Trace your patriot ancestry, read the documents your family fought over, and find your place in your own county.
The founding record is public, and almost nobody reads it. The Revolution was argued and preached in writing long before it was fought.
A heritage that ends in sentiment was not inherited. It was borrowed.
The republic is local before it is anything else.
Today's reading
Article 3
July 13, 1787
The article gives a reason before it gives an instruction: religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and to happiness, schools and the means of education are to be encouraged forever. It then binds the government to the utmost good faith towards the Indians, says their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent, and requires laws to be made preventing wrongs done to them.
In 1620 a ship was off course, and the patent that authorized the voyage covered land hundreds of miles south. Some aboard had already said that when they went ashore, nobody would have power to command them. They were right about the law. Forty one men wrote down a government and signed it before landing, because there was no other way to have one, and its authority came from nowhere except the signatures at the foot of it.
Eighty years later, a judge in the colony that grew out of that agreement argued from the same scripture it was founded on that the men held as slaves in it should be free. He was answered. The law did not change for most of a century. The argument existed, in print, and was refused.
The library holds those documents. The paths walk them in order and say what changed between one and the next.
21 documents across 4 movements, from the Mayflower Compact to 1781, each transcribed from a named source with its provenance stated. Free to read, with no account.
Record the patriot ancestors you can document, with rank, unit and reference. Nothing here is verified by us, and we say so on the page. A free account is all it takes.
Find who represents you, read the guides, and follow what your three seats put their name to. The lookup and the guides are free and need no account; following the bills is what membership pays for.
The library and the chapter directory are free and stay free, with no account. A free account adds your own profile and the patriot ancestors you record. Membership pays for the member directory, other members’ profiles, and bill tracking.
The chain is in your hands.
Huzzah