{"id":3122,"date":"2026-07-02T04:11:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T04:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122"},"modified":"2026-07-02T04:11:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T04:11:17","slug":"americas-greatest-piece-of-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s greatest piece of writing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A blanket of muggy heat hung over the city, a sign that the seasons were shifting, when a striking, if awkward, young man arrived in Philadelphia. Stepping off a coach on May 14, 1776, he stood above six feet, two inches tall, lanky and broad-shouldered, with reddish hair and a soft-spoken manner that could verge on unease. <\/p>\n

Read more How Trump made an estimated $2.2 billion since returning to office<\/a><\/p>\n

After several months back home in Virginia nursing his dying mother and battling migraines of his own, he wasn\u2019t thrilled to return to the provisional capital of England\u2019s colonies in North America. But as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Thomas Jefferson understood where he was needed.<\/p>\n

Though he rarely spoke before Congress, Jefferson attended sessions six days a week, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Afterward, he often dined on ale and pork scrapple with fellow delegates at City Tavern. <\/p>\n

Though busy with committee duties and drafting the constitution of the Virginia Commonwealth, he still found time for shopping trips, like buying paper, books and new violin strings for himself, or a doll for his young daughter. She and his wife, Martha, were at Monticello, the plantation he had inherited from his father, while he tolerated cramped quarters in a cabinetmaker\u2019s home. Such was the gravity of the times.<\/p>\n

Barely 33 years old, Jefferson was already known as a gifted writer. Trained as a lawyer and drawn to poetry, he was a lifelong student who devoured books and practiced the violin with equal discipline. His 1774 pamphlet \u201cA Summary View of the Rights of British America,\u201d which argued that the crown had no legal or moral right to rule here, had reverberated from New York to London, even though Congress had declined to adopt the document. <\/p>\n

\u201cLet those flatter who fear; it is not an American art,\u201d he wrote. \u201cKings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The independence movement was surging. On June 7, Congress scheduled a vote to that effect and assigned a \u201ccommittee of five\u201d to draft a supporting statement, in the event the \u201cyeas\u201d should carry. But somebody had to be the author. <\/p>\n

Benjamin Franklin, afflicted by gout, was unable. John Adams, the most vocal advocate, deferred to Jefferson, insisting that the Southerner who was respected in Congress and had \u201ca masterly pen\u201d should take the lead. The task was to justify secession and help secure foreign support, but Jefferson was even more ambitious. <\/p>\n

He set out to write a piece of literature that would define a nation.<\/p>\n

Age of reason<\/h3>\n

Jefferson was, among many other things, a product of the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that had reshaped science, philosophy and the arts across Europe and its colonies. <\/p>\n

In 1687, Isaac Newton published \u201cPrincipia Mathematica,\u201d which defined the universe as governed by measurable laws. Two years later, John Locke argued in an \u201cEssay Concerning Human Understanding\u201d that the mind began as a \u201cblank slate,\u201d to be shaped by experience. Later, in his \u201cSecond Treatise of Government,\u201d Locke introduced an even more radical claim: that all people possessed natural rights which no ruler could take away.<\/p>\n

Together, ideas like these questioned common beliefs about the structure of society and the political order that ruled it. They pointed toward a new order, free of monarchy, rooted in reason and self-government. These notions spread quickly, crossing the Atlantic in books, pamphlets and newspapers, accelerated by advances in printing and rising literacy. <\/p>\n

Artists also challenged convention, trading Baroque exuberance for Neoclassical symmetry. Composers like Mozart tried to reach wider audiences with shorter melodies. And writers adopted Augustan wit and satire, including the \u201cmock-heroic,\u201d a form that applied conventions of epic poetry to trivial themes. <\/p>\n

Jefferson came of age amid this cultural shift. After boarding school, he entered the College of William and Mary at 16, where he received the broad education that Locke had championed. Mentors like the Scottish professor William Small introduced him to Enlightenment philosophy, while the jurist George Wythe trained him in law over five years of study. <\/p>\n

