Two hundred forty years since the Declaration of Independence - World Socialist Web Site
▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/07/04/pers-j04.html
Two hundred forty years since the Declaration of Independence
4 July 2016
Two hundred and forty years ago today, representatives of the thirteen colonies that would form the United States of America signed the Declaration of Independence proclaiming their separation from the British Empire and monarchy. This action was, as the Declaration’s principal author, Thomas Jefferson, would write fifty years later, the “signal of arousing men to burst [their] chains... [T]he mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.”