Experience the American dream with today’s Patriots of the Past interview. I’m your host, John Gillespie.
It’s May 8, 1776. We have a battle going on in Congress over independency. The fiery John Adams is chastising the cowards of the Continental Congress for refusing to demand freedom from the British. Here’s what he endures day after day…
Men Yelling: “Sit down, John! Sit down! Sit down! Will someone shut this man up?”
JA: “Never, never, never will I shut for liberty!”
John Adams never did stop demanding liberty.
In John Adams’ letter to John Winthrop, he wrote, “I have often wondered that so much difficulty should be raised about declaring independence when we have actually got the thing itself. Who or what are we afraid of? Are we afraid of provoking G.B., which is now actually carrying an open war against us and bending her whole force to subjugate or exterminate us? But I have had such an implicit faith in the wisdom of Congress that I could not doubt but they had sufficient reasons for their conduct. I now perceive you were in these sentiments long ago. But they are very opposite to the inveterate prejudices and long established systems of many others. It must be a work of time to eradicate these prejudices. And, perhaps, it may be best to accomplish this great affair by slow and almost imperceptible steps and not per saltum, by one violent exertion. The late Resolve of May 15th comes very near it.”
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.
