision of our founding fathers and help our generation of youth passionately embrace those values.
