These thoughts and emotions, expressed and re-expressed by the writers, philosophers and political leaders of their day, had seeped down through the ages unactuated, mere themes for academic speculation, until they filtered into the minds and souls of those simple, yet truly great men, who, in signing the Declaration of Independence, gave birth to the nation we so rightfully cherish and so lovingly serve. In a letter to his friend Henry Lee, dated May 8, 1825, Jefferson, as if in confirmation of what we have just held, notes that the object of the Declaration of Independence was “not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never before been said; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular or previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the _American mind_, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.” What, then, was this American mind, that, amid problems vexed and theories varied, had sifted the wisdom and folly of the past, discerning the true from the false, the good from the evil, and “of which,” Jefferson was pleased to say, “the Declaration of Independence was intended to be an expression?” And what, again, was “the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion” that the Declaration of Independence was to give to this expression of the American mind? If we look more closely at the type of men whose united action founded our nation the answer to this question will not be far to seek. They, like many of us here today, were either immigrants or the immediate descendants of immigrants. They differed in origin, in education, in race, and in creed. They had the traditions, the affections, the prejudices of their times and of their peoples. Yet in common they had left home and country, led on by a vision or an ideal that made a fitting basis for the union that was to come. They would break away from an effete civilization; they would start life anew, freed from the tyranny of unjust laws; they would enjoy liberty to worship their God according to the dictates of their own conscience; they would exercise, without unwarranted interference, their natural and inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.