Two hundred and fifty years ago this week...
... the whole world was about to get rocked!
In late June of 1776, a 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson was holed up in his rented rooms at Seventh and Market Streets in Philadelphia, toiling away on the draft of a fiery and courageous document which would soon declare American independence from the tyranny of British crown rule.
It took him approximately three weeks and a number of consultations and revisions. According to the National Park Service,
On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress entrusted a committee of five delegates (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman) with composing the Declaration of Independence. The committee chose thirty-three year old Thomas Jefferson to draft what he called an expression of “the American mind.” Though he “turned to neither book or pamphlet,” Jefferson relied on his knowledge of philosophy as well as the sentiments of the Virginia Constitution, the Declaration of Rights and Richard Henry Lee’s resolution proposed to Congress on June 7. Jefferson later recalled, “I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections.” The revised copy was submitted to Congress on June 28, 1776.
And in just over a week from now, we’ll celebrate a quarter of a millennium of that grand, earth-shaking, life-affirming document -- and the legacy of the 56 men who, on pain of treason to the Crown, risked their “lives, fortunes, and sacred Honor” to declare themselves and their posterity (that’s us!) a new, free nation.
This aspect of our American history inspires me (and rends my heart) so very deeply... because it is an expression of my American mind. It’s why I’ve dedicated bits of Jefferson’s deathless document as titles for the thirteen chapters of Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July.
And our young protagonists in the book end up declaring independence too, in their own spirited manner (actually, in several different ways!). So I included the Declaration’s full text -- including the list of signers -- as the book’s Appendix.
How about you? Does the Declaration of Independence express your highest ideals too?
Are you ready?
Will you declare your independence on America’s 250th birthday?
Will you stand up for liberty?
Will you celebrate the full meaning of July 4, 2026?
As Benjamin Franklin might or might not have quipped at the Declaration’s signing, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”