That was the title of a Fox News column I wrote three years ago. It's still appropriate:

It is instructive, and educational (particularly for those who haven't seen it since high-school civics class, if then) to read aloud Jefferson's work of genius, the Declaration of Independence. In so doing, we are reminded of the principles on which this country was founded, the offenses committed against our ancestors by the English king, and the reasons that we forged our own nation.

Note also that this is the 142nd anniversary of the Union victory at Gettysburg, and the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi, which gave the Union control of the Mississippi River and cut the Confederacy in half. It was the beginning of the end for the southern cause, and for better or worse, helped preserve the young nation that had begun (in Lincoln's words) four score and seven years before.

[Update at 10:40 AM EDT]

Professor Reynolds has some related thoughts.

Our family tradition is a formal reading of the Declaration, followed by watching 1776.

I posted the text en-blog for much the same reason.

The most memorable history lecture I ever sat through- came when a usual professor was out with an illness and they called in stodgy, old, retired ultra-conservative Dr. Wagner to substitute. He must have been pushing 80, and in his shakey, gravelly voice he challenged the class to "define revolution." Well, kids raised their hands and spouted off the usual.... 'uprising,' 'change,' 'going against the establishment,' 'replacement of leadership'....
Old Wagner took it all in and then calmly said, "No. I asked you to define revolution." He then drew a big circle on the blackboard, picked an arbitrary point, traced his chalk around the circle and back to the point where he drew an X. "There you have it. One revolution." He then went on for half an hour or so talking about the great patriots- the movers and shakers we know as 'the founding fathers,' and the miserable conditions colonists faced under English rule. Then he got back to 'revolution.' "Remember this," he said, "if you are going to plan a revolution- make sure it is only HALF a revolution (referring again to his circle) or you will end up right where you started." Pretty 'radical' stuff from a stodgy old conservative surrounded by young 'hippies' back in the '60's. I've never forgotten it.

229 years later, it would seem the American Revolution is complete. We have a convuluted "tax code" so full of loopholes that most very wealthy pay little or nothing while common laborers must support the government. We have a Supreme Court that has ruled your property can be taken for the commercial gain of those with more wealth than you. We have a law enforcement system so plagued with paranoia that they can pretty much break into your house and arrest you in the middle of the night with only mild suspicion as grounds. We have a network that can locate any law-abiding US citizen in a matter of minutes, but cannot find a dangerous terrorist half a world away living in a cave.

Too bad we could not have held that noble Revolution at the half-way point.