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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)
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