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9 Things You May Not Know About the Declaration of Independence

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JULY 4, 2012 By Elizabeth Harrison

Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, celebrates the adoption by the Continental Congress of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. On the 236th birthday of the United States, explore nine surprising facts about one of America’s most important founding documents

https://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-declaration-of-independence?cmpid=Social_FBPAGE_HISTORY_20160703_503936943&linkId=25980981

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What really makes America great? You, the individual

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Editors Note its the same thing that makes Ridgewood Great it’s you the individual 
By John Podhoretz

July 3, 2016 | 9:43am

Forty years ago tomorrow — on July 4, 1976 — the largest armada in human history sailed into New York Harbor to celebrate the bicentennial of the United States of America. It was composed of 281 large vessels and small crafts numbering in the thousands, all led by 17 magnificent “tall ships.”

President Gerald Ford sat aboard the USS Forrestal as the watercraft paraded before him along with more than half a million people.

And everywhere you looked, there was an American flag.

https://nypost.com/2016/07/03/what-really-makes-america-great-you-the-individual/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPFacebook&utm_medium=SocialFlow&sr_share=facebook

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Frederick Douglass on Liberty, Slavery, and the Fourth of July

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“Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document.”

Damon Root|Jul. 4, 2015 9:15 am

On July 5, 1852, the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass delivered one of the greatest speeches of his long and storied career. Titled “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” Douglass’ speech contained both a searing denunciation of American slavery and a rousing defense of the libertarian principles coursing through the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. “Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted,” Douglass thundered from the stage, “the Constitution is a glorious liberty document.”

In my view, there’s no such thing as a bad day to reflect on the wisdom of Frederick Douglass—but July Fourth is perhaps a better day for it than most. So as a way of both honoring Douglass and marking the anniversary of his remarkable July Fourth speech, here are two stories from the Reason archives which examine the life and legacy of this indispensable American hero.

Frederick Douglass, Classical Liberal

It’s true that Frederick Douglass simultaneously championed both civil rights and economic liberty. But the proper term for that combination isn’t Social Darwinism; it’s classical liberalism. The central component of Douglass’ worldview was the principle of self-ownership, which he understood to include both racial equality and the right to enjoy the fruits of one’s labor.

Consider the remarkable 1848 letter Doug­lass wrote to his old master, the slaveholder Thomas Auld. It rings out repeatedly with the tenets of classical liberalism. “You are a man and so am I,” Douglass declared. “In leaving you, I took nothing but what belonged to me, and in no way lessened your means for obtaining an honest living.” Escaping from slavery wasn’t just an act of self-preservation, Douglass maintained; it was an affirmation of his unalienable natural rights. “Your faculties remained yours,” he wrote, “and mine became useful to their rightful owner.”

Douglass struck a similar note in his powerful 1852 speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” Evoking John Locke’s famous description of private property emerging from man mixing his labor with the natural world, Douglass pointed to slaves “plowing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses” as proof that they too deserved the full range of natural rights. “Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body?” Douglass asked his mostly white audience. “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.”

What Frederick Douglass Teaches Us About American Exceptionalism and the Growth of Freedom

Douglass’ genius was not in hailing or excoriating American in hyperbolic terms. Plenty of people before and after him have done that. To simply assert that the United States is the either most perfect or most depraved nation is a form of exceptionalism, to be sure. But it is also an indulgent gesture that presumes that we can’t redeem ourselves or ever be held in error.

https://reason.com/blog/2015/07/04/frederick-douglass-on-liberty-slavery-an

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1776 U.S. declares independence

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1776 U.S. declares independence

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims the independence of the United States of America from Great Britain and its king. The declaration came 442 days after the first volleys of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts and marked an ideological expansion of the conflict that would eventually encourage France’s intervention on behalf of the Patriots.

The first major American opposition to British policy came in 1765 after Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a taxation measure to raise revenues for a standing British army in America. Under the banner of “no taxation without representation,” colonists convened the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765 to vocalize their opposition to the tax. With its enactment in November, most colonists called for a boycott of British goods, and some organized attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors. After months of protest in the colonies, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1766.

Most colonists continued to quietly accept British rule until Parliament’s enactment of the Tea Act in 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny. In response, militant Patriots in Massachusetts organized the “Boston Tea Party,” which saw British tea valued at some 18,000 pounds dumped into Boston Harbor.

Parliament, outraged by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.

With the other colonies watching intently, Massachusetts led the resistance to the British, forming a shadow revolutionary government and establishing militias to resist the increasing British military presence across the colony. In April 1775, Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, ordered British troops to march to Concord, Massachusetts, where a Patriot arsenal was known to be located. On April 19, 1775, the British regulars encountered a group of American militiamen at Lexington, and the first shots of the American Revolution were fired.

