we are certainly indebted to those who think our revolution worthy of their pen, and who will do justice to our actions and motives.

a nation united can never be conquered.

Another of our friends of 76. is gone, my dear Sir, another of the Co-signers of the independance of our country. and a better man, than Rush, could not have left us, more benevolent, more learned, of finer genius, or more honest. we too must go; and that ere long.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

we have acted together from the origin to the end of a memorable revolution, and we have contributed, each in the line allotted us, our endeavors to render it’s issue a permanent blessing to our country.

Our revolution commenced on more favorable ground. it presented us an Album on which we were free to write what we pleased. we had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up Royal parchments, or to investigate the laws & institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. we appealed to...

I turned to neither book or pamphlet while writing it. I did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether & to offer no sentiment which had ever been expressed before.

the committee of 5. met ... they unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee, I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and mr Adams requesting their corrections; because they were the two members of whose...

and even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. in short, the flames kindled on the 4th of July 1776. have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the...

before the establishment of the American states, nothing was known to History but the Man of the old world, crouded within limits either small or overcharged, and steeped in the vices which that situation generates.