One of the quotes often ascribed to Ben Franklin tells of him responding to a question asked about what type of government there would be for the United States. Franklin responds that it’s a democracy, if we can keep it. This weekend we rightly celebrate our country’s birth announcement. But in doing this, so many forget the terrible price that was paid “to keep it” well beyond the surrender at Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris.

On July 3, 1863 Confederate forces inside the besieged city of Vicksburg, Mississippi sued for peace and laid down their arms. Earlier in the afternoon, on a field in Pennsylvania, the flower of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia shattered themselves against the Union center at Gettysburg; all but guaranteeing the eventual southern defeat. These twin victories, announced to the world on July 4th, 1863, ensured that the visionary experiment in democracy laid down in 1776 would endure even the bloody nightmare of civil war.

We owe much to the founders who gave us our republic, but so too do we owe a debt of gratitude to the men of 1863, who fought and died to preserve what their grandfathers and great grandfathers and built. As it was in 1776 and in 1863, so it is now – This Union, this republic, must be preserved against any, domestic or foreign, who rise against it.