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10. E Pluribus Unum

From the Stamp Act Congress to the Declaration: the committees, congresses and pamphlets through which thirteen colonies learned to act as one.

10. E Pluribus Unum

Artist John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence memorializes individuals who were engaged in the process of declaring independence rather than an actual eve…

10a. Stamp Act Congress

"No taxation without representation!" was the cry. The colonists were not merely griping about the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act. They intended to place actions…

10b. Sons and Daughters of Liberty

Royal Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson They were the ones who were not afraid. They knew instinctively that talk and politics alone would not bring an…

10c. Committees of Correspondence

Copy of Broadside from Boston, Massachusetts, 1775 Volumes and volumes of written work was emerging in the American colonies on the subject of British policies…

10d. First Continental Congress

What do you do if you fail as a storekeeper and farmer? Become a lawyer! That's what Patrick Henry did. By the time he became a member of the First Continental…

10e. Second Continental Congress

Manuscript Division, Library of CongressThis rough draft of the Declaration of Independence was handwritten by Thomas Jefferson. It is believed that it was cop…

10f. Thomas Paine's Common Sense

Thomas Paine Americans could not break their ties with Britain easily. Despite all the recent hardships, the majority of colonists since birth were reared to b…

10g. The Declaration of Independence

One of twenty-four surviving copies of the first printing of the Declaration of Independence done by Philadelphia printer John Dunlap in the evening of July 4…