father." The battles at Lexington, Concord and Ticonderoga preceded the
second meeting of Congress in May, 1775. Their plea for justice had
been spurned. The outlook was dark as midnight. These brave men
represented no government, they had no power to make laws, they had no
officers to execute them, they could not impose customs, they had no
army, they did not own a foot of land, they owed the use of their hall
to the courtesy of the artisans of Philadelphia. On the 12th of June
Congress made its first appeal to the people of twelve colonies, (
Georgia was not represented). It was a solemn call for the whole people
to observe one and the same day as a day of fasting and prayer "for the
restoration of the invaded rights of America and reconciliation with the
parent state." They who sought the protection of God knew that under
God they must protect themselves. All hearts turned to George
Washington, a delegate from Virginia, and he was unanimously chosen to
be commander-in-chief. When Congress met in July, 1776, the people had
been branded as traitors; the slaves of Virginia had been incited to
insurrection, the torch and tomahawk of the savage had been let loose on
frontier settlements, an army of foreign mercenaries had landed on their
shores, their ports were blockaded, an the army under Washington for
their defence only numbered 6,749 men. On the second day of July, 1776,
without one dissenting colony, the representatives of the thirteen
colonies resolved that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to
be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all
allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection
between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally
dissolved." Two days later Benjamin Harrison, the great-grandfather of
our present president, the chairman of the committee of the whole,
reported to Congress the form in which that resolution was to be
published to the world, and the reasons by which it was to be justified.
It was the work of Thomas Jefferson, then aged thirty-three, and never