Next year, we will celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence – America’s 250^th birthday! When our Founding Fathers wrote that incredible document, they were in a war for their Freedom against Great Britain, the strongest military in the world at the time. They didn’t know that they would win – in fact, they knew that they might lose. So at the end of the document, they pledged “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” to support the principles that the Declaration stood for.

At that signing, Benjamin Franklin famously said, “we must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately.” Our Founding Fathers knew how far they were willing to go to establish a constitutional republic built on Freedom and independence.

Every November, we as Americans have the opportunity to vote as part of this constitutional republic. We vote for local, state, and federal officials – we often vote on ballot measures that impact our lives and the lives of those around us. As the Declaration of Independence says, these votes provide the “consent of the governed” on which our entire government is built.

I think our South Dakota motto says it best: “Under God, the People Rule.”

And that system is only possible if we vote. We cannot take it for granted that those around us will vote for us. We have been blessed with Freedom, and the flip side of that coin is personal responsibility to participate in our government.

Election Day is coming up on November 5, and early voting has been open for a couple weeks already. I am asking all of you to get out, do your part, and vote.

As President Reagan famously said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

We all have an opportunity to pass down Freedom to our kids and grandkids – but only if we participate and vote. We aren’t being asked to pledge “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,” but we should be willing to do our part to defend this great nation that we are so blessed to live in.

Get out and VOTE!