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From: "Sally Pavia" <>
Subject: [GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES] Today in History ~~ 1776 : U.S. Declaresindependence
Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 11:35:06 -0700


1776 : U.S. Declares independence

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Continental Congress adopts the
Declaration of Independence, which proclaims the independence of the United
States of America from Great Britain and its king. The declaration came 442
days after the first volleys of the American Revolution were fired at
Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts and marked an ideological expansion
of the conflict that would eventually encourage France's intervention on
behalf of the Patriots.

The first major American opposition to British policy came in 1765 after
Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a taxation measure to raise revenues for a
standing British army in America. Under the banner of "no taxation without
representation," colonists convened the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765
to vocalize their opposition to the tax. With its enactment in November,
most colonists called for a boycott of British goods, and some organized
attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors. After months of
protest in the colonies, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March
1766.

Most colonists continued to quietly accept British rule until Parliament's
enactment of the Tea Act in 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East
India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a monopoly on
the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company to
undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists
viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny. In response, militant
Patriots in Massachusetts organized the "Boston Tea Party," which saw
British tea valued at some 18,000 pounds dumped into Boston Harbor.

Parliament, outraged by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of
destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as
the Intolerable Acts, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant
shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made
British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required
colonists to quarter British troops. The colonists subsequently called the
first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the
British.

With the other colonies watching intently, Massachusetts led the resistance
to the British, forming a shadow revolutionary government and establishing
militias to resist the increasing British military presence across the
colony. In April 1775, Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts,
ordered British troops to march to Concord, Massachusetts, where a Patriot
arsenal was known to be located. On April 19, 1775, the British regulars
encountered a group of American militiamen at Lexington, and the first shots
of the American Revolution were fired.

Initially, both the Americans and the British saw the conflict as a kind of
civil war within the British Empire: To King George III it was a colonial
rebellion, and to the Americans it was a struggle for their rights as
British citizens. However, Parliament remained unwilling to negotiate with
the American rebels and instead purchased German mercenaries to help the
British army crush the rebellion. In response to Britain's continued
opposition to reform, the Continental Congress began to pass measures
abolishing British authority in the colonies.

In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, an influential
political pamphlet that convincingly argued for American independence and
sold more than 500,000 copies in a few months. In the spring of 1776,
support for independence swept the colonies, the Continental Congress called
for states to form their own governments, and a five-man committee was
assigned to draft a declaration.

The Declaration of Independence was largely the work of Virginian Thomas
Jefferson. In justifying American independence, Jefferson drew generously
from the political philosophy of John Locke, an advocate of natural rights,
and from the work of other English theorists. The first section features the
famous lines, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness." The second part presents a long list of grievances that provided
the rationale for rebellion.

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to approve a Virginia motion
calling for separation from Britain. The dramatic words of this resolution
were added to the closing of the Declaration of Independence. Two days later
on July 4, the declaration was formally adopted by 12 colonies after minor
revision. New York approved it on July 19. On August 2, the declaration was
signed.

The American War for Independence would last for five more years. Yet to
come were the Patriot triumphs at Saratoga, the bitter winter at Valley
Forge, the intervention of the French, and the final victory at Yorktown in
1781. In 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris with Britain, the
United States formally became a free and independent nation.

Sally Rolls Pavia

"We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds."
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