This reading guide can be used to support reading Lindsay M. Chervinsky's essay, Concluding Independence, from the America at 250 Civic Toolkit.
The final paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence close one of the most important chapters in American history—and open a brand new one. In this essay, historian Lindsay M. Chervinsky, executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library, explores the deep ties colonists once felt to Britain, the shock and sadness when those bonds broke, and the bold claims the new United States made about its powers and identity.
