We repost this article every year. If you’ve seen it before, and even if you haven't, please share this important information with your friends and family--for the Republic.

We, like many of you, will enjoy today's Fourth of July celebration with family, friends, food, and fireworks. And while those good things bring us close together as a people, it’s valuable to remember how we, as a uniquely free United States, came to be—and, especially, why. It has become a tradition for us to read aloud the Declaration of Independence on July 4th to put our celebration into a proper historical, philosophical, and emotional context. As law professor Josh Blackman correctly notes, “while you are enjoying your hotdogs and fireworks, praise the Declaration, which even today retains legal vitality.”