You make some good points, Bill (which happens to be my name too). There was plenty of glory to go around when a group of "embattled farmers" threw out the most powerful nation in the world. Also hard to counter the Rocky statue. But it is true that national sentiment at the time in New England and the South were solidly for independence while New York and Pennsylvania harbored strong Tory sentiment... but no matter.. we are all Americans now, and my forebears three generations ago were not. All the colonies shed blood for the cause and all signed the Declaration of Independence, and the country they founded welcomed the immigrants that followed. What matters now is that we are strong together, especially in these times.

BTW I said that the real Cradle of Liberty was England, the mother country, by reason of its creation of the Magna Carta in 1215, establishing the blueprint for our own Declaration. We owe them that debt.