Thomas Jefferson wrote it he was 33 yrs. old when he wrote it. The document was signed on July 4th, 1776 by 56 signers that came from the 13 colonies.
"Gentlemen, Altho it is not possible to forsee the consequences of human actions, yet it is nevertheless a duty we owe ourselves and posterity in all our public councils to decide in the best manner we are able and to trust the event to That Being who governs both causes and events, so as to bring about his own determinations.
Impressed with this sentiment, and at the same time fully convinced that our affairs will take a more favorable turn, The Congress have judged it necessary to dissolve all connection between Great Britain and the American Colonies, and to declare them free and independent States as you will perceive by the enclosed Declaration, which I am directed to transmit to you."
So began the journey of the thirteen former British Colonies toward a lasting union of Independent Sovereign States. In truth the journey had begun with the first permanent settlement of European emigrant to these shores, as the vast reaches of this continent and the vicissitudes of life in settings markedly different from those of Europe shaped an entirely new spirit, a new mentality, morality and ethic, opposed to tyranny of any variety, secular or ecclesiastic.
Fifty-six men, appointed by their fellow citizens of each Colony, meeting in Congress assembled, determined that the only logical course of action by which they could throw off the yoke of tyranny was to declare the independence and sovereignty of the individual colonies, and join together in a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defence, the security of their Liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever.
In so doing, these fifty-six men, on the authority of the good people of the colonies, signed the Declaration of Independence, mutually pledging to each other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.
Have you ever wondered what happened to the fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary War, another had two sons captured. Nine of the fifty-six fought and died from wounds or the hardships of the Revolutionary War.
What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners, men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British navy. He sold his home and his properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers or both, looted the properties of Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr. noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his Headquarters. The owner quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart of New Jersey (my g'g'g'g'g'grandfather) was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.
Lewis Morris and Philip Livingston suffered similar fates.
Such are the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were softspoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged:
"For the support of this declaration, with the firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
They gave you and I a free and independent America. The history books of today do not tell the student a lot of what happened leading to and during the revolutionary war. We didn't just fight the British. We were British subjects, a state of siege and repression of rights and liberties had existed for many years and a state of war had existed for two years prior to the signing of the Declaration, and we fought our own government for independence!
Most of the citizens of today take their liberties so much for granted. They shouldn't, for in taking liberty for granted, they have lost much of it. All governments progress from liberty to tyranny and despotism, unless carefully watched and circumscribed. [2] Much is to be learned in today's times from the events of that time, the causes and the reasons for the uprising and indignation of the citizens in opposition to tyranny. Many parallels can be drawn as we review the happenings of today.
The events, by and large, leading to the decision to declare for independence, are well delineated in the Declaration of Independence, a bill of particulars and reasons.
During the 20 years prior, the British Parliament passed and tried to enforce a series of tax and navigation measures that could scarcely have been better calculated to arouse to the highest pitch the spirit of resistance in America.
A state of siege and of war had existed, resulting from the stationing of British troops in Boston in 1768, to aid in the enforcement of the Townshend Acts. The ridicule of the "red-coats" by the colonials and the "snow-balling" of a British sentry, March 5, 1770, led to a riot, which cost the lives of several colonials. Among them was the *****, Crispus Attucks, very probably the first person to die on the long road and battle for independence and freedom.
Established Committees of Safety and Committees of Correspondence among the colonies, inaugurated by Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, now began to work. When the royal governor of Virginia dissolved the House of Burgesses in June, 1774, the members meeting unofficially afterwards adopted a resolution calling upon all the colonies to send delegates to Continental Congress to meet in Philadelphia in September.
The First Continental Congress began its sessions in Philadelphia, September 5, 1774, and was attended by 56 delegates representing every colony except Georgia. It was soon apparent that the radicals were in the majority. Nevertheless a plan of compromise that was proposed by Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania came within one vote of adoption.
But the radicals were eager to avoid any appearance of yielding to the British contentions, and succeeded presently in pushing through a far less conciliatory program. A Declaration of Rights was adopted which stated the American case against taxation without representation as clearly as the somewhat conflicting opinions of the delegates on that subject would permit, branded the "Intolerable Acts" as "unpolitic, unjust, cruel and unconstitutional," and demanded their repeal. The language of the Declaration was deferential enough, but the statement of the American case was thoroughly unyielding.
To insure that words would be backed by deeds, the Congress went on to frame a continental "Association," by which the delegates bound themselves and, so far as they could, those whom they represented, not to import or use any British "goods, wares, or merchandise whatsoever." Also, the slave trade was to be discontinued, and if the British government failed to come to terms with the Americans inside of a year, American exports to the British Isles and to the West Indies were to be stopped. The enforcement of this measure was to be turned over to popularly elected local committees, who should make it their business to publish violations of the agreement, seize goods imported in defiance of its terms, and maintain a united front against the British. And after the lapse of a year a second Continental Congress should meet to observe the progress of events.
