Two hundred and forty-nine years ago, 56 men met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia to commit treason against the most powerful empire on Earth. Representing 13 colonies of that empire, these men – a mix of landowners, entrepreneurs, politicians and others – had become enamored with a new set of ideas flowing from enlightenment thinkers and Christian teaching.Those convictions led them to start a war no sane person believed they could win.Remember what government looked like back then.
We now live in the world those 56 men created – a world in which even dictatorships like North Korea cloak themselves in the language of "republic." Detail of John Trumbull's painting, "Declaration of Independence," which depicts the five-man drafting committee of the Declaration presenting their work to the Congress.("Declaration of Independence" - detail of the painting by John Trumbell)But in 1776, freedom, equality and self-governance were nascent concepts espoused by philosophers and adopted only incompletely in a few small enclaves.
The vast majority of countries in the world were hereditary monarchies and empires under which equal rights and individual liberty were not contemplated.The Founders’ fight seemed incomprehensible.UNCANCEL THE MINUTEMEN: CELEBRATE LEXINGTON AND CONCORD HEROES, BLACK AND WHITE, ON BATTLE'S 250TH ANNIVERSARYIn launching it, the Second Continental Congress largely tasked one man – Thomas Jefferson – with drafting the document that would articulate their vision for humanity and this new country and reshape history.Imagine how he must have felt.
Jefferson secluded himself from June 11 to June 28 in a rented home on Market Street to draft the document.He was 33 years old at the time.
In isolation in that rented townhome he drafted what I think is one of the most beautiful passages in history:We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable...