Centennial Memorial of American Independence

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Date1873

Maker Joseph Leeds (active c.1873)

Publisher American Bank Note Company (American, active 1795 - 2020)

Subject George Washington (American, 1732 - 1799)

Subject John Adams (American, 1735 - 1826)

Subject Thomas Jefferson (American, 1743 - 1826)

Subject Charles Carrol (American, 1737 - 1832)

Subject Edward Rutledge (American, 1749 - 1800)

Subject Benjamin Franklin (American, 1706 - 1790)

Subject Patrick Henry (American, 1736 - 1799)

Subject Marquis de Lafayette (French, 1757 - 1834)

Subject Roger Sherman (American, 1721 - 1793)

Subject Lewis Morris (American, 1726 - 1798)

Subject Joseph Hewes (American, 1730 - 1779)

Subject Stephen Hopkins (American, 1707 - 1785)

Subject Josiah Bartlett (American, 1729 - 1795)

Subject John Witherspoon (American, 1723 - 1794)

Subject Lyman Hall (1724 - 1790)

Subject Thomas McKean (American, 1734 - 1817)

Subject Robert Morris (American, 1734 - 1806)

Subject James Otis Jr. (American, 1725 - 1783)

Geography Made - United States

Medium/TechniqueInk on paper; hand-colored engraving.

DimensionsOverall (H x W): 33 1/8 in. × 24 1/16 in. (84.14 cm × 61.14 cm) Plate (H x W): 32 in. x 23 in. (81.28 cm x 58.42 cm) Image (H x W): 29 1/2 in. × 23 in. (74.93 cm × 58.42 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley DeForest Scott, 1985

Object numberSC-179

DescriptionThis is an image of a memorial plaque dedicated to the centennial of the United States' independence. The plaque's main feature is an arch, which has decoration place on it and surrounding it. Topping the arch is a bald eagle, to the left is two men dressed as Revolutionary soldier, and to the right is two men dressed as Union soldiers. On the top curve of the arch are the emblems of each of the first 13 states, and within the curve are portraits of some of the founding fathers. Below this is an arcade with more portraits of founding fathers and two scenes, on the left a scene of the Battle of Lexington, and on the right the surrender of General Cornwallis. Below this are six columns, and between the center two is the text and signatures of the Declaration of Independence, while at the top and bottom of the columns are more founding fathers. On the other four columns are the emblems of the other states, as well as two statues, on the left Truth on the right Charity. Below these are images of important buildings and events regarding American independence, and in the center is a statue of Justice.
Published ReferencesCharles Henry Hart and Samuel Arlent Edwards, Catalogue of the Engraved Portraits of Washington (New York: Grolier Club of the City of New York, 1904), 268.

MarkingsEngraved at top of image in block script: "Our Country". Engraved at top of image in banner in block script: "Glory to God in the Highest on Earth Peace Goodwill Towards Men" Printed on left below Revolutionary soldiers in block script: "1776/Pop: 3,000,000." Printed on right below Union soldier in block scripts: "1876/Pop: 40,000,000." Printed on arch below each state emblem in block script: "Rhode Island, 1636/ New Hampshire, 1623/ New Jersey, 1623/ Connecticut, 1633 /New York, 1613 /Massachusetts, 1620 /Pennsylvania, 1627 /Virginia, 1607 /Maryland, 1634/ North Carolina, 1660 /South Carolina, 1671 /eorgia, 1733 /Delaware, 1627". Printed above portrait of George Washington in block script: "Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia. February 22, 1732./Died at Mount Vernon, Virginia. December 14, 1799." Printed below portrait of George Washington in block script: "George Washington, First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his Countrymen. (45 years devoted to his Country)." Printed below each portrait above arcade in block script: "John Adams. Thomas Jefferson./ Rodger Sherman. Lewis Morris. Charles Carrol. Joseph Hewes." Printed below each portrait in arcade in block script: "Stephen Hopkins. Josiah Bartlett. John Witherspoon. Edward Rutledge. Lyman Hall. Thomas McKean." Printed above portrait of Benjamin Franklin in block script: "Benjamin Franklin". Printed below left scene in arcade in block script: "Battle of Lexington, April 18, 1775. Commenced the Revolution." Printed below right scene in arcade in block script: "Surrender of Cornwallis, Oct. 18, 1781. Peace Proclaimed, April 16, 1783." Printed in left circle with desk below arcade in block script: "On this Desk was Written". Printed in right circle with bell below arcade in block script: "And this Bell Proclaimed". Printed on four columns below each state emblem in block script: "Vermont, March 1791/ Kentucky, June 1 1792/ Tennessee, June 1 1796/ Ohio, November 1802/ Louisiana, April 30 1812/ Indiana, Dec 11, 1816/ Mississippi, Dec 10, 1817/ Illinois, Dec 3, 1818/ Alabama, Dec. 14 1819/ Maine, March 15 1820/ Missouri, Aug 10, 1821/ Arkansas, June 15, 1836/ Michigan, Jan. 26, 1837/ Florida, March 3 1845/ Texas, Dec. 29, 1845/ Iowa, Dec. 28 1846/ Wisconsin, May 29 1848/ California, Sept. 9, 1850/ Minnesota, May 11, 1858 /Oregon, Feb. 14 1859/ Kansas, January 29, 1861/ West Virginia, June 9, 1863/ Nevada, October 31, 1864/ Nebraska, Feb. 9, 1867/ Dist. of Columbia, Feb. 27 1801/ New Mexico, Sept. 9, 1850/ Utah, September 9, 1850/ Washington, March 2 1853/ Colorado, Feb 28, 1861/ Dakota, March 2, 1861/ Arizona, Feb. 24 1863/ Idaho, March 3, 1863/ Montana, May 28, 1864/ Wyoming, July 25, 1868/ Alaska, June 20, 1867/ Indian. {Embraces 68,991 Square Miles." Printed below four portraits on columns in block script: "James Otis/The Southern Orator. Gen. La Fayette. Our Country's Friend. Patrick Henry. The Southern Orator. Robert Morris. The Financier." Printed on left tablet between colums in block script: "No people can be bound and adore the invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Washington's first mesage to Congress April 30 1789." Printed on right tablet between columns in block script: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. Washington's Farewell Address to his Country. 1797." Printed in center of image in italic script: "The Declaration of Independence of the the United States of America/July 4th 1776." Printed in center of image in italic script: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever 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, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation ; For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us ; For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States ; For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world ; For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent ; For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury ; For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences; For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies ; For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments ; For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms ; Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." Engraved below Declaration in block script: "Righteousness Exalteth a Nation." Engraved below statue of Truth in block script: "Our Strength". Printed below statue of Truth in block script: "Is in him who ruleth over all. Engraved below statue of Charity in block script: "Our Resources". Printed below statue of Charity in block script: "The gifts of Heaven for Human Welfare. Printed below image of Independance Hall in block script: "Independence Hall". Printed below image of Carpenter's Hall in block script: "Carpenter's Hall. Philadelphia." Printed below image of Congress in block script: "First Prayer in Congress." Printed below scene of First Reading in block script: "First Reading of Declaration." Printed below scene of Presentation in block script: "Its presentation by committee." Printed below image of Senate building in block script: "Capitol at Washington". Engraved below statue of Justice in block script: "Our Foundation". Printed below statue of Justive in block script: "Truth, Justice, Charity." Printed below image on left in block script: "Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1873 by Jospeh Leeds in the Office of the Librarian of Congress". Printed below image on right in block script: "American Bank Note Company New York and Boston". Printed below image centered in block script: "Centennial Memorial of American Independence."

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