The actions of the First Continental Congress were essentially revolutionary. Without any constitutional authority whatever the Congress had to all intents and purposes passed a law and provided the means for its enforcement. For the Association proved to be singularly effective. In nearly every colony committees were organized which resorted, when it was deemed necessary, to such acts of violence as tarring and feathering to secure obedience to the regulations of the revolutionary Congress. Colonial spokesmen urged also with some success that such home industries as might serve to diminish dependence on Great Britain be patronized, and that as a fit precaution against further governmental injustices militia companies be formed and munitions of war collected.
These measures had much the same effect upon British opinion as Americans had learned by previous experience to expect. Burke and other English realists urged that the various repressive acts be repealed, and that the status which the colonists had enjoyed at the close of the French and Indian War be restored. Pitt believed that a bargain could be struck with the colonists by which they would agree to acknowledge the legislative supremacy of Parliament in return for the promise that Parliament would not construe its power to include the right to tax the colonies.
Merchants in London and elsewhere, who were losing heavily from the American boycott, petitioned Parliament to conciliate the Americans and reopen trade. But this time the ministry, strongly supported by the King and by a majority in the Parliament just elected, refused to yield to the clamor. Instead it placed closer limits on New England trade and voted to send more troops to America. Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition," which offered immunity from parliamentary taxes to any colony which would agree to assume of its own accord its fair share of imperial expense, was generally regarded in America as merely a device to promote dissension among the Americans, and probably was so intended.
Meantime party lines in America became more and more definite. The day of temporizing was soon over, and wavering citizens were gradually forced to decide what course they meant to support. For some time even the more militant were not precisely of one mind. All were agreed that no concessions should be made to the British point of view, but the more moderate, who hoped to avert the use of force unless in case of extreme necessity, viewed with some misgivings the military preparations under way. Similarly the conservatives disagreed among themselves. Some thought that resistance, so long as it was strictly peaceful, might well be continued in the hope of ultimate success; others were eager for conciliation and compromise. Ultimately the conservatives parted company. The most conservative, fearful of disturbing the status quo, preferring the British connection to anything that resistance to the mother country had to offer became the "Tories" or "Loyalists" of the American Revolution. The moderates, on the other hand, gradually drifted over to the militant, and ultimately joined with them as "Whigs" or "Patriots" to take up arms and to win independence. Doubtless a minority in the beginning, the revolutionists through their effective organization and aggressive tactics ultimately won over a majority to their way of thinking. But probably as many as a third of the colonists were openly or secretly loyal to the mother country throughout the Revolution.
The American Revolution did not start on the morning of April 19, 1775. When the British fired upon a small group of hastily assembled patriots on the Lexington Green, they were attempting to regain control of a colony they had already lost. The real Revolution, the transfer of political authority to the American patriots, occurred more than half a year before, when thousands upon thousands of farmers and artisans deposed every Crown-appointed official in Massachusetts outside of Boston.
During the late summer of 1774, each time a court was slated to meet under British authority in some Massachusetts town, great numbers of angry citizens made sure it did not. These patriots were furious because they had just been disenfranchised by the Massachusetts Government Act. Having lost control of the governmental apparatus, and in particular of the courts, they feared that arbitrary rulers might soon seize their tools, their livestock, or even their farms.
Worcester was at the center of this massive uprising. It was the patriots of Worcester who first called for a meeting of several counties to coordinate the resistance. It was at Worcester, on September 6, 1774, that the British conceded control of the countryside. For the preceding month, General Thomas Gage had proclaimed he would hold the line at Worcester by sending troops to protect the court, but on the appointed day he backed down. When British troops failed to show, 4,722 militiamen from 37 towns in Worcester County lined both sides of Main Street and forced every official and every prominent Tory in town to resign or recant thirty times over, hats in hand, as they made their way through the gauntlet from Heywood's Tavern (at Exchange Street) to the County Court House. (This was by far the greatest assembly of people ever to convene in the town of Worcester, which had fewer than 250 voters. Some towns, having armed and trained for a month, sent virtually every adult male.) Shortly thereafter, the town of Worcester was the first to urge that a new government be formed "as from the Ashes of the Phoenix."
Through it all, the revolutionaries engaged in a participatory democracy so thorough it is difficult for us to fathom today. At every turn, all decisions were made by the full body of the people. No action could be taken without running the matter through the entire rank-and-file.
