 Below the dam of ruthless foreign rule, the stream of freedom was running shallow and muddy. We were lighting the fuse to dynamite that dam. This pact, as Burke later put it, was a partnership between the living and the dead and the yet unborn. There was no bigotry, no demagoguery in this group. All of them had shared hardships. Jefferson finished a draft of the document in 17 days. Congress adopted it in July. So much is familiar history. Now,