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deciding the taxes. Taxation without representation is tyranny."

Those words are important; they are a "principle of free government."

The colonists believed this principle so firmly that they got ready to fight against England, to make her give them representation. But soon they saw that they would be risking their lives in war to get only a little bit of freedom. So they decided to fight for real freedom. They decided to make America a free country, not a colony at all.

The wisest men of the country got together and made a Declaration of Independence. It was written by Thomas Jefferson, and was adopted by Congress July 4, 1776. When it was read out to the people, the great bell in the steeple of the Philadelphia City Hall rang loud and long. Ever since we have called this the Liberty Bell.

The Declaration of Independence is famous all over the world to-day. We must all read it and be able to tell about it. We cannot join the Girl Scouts or the Boy Scouts until we can tell all about it.

The Declaration of Independence said that America should be a free country, making its own laws and governing itself. It should have all the rights of a

free country, and if any country interfered it would fight for those rights. It should be called the United States of America.

In every country there were men and women who wanted to be free, but who were helpless against their strong governments. Even to speak of freedom often sent them to prison or death.

When they heard of the American Declaration of Independence, it was like a new star in a dark sky, a new music in a silent land. The sound of the Liberty Bell rang round the world.

Let us thank God, as these men thanked him, for the American Declaration of Independence. Let us as children learn to say the brave, solemn words with which it begins, and believe them with all our hearts.

"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."

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nies. And the colonists fought. Eight long years the war went on. The English Government sent more than fifty thousand soldiers to fight the Americans. That was a large army for those days.

But more than half the soldiers were not Englishmen. Englishmen did not want to fight against the English colonists, whose cause was so just. So George III hired twenty thousand German troops from their

masters, and these Germans crossed the ocean under

English leaders.

We may be sure these poor German soldiers did not want to fight against us. They had to go where they were sent. They belonged to their German masters, for in Germany the government was like what we read of in Lesson II.

But the Germans were trained soldiers, and they were told many false stories about Americans, to make them willing to fight. They made a hard army to beat.

The war was fought all up and down our American coast, in battles North and battles South, by land and sea. We have wonderful stories about it in the histories we shall read in a few years.

The English soldiers fought well from a sense of duty. But that was a weak feeling compared with what the Americans were fighting for. To the Americans their liberty was as dear as the air they breathed and the homes they loved. Every American soldier fought for liberty with all his heart.

A righteous cause makes a mighty army, and in the American Revolution a great cause made a mighty army out of a small and untrained one.

Next to the power of a great cause the war was

won by brains. The English had more men than the Americans, more ships, and more money. But the Americans had some of the ablest generals any country has ever had, and the American soldiers fought with their hearts and heads as well as with guns.

As we all know, the American Commander-inChief was George Washington. With him were other men of the same splendid kind from North and South. Philip Schuyler was there, and John Stark, Anthony Wayne, and Henry Lee, who used to be called "Light Horse Harry." Our teachers will tell us where to find exciting stories about these men, and Washington's other leaders.

George Washington and these able commanders knew very well the big English army could beat the little American army if they stood up face to face and shot at each other. But they were not so silly as to do that. No, they kept leading the English into traps, in parts of the country only the Americans knew about. They fooled the English generals, and fought when they were in a good position. When they were in a bad position they got away while the English slept.

More than once the English thought the war was

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