Good activity for the 4th: Refresher on the Declaration of Independence

[KY_EnviroGuy]

Always healthy to read a refresher on any of the foundational documents of our Nation!

United States Declaration of Independence
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

(snip)

The resolution of independence was adopted with twelve affirmative votes and one abstention, and the colonies officially severed political ties with Great Britain. John Adams wrote to his wife on the following day and predicted that July 2 would become a great American holiday. He thought that the vote for independence would be commemorated; he did not foresee that Americans would instead celebrate Independence Day on the date when the announcement of that act was finalized.

I am apt to believe that [Independence Day] will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

Congress next turned its attention to the committee's draft of the declaration. They made a few changes in wording during several days of debate and deleted nearly a fourth of the text. The wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4, 1776 and sent to the printer for publication.

This idealized depiction of (left to right) Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson working on the Declaration was widely reprinted (by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, 1900)

I cleverly noted there are no phones or computers in the room!.... ......

KY..........

[PJMcK]

1. No typewriters, either

Pretty nifty clothes, though!

[PJMcK]

2. I also like the ship hanging from the ceiling! (n/t)

[BigmanPigman]

3. Poor guys were broiling in those layers of clothes.

95 and humid with closed windows (they didn't want anyone to overhear them).

[KY_EnviroGuy]

5. Obviously, they had yet to learn how to do comb-overs!

KY.........

[Karadeniz]

4. My great-whatever uncle, Thomas Nelson, signed it! Proud of him. He stood in for

Jefferson as gov of Virginia so Jefferson could be elsewhere. Sold all his slaves to help finance Yorktown resistance. I once read a book giving both sides of the revolution and the authors had only good things to say about Nelson 's governorship...I was pleased to read that.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

6. Quite a legacy to be proud of...

Good article on him in Wikipedia, too....

Thomas Nelson Jr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nelson_Jr.

(snip)

Thomas Nelson Jr. (December 26, 1738 – January 4, 1789) was an American planter, soldier, and statesman from Yorktown, Virginia. He represented Virginia in the Continental Congress and was its Governor in 1781. He is regarded as one of the U.S. Founding Fathers. He signed the Declaration of Independence as a member of the Virginia delegation and fought in the militia during the Siege of Yorktown.
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Nelson County, Virginia and Nelson County, Kentucky were named in his honor. The Virginia State Council for Higher Education named Thomas Nelson Community College in Thomas Nelson's honor in 1967. The Nelson County School District, which operates most of the public schools in the Kentucky county, opened the new Thomas Nelson High School in 2012.