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The
Liberty Bell got its name from being rung JULY 8, 1776, to call the
citizens of Philadelphia together to hear the Declaration of
Independence read out loud for the first time.
Weighing
over 2,000 pounds, this massive bell was cast in England in August of
1752, by an order of the Pennsylvania Assembly to commemorate the 50th
anniversary of the Colony's existence.
The Colony was founded in 1701, when William Penn wrote Pennsylvania's Charter of Privileges.
In
1751, the colony's Assembly declared a "Year of Jubilee" and
commissioned a bell to be put in the Philadelphia State House. Isaac
Norris, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, read Leviticus chapter 25
verse 10:
"And ye shall make hallow the fiftieth year, and
proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof; it shall be a jubilee."
Inscribed on the Liberty Bell is:
"Proclaim Liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."
The
Liberty Bell was moved out of Philadelphia before the British troops
occupied the city in 1777 during the Revolutionary was to prevent it
from being melted down and used for bullets.
It was returned to Philadelphia in June of 1778, after the British departure.
The
Liberty Bell was rung every anniversary of the first public reading of
the Declaration of Independence, until JULY 8, 1835, when it reportedly
cracked while being rung at the funeral of John Marshall, the Chief
Justice responsible for establishing the supremacy of the Supreme Court
through "judicial review."
John
Marshall, the longest-serving Chief Justice, wrote decisions which
increased the power of the Supreme Court and Federal government over the
States, and began using an expansive reading of the enumerated powers.
At the 150th anniversary of the Declaration, 1926, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
"People at home and abroad consider Independence Hall as hallowed ground and revere the Liberty Bell as a sacred relic.
That
pile of bricks and mortar, that mass of metal, might appear as only the
outgrown meeting place and the shattered bell...but to those who know,
they have become consecrated.
They are the framework of a spiritual event."
Calvin Coolidge continued:
"The
world looks upon them because of their associations of 150 years ago,
as it looks upon the Holy Land because of what took place there nineteen
hundred years ago."
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