{"id":4549,"date":"2012-07-03T21:53:42","date_gmt":"2012-07-04T04:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/?p=4549"},"modified":"2012-07-22T15:46:10","modified_gmt":"2012-07-22T22:46:10","slug":"philip-mazzei-and-the-declaration-of-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/philip-mazzei-and-the-declaration-of-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"Philip Mazzei and the Declaration of Independence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Philip-Mazzei-Bust-398x600-766\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Philip Mazzei
\nb. December 25, 1730 – d. March 19, 1816<\/em><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tutti gli uomini sono per natura egualmente liberi e indipendenti. Quest’eguaglianza e necessaria per costituire un governo libero. Bisogna che ognuno sia uguale all’altro nel diritto naturale.<\/em>
\n-Philip Mazzei – Virginia Gazette, 1774<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All men are by nature equally free and independent. Such equality is necessary in order to create a free government. All men must be equal to each other in natural law.<\/em>
\n-translation by Thomas Jefferson<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These are the words of Philip (Filipo) Mazzei, Italian emigre, surgeon, businessman, friend and neighbor of Thomas Jefferson. It is so easy for us to think that everyone who lived in the United States prior to the Revolutionary War hailed from England. That is, however not the case. Settlers came from all over the European continent, and although the lion’s share of them came from England, not all of those from England were born there; quite a number were Italian emigres who lived and worked for a time in England prior to coming to the New World.<\/p>\n

The 103rd Congress of the United States with Joint Resolution 175 of August 5, 1994, recognized that “the phrase in the Declaration of Independence All men are created equal<\/em> was suggested by the Italian patriot and immigrant Philip Mazzei.”<\/p>\n

And from “A Nation of Immigrants” by John F. Kennedy (1958) comes:<\/p>\n

The great doctrine \u2018All men are created equal’ incorporated into the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, was paraphrased from the writing of Philip Mazzei, an Italian-born patriot and pamphleteer, who was a close friend of Jefferson… This phrase appears in Italian in Mazzei’s own hand, written in Italian, several years prior to the writing of the Declaration of Independence. Mazzei and Jefferson often exchanged ideas about true liberty and freedom. No one man can take complete credit for the ideals of American democracy.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Philip-Mazzei-657x372-765\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I love the story of Philip Mazzei because his words printed above, so clearly describe American ideals. Mazzei also wrote (in 1776) “We think that if we could have but one and the same Constitution for all the united colonies, our union would be infinitely stronger”.<\/p>\n

On this 4th of July, let us salute Mr. Mazzei, an American patriot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note: You can click on any picture for a slide show with even more pictures!<\/em><\/p>\n

I have no affiliation with any product, manufacturer, or site mentioned in this article.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Philip-Mazzei-471x693-764\"<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philip Mazzei b. December 25, 1730 – d. March 19, 1816   Tutti gli uomini sono per natura egualmente liberi e indipendenti. Quest’eguaglianza e necessaria per costituire un governo libero. Bisogna che ognuno sia uguale all’altro nel diritto naturale. -Philip Mazzei – Virginia Gazette, 1774   All men are by nature equally free and independent. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1393,3,14],"tags":[1364,1361,1365,1360,1362,1363],"class_list":["post-4549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-default","category-personalities","tag-a-nation-of-immigrants","tag-filipo","tag-john-f-kennedy","tag-philip-mazzei","tag-thomas-jefferson","tag-virginia-gazette"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pYzzK-1bn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4549"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4686,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549\/revisions\/4686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}