[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 147 (Friday, November 16, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1792]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         RECOGNIZING THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF STOCKTON GURDWARA

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. TOM McCLINTOCK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, November 16, 2012

  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, this is the story of a small group of 
families who long ago crossed a great ocean in search of religious 
tolerance and economic liberty; a land where people were free to enjoy 
the fruit of their own labor, to raise their children according to 
their own values, to practice their religious beliefs openly, to 
express their opinions without fear of retribution, to live their lives 
according to their own best judgment, and not according to the whims 
and mandates of the powerful.
  That is the story of the pilgrims who crossed the Atlantic Ocean on 
the Mayflower in 1620 seeking a better future in a free land for their 
descendants. It is the very same story of pilgrims like Baba Vasakha 
Singh and Baba Jawala Singh Thathian who founded the Stockton Gurdwara 
Sahib a century ago, and all those who have followed since.
  One hundred and fifty years ago, Abraham Lincoln said that although 
many people who were then in America could trace their families back to 
the American founding, many more had come since then, and could not. 
But, he said, ``when they look through that old Declaration of 
Independence they find that those old men say that `We hold these 
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,' and then 
they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their 
relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in 
them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood 
of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that 
Declaration, and so they are.''
  There is no religion more attuned to the principles of the American 
Declaration of Independence than the Sikh religion.
  Both reject the idea of aristocracy and social class and instead 
judge every individual on his or her own merit and character.
  Both embrace the unique notion that we are born with equal claim to 
unalienable rights that come directly from the ``laws of nature and of 
nature's God,'' and not from government--rather, we create governments 
to protect these God-given rights and that whenever any form of 
government becomes destructive of these rights, it renounces its 
legitimacy.
  And both have inspired and animated the aspirations of those around 
the world seeking to reclaim, protect and enjoy these God-given rights.
  Individual liberty, personal responsibility, Constitutionally limited 
government--these are fundamental both to the Sikh Religion and to the 
American Founding.
  Today, we celebrate not only a century of Sikh immigration and 
integration into America, together, we celebrate the immortal 
inscription on the American Liberty Bell, to ``Proclaim Liberty 
Throughout ALL the Land, and Unto ALL the INHABITANTS Thereof.''

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