Happy Independence Day!

Today is our nation's birthday. It commemorates the great struggle that severed our colonial dependence on Britain and gave a fresh impulse to the unending struggle for freedom.

Revolutions are never complete. While expanding the boundaries and possibilities of freedom, our revolution also had its limitations: the abominable institution of slavery remained; political rights were limited to white male property holders; the new nation was formed on lands unlawfully and violently expropriated from Native American peoples; and the revolution unfolded in a nascent bourgeois society, which over time widened many of the inequalities that were embedded in colonial life.

Nonetheless, the American Revolution constituted a landmark in human history. For the first time sovereignty and consent rested, not with a king, not with an aristocratic order, not with a church, but with the people. Freedom was proclaimed a universal right of humankind. And many old modes of deference and hierarchy melted away.

The revolution of 1776 set the stage for the second American Revolution in 1865—culminating in the abolition of slavery—and subsequent struggles to expand boundaries and impart new content to freedom.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the greatest leader in our land in the 20th Century, was well aware of the limitations of our revolution. Yet he heralded its achievements and ideals and challenged the nation to live up to full meaning of its creed.

That challenge has yet to be fulfilled, although in electing President Barak Obama our nation took another step down freedom road.

Let's celebrate this Independence Day with family and friends, while recommitting ourselves to complete that journey in the years ahead.