![]() Four of the five members of the drafting committee would become members of the Society, including the two most important, Jefferson and Franklin (Roger Sherman was the exception), and perhaps more impressively, fifteen members signed the Declaration. Many of the most dramatic scenes of the independence movement were played out within two blocks of the current home of the APS, from the drafting of the Declaration, to its ratification and distribution. Nowhere is this history better reflected than in three of its best known items, remarkable copies of that seminal revolutionary document, the Declaration of Independence. From Franklin and Jefferson, to Adams, Washington, and Lafayette, many of the luminaries in the Revolutionary cause became deeply attached to the Society, and as a result, the collections of the APS took on a distinctly revolutionary cast. ![]() Yet as much as the APS was tested in the century's greatest political conflict, the members who remained played a uniquely important role in helping to shape the course of events. In 1786, construction began on a new building, Philosophical Hall, which was intended as a permanent home for the Society, and once again the APS became the site for the vigorous discussion of scientific and cultural affairs. Within a year, the energetic patriarch of the Society had turned it around. Lying moribund for nearly a decade, the Society was revived only when its founder, Benjamin Franklin returned from his ministry in France, and dedicated himself to its revival. Few events have tested the APS more than the American Revolution, a period that witnessed the departure of Loyalists and Quaker pacifists from its halls, the suspension of its meetings, and the dispersal of collections.
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