Although today we ostensibly celebrate America's independence from Great Britain, July 4 actually commemorates only the idea.

And what a powerful and enduring one it proved to be.

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved a Declaration of Independence. It was not a governing document, nor did it compel England to renounce its claim to the 13 American colonies. Instead, it was a compelling exposition of first principles followed by a recitation of grievances against the British crown, all employed to justify the colonialists' revolt.

Our independence was not secured until five years later, after numerous military battles that climaxed with the British defeat at Yorktown and concluded with the Treaty of Paris that recognized the United States.

However, we celebrate the Fourth (rather than, say, Oct. 19, the date in 1781 when Gen. Cornwallis surrendered his troops to George Washington's Continental Army) because the Declaration represents the ideals on which this nation was founded. It has not always lived up to those goals, but they continue to inspire people with hope for a better life — one lived in freedom.

The document's themes of natural law, individual freedom and self-government are what make it timeless:

—All men are created equal.

—We are born with natural, God-given rights that cannot be abrogated by man-made government.

—When government tramples on those rights the people have a responsibility to change it or end it.

Thus does government earn its legitimacy only from the consent of the governed.

How those principles are applied remains an ever-evolving subject of debate. The founders themselves disagreed on the shape and scope of a central government. Equal rights for women and black Americans were not secured until nearly two centuries later. And more recently, politics has sharply divided the nation largely along ideological lines.

Such disagreements are to be expected in a pluralistic republic of more than 300 million people. And they are healthy, so long as they are conducted civilly. Alas, that, too, is an aspiration the nation increasingly falls short of.

Today, though, let's set aside our differences and celebrate our common gift. As author Isabel Paterson, in her seminal work "God of the Machine," wrote, the establishment of the United States "was the first time a nation was ever founded on reasoned political principles, proceeding from the axiom that man's birthright is freedom. Whoever is fortunate enough to be an American citizen came into the greatest inheritance man has ever enjoyed."

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July.

REPRINTED FROM THE JACKSONVILLE DAILY NEWS