Initially, both the Americans and the British saw the conflict as a kind of civil war within the British Empire: To King George III it was a colonial rebellion, and to the Americans it was a struggle for their rights as British citizens. However, Parliament remained unwilling to negotiate with the American rebels and instead purchased German mercenaries to help the British army crush the rebellion. In response to Britain’s continued opposition to reform, the Continental Congress began to pass measures abolishing British authority in the colonies.

In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, an influential political pamphlet that convincingly argued for American independence and sold more than 500,000 copies in a few months. In the spring of 1776, support for independence swept the colonies, the Continental Congress called for states to form their own governments, and a five-man committee was assigned to draft a declaration.

The Declaration of Independence was largely the work of Virginian Thomas Jefferson. In justifying American independence, Jefferson drew generously from the political philosophy of John Locke, an advocate of natural rights, and from the work of other English theorists. The first section features the famous lines, “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.” The second part presents a long list of grievances that provided the rationale for rebellion.

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to approve a Virginia motion calling for separation from Britain. The dramatic words of this resolution were added to the closing of the Declaration of Independence. Two days later, on July 4, the declaration was formally adopted by 12 colonies after minor revision. New York approved it on July 19. On August 2, the declaration was signed.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-declares-independence?cmpid=Social_FBPAGE_HISTORY_20150704_202738482&linkId=15257766

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Time to Reclaim our Independence : Let’s party like it’s 1776

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Time to Reclaim our Independence : Let’s party like it’s 1776.

Thursday, July 3rd, 2014
by Daniel Horowitz

On this day 238 years ago, the Continental Congress adopted the 1338-word Declaration of Independence in which we declared, “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.”

11 years later, as Benjamin Franklin left Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention crafted the new constitution, he was reportedly asked by a lady, “well doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”  He famously replied, “a republic, if you can keep it.”

Sadly, many of us are spending this 4th of July wondering if our Founders would recognize that republic – that beacon of freedom built upon a strong civil society and ordered liberty.  So many ordinary Americans feel our republic is long lost to a foreign socialist utopia centrally managed by an elitist oligarchy in the form of two corrupt political parties.

This small minority of radicals has completely vitiated our most fundamental characteristic as a republic – our sovereign borders.  We are now languishing from the flood of over 100,000 illegal immigrants teaming over our southern border, adding to the millions of illegals already here.  At stake is nothing less than the preservation of our civil society, sovereignty, and solvency as a nation and as a stable economy.  They drain our resources, health care, education, and criminal justice system.

Our veterans are suffering waiting for care under single-payer health care, while private health care providers are being forced to provide immediate treatment to illegal aliens and are being threatened with arrest for speaking out against the threat of diseases.  Border agents protecting our republic are now being sued by illegal immigrants for doing their jobs.

We feel like strangers in our own country.

Even without the illegal invasion, our republic is hanging on by a thread.

Almost every American is involuntarily subservient to the federal government for his or her retirement security and healthcare.  Over 46 million people, and one-in-four children, rely upon government for food stamps.  Under the new Obamacare mandates, an estimated 79 million Americans will be enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP.  This culture of dependency, an anathema to our spirit of independence, has saddled us with over $1 million in debt and unfunded obligations for every American taxpayer.

Meanwhile, ordered liberty in a constitutional republic needs a strong civil society and strong families in order to thrive, much like fish in water.  Yet, the cultural degeneration, promulgated and encouraged by this small societal elite, has permeated every aspect of American life – to the extent that those of us who adhere to traditional family values are now ostracized and castigated.  We have reached the point where we need a group of unelected judges to grant us small morsels of religious liberty from their high benches in Washington.  The small minority who push this invidious anti-family agenda now seek to eradicate the very existence of gender to the degree that private individuals and businesses are now being forces to accommodate bizarre and licentious practices.

The “Republican” Party was supposed to serve as the bulwark against attempts to supplant our republican form of government, yet they have become part and parcel of the problem.  Decades’ worth of treachery directed towards the party faithful from its leadership has finally culminated with the Mississippi election last week.  A long-serving Republican, with the blessing of the entire party establishment, engaged in fraud and race-baiting to repudiate his own party base and steal the election.

We are now living through the worst consequences of elective despotism that James Madison warned about in Federalist 48.  Indeed we are strangers in our own country and in our own party.

But thankfully, as we celebrate another Independence Day, there are signs that the original zeal for constitutional governance and freedom still runs through the veins and DNA of so many Americans.  We have witnessed ordinary citizens risking their careers and reputation to challenge the entrenched political class with almost no funding and very little resources.  Most of them came up short on the first try, but so many of them came close and have succeeded in exposing the duplicitous career politicians.

https://madisonproject.com/2014/07/time-to-reclaim-our-independence/

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The New Jersey Contingent Who Signed the Declaration of Independence

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The New Jersey Contingent Who Signed the Declaration of Independence

The significant aspect of the Declaration of Independence is that it changed the American “rebellion” against Great Britain into a “revolution.” From April 19, 1775 until July 2, 1776 the war was being fought so the colonists could regain their rights as Englishmen that had been taken away by the British from 1763-1775. 

