The Durango Choral Society, under the direction of Linda Mack Berven, performs "The Testament of Freedom" by Randall Thompson on May 17, 2019 at St. Columba Catholic Church in Durango, Colorado. Christi Livingston, piano. Text by Thomas Jefferson. First performed April 13, 1943; published in 1944.
00:15 I. The God Who Gave Us Life
03:40 II. We Have Counted the Cost
10:04 III. We Fight Not for Glory
14:52 IV. I Shall Not Die Without a Hope
00:15 I. The God Who Gave Us Life
"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them." From "A Summary View of the Rights of British America" (1774)
03:40 II. We Have Counted the Cost
"We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. Honor, justice, and humanity forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.
"Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great. . . . We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the Divine favor towards us, that His Providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation, and possessed of the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves."
From "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms" (July 6, 1775)
10:04 III. We Fight Not for Glory
"We fight not for glory or for conquest. We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of offense. They boast of their privileges and civilization, and yet proffer no milder conditions than servitude or death.
"In our native land, in defense of the freedom that is our birthright and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it; for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our forefathers and ourselves; against violence actually offered; we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before."
From "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms" (July 6, 1775)
14:52 IV. I Shall Not Die Without a Hope
"I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance... And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them...The flames kindled on the 4th of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them."
From a letter by Thomas Jefferson (at Monticello) to John Adams on September 12, 1821.
"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them."