FROM THE PAINTING BY JOHN TRUMBULL. ORIGINAL IN THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON, D. C.
SIGNING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
The Declaration of Independence is here reproduced in miniature—not for reading purposes; that would be too severe a tax on the eyesight—but simply to show the form and style of the historic Document. The original of this Document is preserved in the Department of State, Washington, carefully protected against light and air.
As may be seen, the Declaration bears the date July 4, 1776, and this is accepted as the Birthday of Independence. On July 3rd and 4th the Declaration was debated and the convention voted in favor of it, and authorized the presiding officer, John Hancock, and the secretary, Charles Thomson, to sign the Document. There was no single hour during which all signed. It was a matter of weeks. All came to it finally, for, as Benjamin Franklin shrewdly observed, “We must all hang together, or else we shall all hang separately.”
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 6, No. 10, SERIAL No. 158
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
