It is difficult to recapture the intensity of excitement felt by Americans in 1776 over the prospect of forming new republican governments. It is a work,
said Thomas Jefferson, of the most interesting nature and such as every individual would wish to have his voice in.
Even the business of the Continental Congress was stifled because so many delegates — including Jefferson — left for home to take part in the paramount activity of erecting the new state governments. Constitutions,
remarked Francis Lightfoot Lee, employ every pen.
... Nothing — not the creation of [the] confederacy, not the Continental Congress, not the war, not the French alliance — in the years surrounding the Declaration of Independence engaged the interests of Americans more that the framing of these governments.
Gallery
American Artists | 6 albums
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Works by John Singleton Copley American Painter, 1738—1815 » view » |
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Works by Charles Willson Peale American Painter, 1741—1827 » view » |
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Works by Rembrandt Peale American Painter, 1778—1860 » view » |
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Works by Gilbert Stuart American Painter, 1755—1828 » view » |
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Works by John Trumbull American Painter, 1756—1843 » view » |
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Other American Artists Mather Brown • Ralph Earl • James Peale • Charles Peale Polk • William Rush • Edward Savage • Thomas Sully • John Vanderlyn • Benjamin West • Other American Works » view » |
European Artists | 8 albums
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Works by Antonio Canova Italian Sculptor, 1757—1822 » view » |
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Works by Giuseppe Ceracchi Italian Sculptor, 1751—1801 » view » |
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Works by Thomas Gainsborough English Portrait and Landscape Painter, 1727—88 » view » |
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Works by Jean-Antoine Houdon French Sculptor, 1741—1828 » view » |
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Works by Robert Edge Pine English Painter, 1730—88 » view » |
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Works by Joshua Reynolds English Portrait Painter, 1723—92 » view » |
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Works by James Sharples & Family English Painters — James (c. 1751—1811); Ellen (1769—1849); James Jr. (c. 1788—1839) » view » |
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Works by John Wollaston English Portrait Painter, c. 1710—c. 1775 » view » |
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Other European Artists Portraits of Americans, British, French, Germans, and Spanish » view » |