In 1771, Jefferson described his ideal \u201cgentlemen\u2019s library\u201d in a letter, listing hundreds of volumes \u2014 from Homer and Shakespeare to botany and ancient history \u2014 reflecting both his curiosity and the spirit of his time. <\/p>\n

By 1776, Enlightenment ideas had permeated colonial life. That January, Thomas Paine distilled many of them into plain language in \u201cCommon Sense,\u201d a 47-page pamphlet that made the case for independence. More than 120,000 copies were sold within months. <\/p>\n

Across the Colonies, assemblies began issuing resolutions of their own, urging independence. First among them was the Virginia Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason. <\/p>\n

Jefferson encountered a committee draft of that document in the Pennsylvania Evening Post just a few days before he got his most important commission. Along with his own work on Virginia\u2019s constitution, it would become an important model for what he was about to write.<\/p>\n

Jefferson at work<\/h3>\n

After his morning ritual \u2014 soaking his feet in cold water, then getting a shave from his barber \u2014 Jefferson got to work. His portable writing box, carved from mahogany by his cabinetmaker landlord, unfolded into a compact desk with a slanted surface and compartments for paper and quills. <\/p>\n

Sitting in his Windsor armchair, its comb back lined with dark wooden spindles, he dipped his quill in a small inkpot and drafted even lines, his cursive tidy and unhurried. \u201cWhen in the Course of human events,\u201d he began, writing daily in the hours before Congress convened.<\/p>\n

Frustrated by the heat, Jefferson had moved into a newer brick house on the outskirts, renting two second-floor rooms overlooking an open field. Traveling without his library, he relied on memory, drawing among others on Locke\u2019s ideas about natural law and Mason\u2019s argument that \u201call men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights,\u201d which was in turn inspired by the Italian physician Philip Mazzei. As historian Pauline Maier wrote in \u201cAmerican Scripture,\u201d good writing in the 18th century lay in the \u201cimitations whose excellence exceeded that of the examples that inspired them.\u201d But the voice, structure and rhythm were Jefferson\u2019s own.<\/p>\n

To organize his argument, Jefferson turned to logic. At just over 1,300 words, the declaration unfolds in five parts: introduction, preamble, grievances, denunciation of the British crown and conclusion. Scholars often describe it as a syllogism, a deductive form that traces back to Aristotle. <\/p>\n

The preamble establishes the major premise, that \u201cwhenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.\u201d The grievances provide the minor premise, a catalogue of Britain\u2019s abuses. Independence follows as the natural conclusion. <\/p>\n

\n

It was the first document to call the United States into being and perhaps the first text ever to announce a people to themselves before they existed as one.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Like any compelling narrative, the declaration hinged on a turning point. \u201cTo prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world,\u201d Jefferson wrote, pivoting from abstraction to accusation. <\/p>\n

What follows is a relentless indictment of King George III, charges stacked in order of increasing drama: \u201cHe has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies\u201d; and \u201cHe has abdicated Government here\u201d; and \u201cHe has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.\u201d Opposite the monarch stands a collective \u201cus,\u201d a people wronged. <\/p>\n

In the original draft, the list culminated with a 168-word condemnation of the transatlantic slave trade. The king, Jefferson wrote, \u201chas waged cruel war\u201d against \u201ca distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere.\u201d <\/p>\n

Jefferson was aware of his hypocrisy. He kept 175 slaves, including at least six of his own children, products of his now-infamous union with Sally Hemings. Her brother served as his personal assistant. Slavery had shaped Jefferson\u2019s life and contributed to his family\u2019s wealth, but he knew in his bones that the practice was wrong and blamed the monarch for the corrupt economy it engendered.<\/p>\n

Jefferson appealed as much to moral conscience as to reason. He also shaped the document\u2019s emotional force in subtler ways, using pronouns to transform a complex political dispute into what communication scholar Stephen Lucas called \u201ca simple moral drama\u201d in his essay \u201cThe Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence,\u201d written for the National Archives in 1990. <\/p>\n