According to the dictionary, a "revolution" is "a forcible overthrow of an established government or political system by the people governed." There can be no doubt that the people of Worcester County staged a full-scale revolution, long before Lexington and Concord. This Revolution has been obscured for many reasons: it was bloodless, it had no famous leaders, it was basically middle-class, it was far from the media center in Boston, it has been overwhelmed by the repeated telling of Paul Revere¹s ride. But we should not be misled: the patriots of 1774 staged a very potent Revolution precisely because they were nameless yet ubiquitous, aggressive yet bloodless. The staggering power of "the body of the people" precluded serious resistance. Local Tories, overwhelmingly outnumbered, had no choice but to acquiesce. Officers of the British army looked on helplessly, not knowing where, when, or how to deal with an uprising of such breadth and magnitude. All British troops withdrew to Boston, and General Gage reported back to London that "the flames of sedition" had "spread universally throughout the country, beyond conception." For seven months the patriots reigned supreme in rural Massachusetts, unchallenged until the counter-revolution of April 19, 1775.
Events were now moving rapidly in the direction of that appeal to arms which many observers on both sides of the Atlantic had long foreseen. In Massachusetts the authority of Governor Gage was openly defied; "minute men" citizen militias were being drilled upon the village commons, and stores of munitions were being collected at strategic spots. Neither side wished to precipitate hostilities, but as a necessary measure of self-defense Gage finally felt obliged to seize the military supplies that the militia leaders had accumulated at Concord, and to arrest, if possible, the arch-conspirators, Samuel Adams and John Hancock.
With these ends in view a small detachment of troops left Boston on the night of April 18, 1775. The Governor had counted on surprise, but his opponents had been on the lookout, and thanks to the activities of Paul Revere and others the whole countryside was soon aware of the coming of the "redcoats." When, early on the morning of the nineteenth, the troops entered Lexington, they found a company of armed militia drawn up on the meeting-house green, presumably with intent to oppose the British advance. Thereupon Major Pitcairn, in command of the British, rode forward and ordered the Americans to disperse. Captain John Parker, who led the colonial militia, observing that his men were badly outnumbered, also ordered them to withdraw.
But from some quarter, whether British or American will never be known, a shot was fired, "The Shot Heard Around The World", after which the firing became general. Resistance to the British troops proved futile, as Parker had foreseen, and leaving the Americans to care for a number of dead and wounded, Pitcairn marched on to Concord. There he found and destroyed some American supplies, but he scored no further triumphs. On the return to Boston his troops were the target for farmers and citizen militiamen who lined the Battle Road," and from behind stone walls, rocks, and trees picked off so many of the redcoats that the retreat to Boston ended in a humiliating rout. The news of this long-awaited clash soon penetrated to every village and hamlet throughout the colonies. From all New England armed militiamen collected around Boston to lay siege to the city, and patriotic resolves from far and near assured the Massachusetts militamen that in the course they had chosen they would not lack for support. The Militia of the People had begun defending themselves and their country from the usurpations and tyrannies of government. To Insure the Inherent Rights of the People against tyranny and despotism in their own government is the primary reason the Second Article of Amendment to the Constitution for the United States was later adopted.
On the tenth of May following the affairs at Lexington and Concord the second Continental Congress began its sessions at Philadelphia. The new Continental Congress was a far more militant body than its predecessor, partly because the colonial governors had received instructions from England to prevent the election of delegates to another Congress, and the choices had therefore to be made by strictly revolutionary groups. There were moderates present, however, such as John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, and they not only prevented an immediate declaration of independence, but they also succeeded in inducing the delegates to appeal once more to the King for redress of grievances. But the tide of revolution could not be stemmed for long. On June 15 Congress took over the troops gathered near Boston as the Continental Army, and assumed authority to direct the course of the war. At the suggestion of John Adams, it gave the command of these troops to George Washington, the well-known Virginia aristocrat. While this selection was designed in part to flatter the South and in part to placate the upper classes of every section, probably no wiser choice could have been made.
Washington, present in uniform as Colonel of the Citizen's Militia of Virginia, was a delegate to the Continental Congress from Virginia when he was chosen to head the Continental army. He set out at once to join his command, but before he could complete his journey another battle had been fought. Reinforcements had brought the number of British soldiers in Boston to about ten thousand men, and General Gage, fearful lest the Americans should gain possession of the hills that surrounded the city and open on him with cannon fire, planned to occupy some of the hills himself. But the Americans anticipated him, and sent twelve hundred men under Colonel William Prescott to occupy Bunker Hill in Charlestown, although Prescott's command went beyond Bunker Hill to Breed's Hill, and began fortifications there. It would have been easy for the British to entrap the Americans, since the heights in Charlestown were connected with the mainland by only a narrow neck of land.
But Gage, instead of attempting to cut off Prescott's chance of retreat, ordered a direct assault up the hill from the bay. Twice the colonial lines held, and twice the British after heavy losses retreated to re-form their lines. On the third assault, the Americans gave way, for they had run short of ammunition. But the battle of Bunker Hill, as it has always been called, fought June 17, 1775, proved alike to the British and to the colonists that as soldiers the raw American citizen's militia were not wholly to be despised.
