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Please read the Wikipedia entry on the Declaration of Independence and answer the following questions:

1. When was the Declaration adopted by the Second Continental Congress?
2. Which version of the Declaration is regarded as THE Declaration of Independence?
3. What is one of the best-known sentences in the English language?
4. Which American president considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his political philosophy?
5. What events began the deterioration of British-American relations?
6. What reason did colonists give that  Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them?
7. If Thomas Paine’s Common Sense “probably had little direct effect on Congress’s thinking about independence,” then why is it still important?
8. Who was chosen to write the first draft?
9. Why did John Dickinson make an effort to delay the decision, arguing that Congress should not declare independence?
10. What does the line “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation” in the Declaration mean?
11. What are 10 grievances against the King that the Declaration lists?
12. What does the final section of the Declaration argue?
13. What/who influenced the content of the Declaration?
14. What were the ages of the oldest and youngest signers of the Declaration?
15. What legendary line did Benjamin Franklin supposedly utter after the signing of the Declaration?
16. After hearing the Declaration, what did crowds in many cities do?
17. What major argument did John Lind and Thomas Hutchinson have against the Declaration?
18. Where is the Declaration of Independence kept today?
19. Why did Southerners attack the Declaration’s “self-evident lie”  in the years previous to the Civil War?
20. Why do you think Lincoln thought the Declaration of Independence expressed the highest principles of the American Revolution? What was his motive?

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