By Jefferson\u2019s final paragraphs, \u201cwe\u201d stand tall and assured in his prose. \u201cWe have warned them from time to time,\u201d he wrote, \u201cof attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.\u201d <\/p>\n

He was speaking not only for Congress, but for the people they represented. <\/p>\n

The final cut<\/h3>\n

On Friday, June 21, a package arrived at Benjamin Franklin\u2019s home. He lived in a three-story brick house set within a garden courtyard, a couple blocks from the Pennsylvania Statehouse, where the Continental Congress would meet. Inside, Franklin found Jefferson\u2019s draft, along with a brief note requesting edits from the Colonies\u2019 elder statesman. <\/p>\n

Franklin likely carried the pages into his first-floor study and spread them across a table cluttered with lenses, coils of wire and glass tubes, remnants of his electrical experiments. As he read, he marked revisions directly onto the manuscript, though that copy is lost. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s known of the committee\u2019s input comes largely from Jefferson\u2019s \u201cRough draught,\u201d a manuscript he kept, crowded with cross-outs, insertions and boxed phrases. Editing can be a grueling process, particularly for a writer who must now share ownership of his creation. <\/p>\n

Read more Jazz to sign former Lakers center Jaxson Hayes<\/a><\/p>\n

Edits strengthened the preamble\u2019s theological language, crediting universal rights to \u201ctheir creator\u201d rather than \u201cfrom that equal creation.\u201d The handwriting tells us that Adams changed \u201chis present majesty\u201d to \u201cthe present King of Great Britain,\u201d while Franklin is widely credited with switching \u201csacred and undeniable\u201d to \u201cself-evident.\u201d He also changed \u201cabsolute power\u201d to \u201cabsolute despotism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congress voted for independence on July 2. The next day, with horseflies buzzing in the sweltering Assembly Room, 56 delegates in starch-powdered wigs and silk stockings took their turn dissecting Jefferson\u2019s work. He might have preferred to call it a vivisection.<\/p>\n

Over two days, they made 39 changes, cutting or revising roughly a quarter of the committee\u2019s draft. Much of this pruning tightened the language, softened accusations or removed passages considered too divisive. Congress was determined to make the document as cohesive, and concise, as possible. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of like a cover letter,\u201d says University of Chicago English professor Eric Slauter. \u201cYou don\u2019t want it to go onto a second page.\u201d<\/p>\n

The author watched with growing dismay as his crowning accusation came up for debate. Many in the room, particularly Southern slaveholders like himself, were discomfited by his condemnation of slavery and the hypocrisy it brought to light. Others simply found his language too impassioned. They agreed to strike it. <\/p>\n

Jefferson was gutted. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think he really had a feeling that this is where the drama is,\u201d Slauter says. \u201cWhen they cut out (the final grievance), he feels like he\u2019s been robbed of his great dramatic prose.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its place, Congress inserted a charge that the king had \u201cexcited domestic insurrections amongst us,\u201d a veiled reference to widespread fears of slave rebellions in response to Lord Dunmore\u2019s 1775 proclamation offering freedom to any slaves who fought for the crown. They lumped that in with a brief but now-notorious complaint about Britain\u2019s recruitment of Native American fighters in the ongoing war. Different tribes and groups had fought on each side, but this instance of hypocrisy passed unnoticed. <\/p>\n

By this point, Jefferson was struggling to conceal his anger over these \u201cmutilations,\u201d as he would later describe them. Seated beside him, Franklin tried to console his friend with a story from his days as a printer. <\/p>\n

A hatter had once commissioned a sign reading \u201cJohn Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats \u2014 for ready money.\u201d As friends took turns suggesting edits, the wording was gradually pared down until only \u201cJohn Thompson\u201d remained. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have made it a rule,\u201d Franklin told his younger colleague, \u201cwhenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body.\u201d <\/p>\n

Spoken words<\/h3>\n

On the afternoon of July 4, Congress approved the final text. Local printer John Dunlap worked through the night to produce about 200 broadsides of the Declaration of Independence on large sheets of cotton-fiber paper set in crisp Caslon type. These were sent across the Colonies. <\/p>\n

