George Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention while sitting in a chair with a 'Rising Sun' carved upon it. (The chair remains in Independence Hall.) Benjamin Franklin said as the last members were signing the Declaration of Independence, he looked back at the president's chair. "I have," said he, "often and often in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting sun; but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising sun......."

                                          

With happiness, I too look back at all those who lived and died that I might be a recipient of the rising sun that has shown over this land. May we as individuals, here today, have the same strength of character to stand firm against tyrants who see the sun as setting over our land of the free. 

God Bless America.