Vignettes of Americana

Front:
Vignettes of Americana issucd for the new Postage Rates 1975 United States 13c United States 13c NOV, 15 FIRST DAY OF ISSUE 1975 19104 With faith in Divine Providence Patriots declared the Colonies Free at Independence Hall, Philadelphia 1776 ficial First Day Cover PHIA, PA

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Fleetwood 13c AMERICAN FLAG Coil Issue At its first session in the autumn of 1774, the Continental independence, it befell to Thomas Jefferson to write it. Congress met in Philadelphia's Carpenters' Hall in order Sequestering himself, he “turned to neither book nor to reclaim Colonial rights being increasingly eroded by pamphlet while writing it,” and composed the audacious England's repressive rules. The delegates were, for the Declaration of Independence. John Trumbull (1756- most part, moderate men, at first striving only for an 1843), famous patriot and painter of Revolutionary War accommodation with the mother country. Their first scenes, painted his The Declaration of Independence session produced little more than petitions to the Crown. between 1789 and 1794. It depicts most, but not all, of the However, when their second session convened in men who signed that memorable document. Although the Independence Hall close on the heels of the Battles of painting captures no particular moment in time, it Lexington and Concord, the groundswell for in represents the presentation of the Declaration to the dependence was gaining momentum. When Congress President of the Congress, John Hancock, by Thomas appointed a committee of five to draft a declaration of Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and others.