The document was read to crowds outside the Statehouse \u2014 now called Independence Hall \u2014 and in town squares, taverns and military encampments. Its words were met with ringing bells, flaming effigies set ablaze and even a mock funeral for the now-former king in Savannah, Georgia. Often, the grievances struck deepest, giving voice to years of mounting resentment. <\/p>\n

Dunlap\u2019s broadsides preserved the visual structure of Jefferson\u2019s draft to sharpen their impact. Each complaint appeared on its own line, separated by generous spacing that guided a speaker\u2019s pacing so each phrase would land with a pause. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re stacking one on top of the other to create an edifice of grievance to build this case,\u201d says Zara Anishanslin, an art history professor at the University of Delaware and author of \u201cThe Painter\u2019s Fire.\u201d \u201cThat was Jefferson\u2019s idea. He was thinking like a lawyer.\u201d <\/p>\n

Yet Jefferson also wrote the declaration to be performed \u2014 closer to a speech, even a piece of music, than a legal brief. He blended Thomas Paine\u2019s plainspokenness with the more lyrical 18th-century \u201cstyle p\u00e9riodique,\u201d composing sentences clause by clause, building toward a final point. The opening paragraph \u2014 a single, sweeping sentence \u2014 gathers tension like a coiled spring. The preamble follows a similar arc.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo listen to it,\u201d Anishanslin says, \u201cwould have felt like you were listening to a piece of music that was swelling at the beginning and the end, and building in the middle with all these staccato bits.\u201d <\/p>\n

With rhythm and cadence as his guiding principles, he paid close attention to syllables, often arranging phrases in triads that resolve in sonorous endings like \u201cthe pursuit of happiness.\u201d He even marked the manuscript with small ticks to signal pauses for the reader (Dunlap initially mistook them for quotation marks). <\/p>\n

Of course, it was still a legal document. \u201cThere\u2019s a way to look at the declaration (as) a contract,\u201d says Pepperdine English professor Michael Ditmore, author of \u201cTexting the Nation.\u201d \u201cHowever you think you\u2019re going to read it, there\u2019s a commitment we all feel bound to.\u201d <\/p>\n

It also functions as what rhetoricians call a \u201cspeech act\u201d \u2014 language that brings the reality it names into existence. It was the first public document to call the United States of America into being \u2014 replacing \u201cthe United Colonies\u201d \u2014 and perhaps the first text ever to announce a people to themselves before they fully existed as one. <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a way to look at the declaration as a contract. However you think you\u2019re going to read it, there\u2019s a commitment we all feel bound to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Unity was crucial, and Jefferson walked the line. He hand-copied the committee\u2019s draft and sent it to at least four friends, but that was his only effort to preserve his masterpiece. For all the fervor that greeted the declaration that summer, it receded from public attention after his new country won its independence, treated as a wartime congressional document. <\/p>\n

Republicans would later embrace it in their debates against Federalists, and early abolitionists would draw power from its language even as they exposed its contradictions. But for decades, few Americans even knew Jefferson was its author. <\/p>\n

A nation\u2019s blueprint<\/h3>\n

Paris was burning in 1789, and Jefferson was there to see another revolution unfold, inspired in part by his own ideas. In his fifth year as his young country\u2019s minister to France, around the time the Bastille was stormed, he received a letter from a group of Americans who also lived in Paris, including the poet Joel Barlow. <\/p>\n

They had celebrated the Fourth of July in writing, thanking the man \u201cwhose dignity, energy and elegance of thought added a peculiar lustre to that declaratory act which announced to the world the existence of an empire.\u201d Jefferson saved the letter. <\/p>\n

He returned often to questions of authorship in his correspondence, grappling with a dilemma familiar to any writer. What becomes of a text once it passes out of the author\u2019s hands? <\/p>\n

