Happy Birthday, USA!
I AM THE UNITED STATES I was born on July 4, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. The bloodlines of the world run in my veins, because I offered freedom to the oppressed. I am the United States. I am 185,000,000 living souls, and the ghost of millions who have died for me. I am Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. I stood at Lexington and fired the shot heard around the world. I am Washington, Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. I am Paul Jones, the Green Mountain boys, and Davy Crockett. I am Lee, Grant, and Abe Lincoln. I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat lands of Kansas, and the granite hills of Vermont. I am the coal fields of the Virginias and Pennsylvania; the fertile lands of the West; the Golden Gate and the Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, the Monitor and the Merrimac. I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific, three million square miles throbbing with industry. I am more than 5,000,000 farms; I am forest, field, mountain and dessert. I am quiet...