British on the 4th of July

America's 4th of July celebrations are deservedly extravagant.  As for me, one of the things I celebrate is that England founded the original thirteen colonies and buttressed what became known as "the shining city on a hill." While the majority of America's founders were of British extraction, Sam Adams and Thomas Paine often contest for title of "Father of the American Revolution." Sam Adams argued for independence long before shots were fired at Lexington.  His lineage was English, and he was a devout Puritan born in the British colony of Massachusetts in 1722. Thomas Paine really stoked revolutionary fervor with his hugely influential pamphlet Common Sense, which was anonymously "Signed by an Englishman."  He moved from England to the American colonies in 1774. Jefferson's inspirational words in the poetic Declaration of Independence extend English philosopher John Locke's musings on the "consent of the governed." Most of the delegates to the Constitutional...(Read Full Article)