His seminal piece has traveled far, resurfacing in movements from Seneca Falls and the fight for women\u2019s suffrage to independence movements around the globe. Today, it is revered for its political and moral ideals but often overlooked as a feat of writing. Yet it was Jefferson\u2019s literary ingenuity \u2014 his ability to absorb ideas and recast them into language that felt urgent and riveting \u2014 that gave shape to those ideals.<\/p>\n

With the declaration, Jefferson inspired a new literary tradition. His language rippled into the imaginations of writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, each breaking from European models in search of a distinctly American voice. <\/p>\n

He also inspired a national rhetoric grounded in the belief that the written word, once spoken, could move history. Two of America\u2019s greatest orators, Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., returned to the declaration in their most famous works. Both treated Jefferson\u2019s words the way we treat the most enduring works of literature, as living texts that continue to speak long after their moment has passed.<\/p>\n

Jefferson also served as America\u2019s third president, but that title does not appear on his gravestone. In 1825, a year before his death, he left instructions for his epitaph in a letter, specifying how \u201cI wish most to be remembered.\u201d <\/p>\n

The first line: \u201cAuthor of the Declaration of American Independence.\u201d He was rightly proud, but a letter he wrote that same year reveals a man who did not put himself above his people. Writing the declaration, he explained, wasn\u2019t an act of creativity or even emulation. <\/p>\n

Rather, it was \u201can expression of the American mind.\u201d <\/p>\n

This story appears in the July\/August 2026 issue of <\/i>Deseret Magazine<\/i> under the headline \u201cJefferson\u2019s version.\u201d<\/i> Learn more about how to subscribe<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Read more Jesus Christ meets people where and as they are, President Freeman teaches at MTC<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why was the Declaration of Independence so important? How did it become one of history\u2019s most enduring symbols?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine"],"yoast_head":"\nAmerica\u2019s greatest piece of writing - American Movers Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"America\u2019s greatest piece of writing - American Movers Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Why was the Declaration of Independence so important? How did it become one of history\u2019s most enduring symbols?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Movers Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-02T04:11:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"15 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b68c8483906c0d2987f271455f0177af\"},\"headline\":\"America\u2019s greatest piece of writing\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-02T04:11:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122\"},\"wordCount\":3069,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/8a6339603ec8077bf802fe19e9042d22.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Magazine\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122\",\"name\":\"America\u2019s greatest piece of writing - American Movers Hub\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/8a6339603ec8077bf802fe19e9042d22.avif\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-02T04:11:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b68c8483906c0d2987f271455f0177af\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/8a6339603ec8077bf802fe19e9042d22.avif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/8a6339603ec8077bf802fe19e9042d22.avif\",\"width\":630,\"height\":331},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3122#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"America\u2019s greatest piece of writing\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"American Movers Hub\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b68c8483906c0d2987f271455f0177af\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"America\u2019s greatest piece of writing - American Movers Hub","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"America\u2019s greatest piece of writing - American Movers Hub","og_description":"Why was the Declaration of Independence so important? How did it become one of history\u2019s most enduring symbols?","og_url":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122","og_site_name":"American Movers Hub","article_published_time":"2026-07-02T04:11:17+00:00","author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"15 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b68c8483906c0d2987f271455f0177af"},"headline":"America\u2019s greatest piece of writing","datePublished":"2026-07-02T04:11:17+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122"},"wordCount":3069,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/8a6339603ec8077bf802fe19e9042d22.avif","articleSection":["Magazine"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122","url":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122","name":"America\u2019s greatest piece of writing - American Movers Hub","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/8a6339603ec8077bf802fe19e9042d22.avif","datePublished":"2026-07-02T04:11:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b68c8483906c0d2987f271455f0177af"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/8a6339603ec8077bf802fe19e9042d22.avif","contentUrl":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/8a6339603ec8077bf802fe19e9042d22.avif","width":630,"height":331},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3122#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"America\u2019s greatest piece of writing"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/","name":"American Movers Hub","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b68c8483906c0d2987f271455f0177af","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/americanmovershub.com"],"url":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}