The Declaration announced that the Thirteen Colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain would regard themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. With the Declaration, these new states took a collective first step toward forming the United States of America.

In August 1774, Lee was chosen as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In Lee's Resolution on June 7, 1776 during the Second Continental Congress, Lee put forth the motion to the Continental Congress to declare Independence from Great Britain.

Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national level.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from a poem written on September 14, 1814, by the then 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British ships of the Royal Navy in Baltimore Harbor during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812.

Nicknames for the flag include the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, and the Star-Spangled Banner.

Washington states, "There should always be a sufficient quantity of spirits with the army, to furnish moderate supplies to the troops…such as when they are marching in hot or cold weather, in camp in wet, on fatigue or in working parties, it is so essential that it is not to be dispensed with."

The Founding Fathers were a group of American leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, led the war for independence from Great Britain, and built a Frame of Government for the new United States of America upon republican principles during the latter decades of the 18th century.