The Library of Congress' web site contains the following succinct summary of a critical document from the founding of our nation: "On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall), approved the Declaration of Independence, severing the colonies' ties to the British Crown."


The greatest ongoing experiment in self-government in the history of the world was launched by representatives from 13 colonies through a vote on a document. Their words in the Declaration of Independence still serve as one of the best distillations of our national identity to be found. If someone wants to know the essentials of who we are and what we believe as Americans, this is the first place to look.


The preamble contains some of the most famous words in history, which ring as true now as they were in 1776: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."


We get to the heart of the matter about what sort of government a free people are supposed to have in the very next sentence: "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."


We have lived in a free nation for more than two centuries now. We take items like voting for granted. Yet look around the world and ponder how many billions of people will likely never cast a ballot in a free election in their entire lifetimes.


We do things in this country that are truly special in human existence. This nation remains the vanguard in an ongoing movement toward human freedom. This idea that ordinary citizens may put their name on a ballot and urge their fellow citizens to elect them to run the government is still a revolutionary concept.


As each election comes around, I urge you to ponder what momentous struggle went into gaining and preserving this particular freedom.


We have do-it-yourself government here in America. From the highest office in the land to our local officials, all serve their fellow citizens. Participating in the electoral process is one of our birthrights.


In 2005, Texas had a total voting aged population of 16,351,396, of which 12,577,545 were registered to vote. This works out to about 77 percent of the voting aged population. In the 2004 presidential election, a total of 56.6 percent of registered Texas voters cast ballots.


When it came to the statewide election to amend our Texas Constitution in 2005, the percentage of registered voters participating dropped to 17.97 percent.


By contrast, the turnout in Iraq to adopt their constitution in October of 2005 was 63 percent. This was despite that fact that the newly-freed people of Iraq still risk their very lives to cast a vote. They face down bombs and bullets on election days, putting their faith in the long-term power of the ballot. One news report coming out of Iraq told of a 90 year-old woman in Basra who arrived to vote in the last election as a passenger in a wheel-barrow.


Our country was founded with representative government and free elections as central to our national identity. Simply put, this one particular freedom serves as an effective safeguard to help preserve all of the other ones.