American scripture
Subtitle: making the Declaration of Independence
By: Pauline Maier
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Knopf; Distributed by Random House, Inc.
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 304
Subjects: Politics and government; United States
Description: Pauline Maier shows us the Declaration as both the defining statement of our national identity and the moral standard by which we live as a nation. It is truly "American Scripture," and Maier tells us how it came to be - from the Declaration's birth in the hard and tortuous struggle by which Americans arrived at Independence to the ways in which, in the nineteenth century, the document itself became sanctified.

Maier describes the transformation of the Second Continental Congress into a national government, unlike anything that preceded or followed it, and with more authority than the colonists would ever have conceded to the British Parliament; the great difficulty in making the decision for Independence; the influence of Paine's Common Sense, which shifted the terms of debate; and the political maneuvers that allowed Congress to make the momentous decision.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [243]-285) and index.