On July 2, 1776 the Second Continental Congress approved the resolution by Richard Henry Lee from Virginia 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 ……” 

This was truly a revolutionary statement. John Adams felt that July 2 would be the day that would be “solemnized with Pomp and Parade with shows, games, sports, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other …….”

The Declaration of Independence is on public display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

 About the Signers

All of the colonies were represented in Philadelphia to consider the delicate case for independence and to change the course of the war.  In all, there were fifty-six representatives from the thirteen colonies. Fourteen represented the New England Colonies, twenty-one represented the Middle Colonies and twenty-one represented the Southern Colonies.  The largest number (9) came from Pennsylvania.  Most of the signers were American born although eight were foreign born.  The ages of the signers ranged from 26 (Edward Rutledge) to 70 (Benjamin Franklin), but the majority of the signers were in their thirties or forties.  More than half of the signers were lawyers and the others were planters, merchants and shippers. 

 
Together they mutually pledged “to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” 
The New Jersey Contingent Who Signed the Declaration of Independence

They were mostly men of means who had much to lose if the war was lost.  None of the signers died at the hands of the British, and one-third served as militia officers during the war. Four of the signers were taken captive during the war and nearly all of them were poorer at the end of the war than at the beginning.  No matter what each of these men did after July 1776, the actual signing of the Declaration of Independence which began onAugust 2 ensured them instant immortality.  

 The following gives a bit of information about each signer AFTER the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

 The New Jersey Contingent Who Signed the Declaration of Independence

 Abraham Clark

Abraham Clark (1726-1794)-Abraham Clark was a farmer, surveyor and politician who spent most of his life in public service.  He was a member of the New Jersey state legislature, represented his state at the Annapolis Convention in 1786, and was opposed to the Constitution until it incorporated a bill of rights.  He served in the United States Congress for two terms from 1791 until his death in 1794.

 John Hart

John Hart (1711-1779)-John Hart became the Speaker of the Lower House of the New Jersey state legislature.  His property was destroyed by the British during the course of the Revolutionary War, and his wife died three months after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.  During the ravaging of his home, Hart spent time in the Sourland Mountains in exile.

 Francis Hopkinson

Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791)-Francis Hopkinson was a judge and lawyer by profession but also was a musician, poet and artist.  When the Revolutionary War was over, he became one of the most respected writers in the country.  He was later appointed Judge to the U.S. Court for the District of Pennsylvania in 1790.

Richard Stockton

Richard Stockton (1730-1781)-Richard Stockton was trained to be a lawyer and graduated from the College of New Jersey.  He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1776 and was the first of the New Jersey delegation to sign the Declaration of Independence.  In November 1776 he was captured by the British and was eventually released in 1777 in very poor physical condition.  His home at Morven was destroyed by the British during the war and he died in 1781 at the age of 50.
 
John Witherspoon

John Witherspoon (1723-1794)-John Witherspoon was the only active clergyman among the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  He was elected to the Continental Congress from 1776-1782, elected to the state legislature in New Jersey from 1783-1789 and was the president of the College of New Jersey from 1768-1792.  In his later years he spent a great deal of time trying to rebuild the College of New Jersey (Princeton).

 
Source: https://www.constitutionfacts.com/

 

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One of the myths surrounding the Declaration of Independence involves the signing

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One of the myths surrounding the Declaration of Independence involves the signing

The Signing

One of the myths surrounding the Declaration of Independence involves the signing. It was not signed on July 4th by anyone except John Hancock, the president of the Second Continental Congress, and Charles Thomson, the secretary to congress. They signed the working copy which was then sent to the printer, John Dunlap.

The rest of the Signers did not have the opportunity to add their names until August when the engrossed copy was ready. The Committee of Five hired Timothy Matlack, a Philadelphian who was well known for his excellent penmanship, to hand write the Declaration. On August 2, 1776 it was ready.

One tradition which is correct was the John Hancock stepped forward to be the first to sign it. Another tradition has it that afterwards Hancock explained the reason for the size of his signature saying, “so that fat King George can read it without his glasses.” The remaining members of congress took turns signing by geographical order beginning with New England and working south to Georgia. Having finally received orders, even the members from New York were able to sign though their state had abstained from the vote on independence. A few men were absent from congress during the signing and so had to add their names at a later date. Some of those could not find room to sign with the others from their state. A few who voted for independence never had the opportunity to sign while others who were not present for the vote requested and received permission to affix their signatures.

