(I meant to post this on the 4th, but was traveling and forgot… – Bob)
The tides were shifting in the founding era that brought forth our nation in the Revolutionary Year of 1776.
On New Year’s Day, after a speech by King George III is read condemning the colonist’s rebellion, General Washington unfurls the new red-and-white striped Grand Union flag on Prospect Hill overlooking Boston Harbor. On January 9th, Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” is published. The machines of popular persuasion were revving up—the enterprise had begun.
As the American colonists contemplated severing their political ties with Mother England, a new vision of a people self-determining their own form of government was taking shape. Ameliorating the causes of oppression, tyranny and calamity opened the door to the American experiment.
The principles for separation were laid out in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.