by Dean Bowen, America Outloud:

We have much to celebrate in this country. America is filled with a rich history of perseverance, hope, and a desire for liberty and self-governance. On December 21, 1620, the pilgrims came ashore in Massachusetts, and legend has it they set foot on a granite boulder they called Plymouth Rock.
One hundred fifty years later, John Adams acknowledged in his Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law the driving force behind their perseverance and hope: “Recollect the civil and religious principles and hopes and expectations which constantly supported and carried them through all hardships with patience and resignation. Let us recollect it was liberty, the hope of liberty, for themselves and us and ours, which conquered all discouragement, dangers, and trials.”