Today is Independence Day. Commentaries on the occasion often focus on the Declaration of Independence, its principal author, Thomas Jefferson, and other delegates, such as John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, to the 1776 convention in Philadelphia that adopted the Declaration. But the contributions of one man - who wasn't in Philadelphia - were essential to giving it meaning and force. That man was George Washington.
Thomas Jefferson in an 1825 letter to Richard Henry Lee wrote
This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before, but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, not yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All it’s [sic] authority rests on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, & c.
