By Patricia L Johnson and Richard E Walrath
If we made the statement that the majority of U.S. Citizens are familiar with the Declaration of Independence most folks would consider that an accurate statement, but is it true? Let’s take a trip back in time and find out.
The Second Continental Congress created a five-member committee on June 11, 1776 to complete the task of composing the declaration, declaring that the Thirteen Colonies in North America no longer belonged to Great Britain, but were independent states. The committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman.
The committee chose thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson to compose the draft. Thomas Jefferson completed the draft, but prior to submitting to the full committee he sent it separately to Dr. Benjamin Franklin and Mr. John Adams requesting corrections.The revised copy was sent to Congress on June 28, 1776. Even though there are six copies of the draft, there is only one “original rough draft” with edits by Franklin, Adams and Congress and it is located in the Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress. The Declaration of Independence was ratified on July 4, 1776.
Although the document is fairly legible, Thomas Jefferson’s handwriting does leave a bit to be desired; therefore on July 19, 1776, Congress ordered the document to be formally handwritten on parchment and the title changed to The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.
Timothy Matlack, assistant to Charles Thomson, engrossed [formally handwrote] the document and on August 2, 1776 most members of the Continental Congress met in Independence Hall and the document was signed and is on display at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington D.C.
One of the most important documents related to the history of the United States had to be re-written by someone with better penmanship than the originator, and yet our country has chosen in the last decade or two to place handwriting on a back burner due to cursive no longer being taught in many of our schools. Our forefathers took tremendous pride in their work on the Declaration and if you look at it closely you can see the pride Timothy Matlack took in writing each word in the Declaration with perfect penmanship.
Is not teaching writing a grand plot to subjugate the rest of us? Has cursive just been eliminated from the poor and middle class schools or has it also been deleted from the schools wealthy children attend? Will the new crop of doctors, lawyers and judges be able to sign their name in cursive, or will everyone’s signature now become the letter X?
The future of the United States is not in the hands of our politicians, it’s in the hands of the children in this country and their education will determine how successful we are in the future. The 3 r’s of Education are Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Do you want your children to learn the basics or are you willing to ignore what is going on in schools and allow the politicians to place learning emphasis on critical race theory, woke culture, or sexism, etc.
The United States came in 21st in a 2022 US News ranking of countries with the most educated population. That’s 21st out of the 85 countries in the survey. While education is our future, politics is our downfall.
What has happened to a country where a former President can demand his followers protest the fact that he may be arrested for allegedly breaking the law of the land? On the other end of the spectrum we have Florida House Bill 1069 which, if passed, will restrict 4th and 5th grade girls from talking about their menstrual cycle. Do they also have a bill in place to restrict 4th and 5th grade boys from talking about whose penis is bigger?
Have we completely lost our way as a country or is this truly a concerted effort, that has been planned for a decade or more, to do whatever can be done to tear the citizens in this country apart for the sole purpose of dumbing-down the population in order to exploit our unrest and dominate our thoughts and feelings?
Our future is at stake. If you truly care about your country, find out what your students are being taught in school and if it’s not an education that includes the 3 r’s, and will benefit both the student and our country in the future, protest their teachings.
© 2023 Patricia L Johnson and Richard E Walrath
Richard E Walrath is a former Ohio State Budget Analyst currently residing in Central Ohio. Patricia L Johnson is a former special assignment writer/photographer.
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