One thing that is not a myth is that these men were committing treason, a crime punishable by death. 

The following is a list of the signers in the order that they added their names. How many are you familiar with? How many people are willing to take the time to learn about them?

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton 

Column 2

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Column 3

Massachusetts: John Hancock
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

Column 4

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Column 5

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Column 6

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple
Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton

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The Clause Removed : That one was against the institution of slavery

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The Clause Removed : That one was against the institution of slavery

In our study of the Declaration of Independence it was pointed out that there were originally 28 grievances though the final draft lists only 27. One grievance was removed. That one was against the institution of slavery.

“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”

One fact about the Revolution which is not commonly known was that some colonists joined the Patriot cause due to a desire to end slavery rather than a wish to be independent. Laws made by the colonial legislatures to limit the institution had been blocked by the royal governors. Great Britain had no desire to end the lucrative trade in slaves. They were left with but one recourse to end slavery, independence. With this as a motivation, why was slavery then continued in the new country? Why was the grievance against it removed?

Thomas Paine said,

“It is never to be expected in a revolution that every man is to change his opinion at the same moment. There never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious that all men believed it at once. Time and reason must cooperate with each other to the final establishment of any principle; and therefore those who may happen to be first convinced have not a right to persecute others, on whom conviction operates more slowly. The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy.”

Because some of the Patriots and Founders had come to the conclusion that slavery was wrong, does not mean that they all had. Slavery was an ancient tradition. During the time of the Founders it was practiced all around the world. The society in which they lived contained multiple class levels from the king and royal family down to the commoner. Slavery was just one more layer. In addition the economy of many colonies was dependent upon slave labor. So is the question really why they failed to end slavery or is a better question how did any of them ever come to decide it was wrong?

Either because not all changed their opinion at the same time or because of the dependence on slavery, during the debates on the Declaration the colonies of the Deep South demanded that the clause be removed. The delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, possibly led by Edward Rutledge, threatened that their colonies would fight on the side of Great Britain if the section remained. This was not an empty threat. The southern colonies had a higher percentage of Loyalists than their northern neighbors, and Georgia was the youngest of the colonies, only 43 years old. Her ties to the mother country had not had much time to loosen. Faced with the possibility of disunited states, Thomas Jefferson had no choice but to remove the clause.

But the demise of the clause was not the end of the idea. Prior to declaring independence all thirteen of the colonies practiced slavery. As the states wrote their new constitutions, many put an end to it within their own borders. Most of the states took a gradual approach. A date was set. Those born after that date were free. That is how it came about that at the time of the Civil War, there were still slaves living in New Jersey, though by then too old to work. Others ended slavery more immediately. When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled slavery to be illegal under a clause in the states’ constitution all slaves were freed. When Vermont was added to the union, its constitution prohibited slavery. By 1804, every state north of the Mason Dixon Line had outlawed slavery. Even those states that did not ban slavery outright, as Jefferson tried unsuccessfully to do in Virginia, placed limits on slavery such as banning the importation and exportation of slaves. And in 1807 Thomas Jefferson signed into law an act finally ending the importation of slaves into the United States.

Other actions revealed the Founders general views on slavery. In 1787, the Second Continental Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance. This act dealt with the territory north of the Ohio River. One of the most significant parts of it was the prohibition of slavery in U.S. territories. “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory.”

It took 89 years for this particular promise of the Declaration to be fulfilled, but it was. Had the colonies been united at the beginning on the issue of slavery, or had the principles of liberty been followed by the succeeding generations, perhaps the Civil War could have been avoided and emancipation occurred sooner. Disunity and the ignoring of foundational principles had consequences. In our first century as a nation that consequence was war. What is it today?

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Land of the free? Not so much. Americans’ sense of freedom drops, poll finds.

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Land of the free? Not so much. Americans’ sense of freedom drops, poll finds.

Americans are feeling ‘less satisfied with the freedom to choose what to do with their lives,’ according to a Gallup poll. The trend could be linked to a perceived rise in corruption.

By Gram Slattery, Staff writer

This Independence Day, Americans will celebrate the nation’s core values, especially freedom. But according to a new international poll, Americans have become significantly “less satisfied with the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives.”

Seventy-nine percent of US residents are satisfied with their level of freedom, down from 91 percent in 2006, according to the Gallup survey, released Tuesday.

That 12 point drop pushes the US from among the highest in the world in terms of perceived freedom to 36th place, outside the top quartile of the 120 countries sampled, trailing Paraguay, Rwanda, and the autonomous region of Nagarno-Karabakh.

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2014/0701/Land-of-the-free-Not-so-much.-Americans-sense-of-freedom-drops-poll-finds