INDEPENDENCE LOST

Not until a year after Lexington did the Continental Congress muster the resolve to declare the 13 colonies free and independent states, no longer subject to Parliament or Crown.

Not for five years after July 4, 1776, did George Washington's army truly attain America's independence at Yorktown.

Even then, Washington and his aide Alexander Hamilton knew that the 13 states, while politically independent, were dependent upon Europe for the necessities of their national life. Without French ships and guns, French muskets and troops, the Americans could not have forced Gen. Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown.

Cornwallis would have sailed away, as Gen. Howe had from Boston.

Indeed, absent the 1778 alliance with France, our Revolution would have been a longer, bloodier affair and might not have succeeded.

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, both Washington and Hamilton were determined to make America's political independence permanent, and to begin to cut the umbilical cord to Europe.