Were men greater on the average then than now? Would Speaker Clark and Senator Lodge of Massachusetts, and Senator Beveridge bulk as big as Patrick Henry and Sam Adams and John Dickinson, if revolution broke out now? “These are the times that try men’s souls,” said Tom Paine, and it was also a time that made men’s souls! The one indispensable man in the Revolution was George Washington; for there was no other in the colonies who was so central, so immovable, a force. But the Revolution would also have failed but for Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, and the other civilians who built up the new government.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
THOMAS JEFFERSON
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
THE SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
From the painting by John Trumbull.
