Front:
Commemorating
DERIVING THEIR IO
JUST POWERS
FROM THE CONSENT
OFTHE GOVERNED
Declaration of Independence_1776
Bicentennial Era
FIR
ĮST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
1774
SPIRIT
OF
PHIA,
76
JUL
1974
wacraocu.
1974 Series
Heetwood
AMERICAN REVOLUTION
BICENTENNIAL
philodelphia
OFFICIAL First Day Cover
PHILADELPHIA'76
PA
INOMAS JEFFERSON, PATRIOT
Back:
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Patriot
It was Jefferson, who as chairman of the committee who prepared the
Declaration of Independence, wrote and presented the first draft of the
Declaration to Congress (on July 2, 1776). Jefferson set forth the fun-
damental tenant of the Revolution, an idea which the Colonists had
successfully tried to convey to Parliament and to the King for years: That
is, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers
from the consent of the governed.” Until July 4, 1776, though, many
Americans refused to accept the obvious conclusion to that basic premise:
namely “That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of
these ends (Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness), it is the Right of
the People to alter or to abolish it (the Government)...”
