Ken Burns

It's all individual and independent, right?

We're all citizens.

We've got that great special privilege.

What I've done every year,

is, with maybe one or two exceptions over the last 40 years, is at our lake cottage, I get out on the front porch, and before I let anybody eat, I read them the Declaration of Independence.

And it ends with, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

And, you know,

George Washington was probably the richest person in America or one of the richest at the time of the revolution, certainly before he was.

And he risked everything, his life and his fortune and his sacred honor.

We make a joke now of Washington slept here, but he spent between when he was named the head of the Continental Army, not the East Coast Army, but Continental.

We knew where we were going.

by the Continental Congress.

We knew where we were going in the early summer of 75.

He gets back to Mount Vernon for four nights.

He comes back to Mount Vernon in December of 1783.

And this is an idea that's never been tested.

Now we've tested it for 250 years.

And could you imagine somebody in the top 100 risking their lives?

their fortunes and their sacred honor for something as important as our founding.

And so that's what the celebration of 215.