Nevertheless the colonial troops about Boston, numbering perhaps twenty thousand, that Washington now undertook to command were less an army than a mob. Organization was lacking, bickering over precedence in military rank was rife, supplies were woefully inadequate, desertions were dangerously numerous. Washington's ability to draw order out of chaos never showed itself to better advantage. The troops were drilled and taught to obey, desertions were checked, and a better plan for the siege of Boston was evolved. All summer and fall and far into the winter, the American army watched and waited, while the British within the city, now under the command of General Howe, hesitated to attack. At length, on the 4th of March, 1776, Washington occupied Dorchester Heights, to the south of Boston, and trained his cannon on the city. Faced by this dire threat, Howe hastily embarked his troops for Nova Scotia, taking with him also nearly a thousand Loyalists who feared to face the now thoroughly American occupation.
The cannon that Washington used to make Boston untenable for the British had been dragged overland from Ticonderoga, a captured British fort at the southern end of the Lake George -- Lake Champlain approach to Canada. This post and Crown Point, which lay farther to the north, were made the objectives of two expeditions, one led by Ethan Allen, who held a Connecticut commission, and another led by Benedict Arnold, under the authority of Massachusetts. The two expeditions combined, and on the very day that the second Continental Congress opened, Ticonderoga surrendered without the firing of a gun. With Crown Point also taken, the pathway to Canada seemed open, and Congress, hoping that the French there might be induced to join in the revolt, authorized Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold, with separate commands, to continue the northward advance. In November, 1775, Montgomery took Montreal and then cooperated with Arnold, who had made an heroic march through the Maine woods, in the attack on Quebec. But an assault made December 31, 1775, which cost Montgomery his life, was unsuccessful, and the winter siege that followed proved equally futile. With the French showing no desire to help the Americans, and the British ably commanded by Sir Guy Carleton, Montreal was abandoned and Arnold's troops were soon forced back to Crown Point.
The only other military activity of consequence during the first year of the war occurred in the Carolinas, where the British made a bid for the support of the back-country Loyalists. An expedition was dispatched by sea to attack Wilmington and Charleston, but before the fleet reached Wilmington a clash at Moore's Creek Bridge, February 27, 1776, between North Carolina Patriots and Loyalists gave a complete victory to the former. General Clinton, in command of the British expedition, then gave up hope of taking Wilmington, and went on to Charleston, where he met such stiff resistance that he abandoned the entire project and retired in June, 1776.
The first year's fighting thus ended in a kind of stalemate, with the Americans repulsed in their effort to conquer Canada, and the British equally unable to secure a foothold anywhere in the colonies. But American opinion during this period had not remained stationary. At the outbreak of hostilities, only a few extremists were ready to go the whole length of separation from Great Britain; the great majority thought of the conflict as merely a civil war conducted to maintain American rights within the British Empire. Indeed, such was their sentimental attachment for the mother country that many colonials took up arms against her with extreme reluctance. They counted on the aid of powerful English liberals, such as Burke and Pitt, to bring the British government to a more conciliatory point of view and they hoped devoutly that the fighting would not last long. But the events of the year seemed to belie their hopes. George III had turned down the American petition for the redress of grievances, had branded the Americans as rebels, apparently with the full support of Parliament, and had even begun to hire German troops - "Hessians" - to assist in the vigorous prosecution of the war.
Furthermore, there were changes in America. The old colonial governments had crumbled away, and to forestall anarchy new political foundations had had to be laid. Revolution had thus taken place in fact if not yet in name. Also, American trade was suffering acutely, and since seemingly trade with Great Britain could not be reopened - was now forbidden by an act of Parliament - other outlets for American trade must be found. Such outlets only an avowedly independent nation, fully competent to make treaties for itself, would be able to obtain. And, since the war must needs continue, expediency demanded that help be sought from the traditional enemies of Great Britain, particularly from France. But what foreign nation would care to exert itself merely to secure a redress of grievances for Americans within the British Empire? On the other hand, if the disruption of the Empire was the American goal there was plenty of outside interest in that.
At precisely the right moment there appeared a pamphlet by Thomas Paine, entitled Common Sense, which stated simply and effectively the American case for independence. Paine had only lately come from England to America, but he was a lover of liberty, and the opportunity to strike a blow in its behalf appealed to him strongly. He ridiculed the idea of personal loyalty to the King, of which so much had been made in American protests against the tyranny of Parliament, and called George III a royal "brute." He saw "something absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island," since "in no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than the primary planet." He branded reconciliation as "a fallacious dream," and found a potent argument for separation "in the blood of the slain." The pamphlet sold by the hundreds of thousands, and in the early months of the year 1776 was read and quoted everywhere in America. Neither its logic nor its language was above reproach, but the common man liked both, and the sentiment in favor of independence grew accordingly.
That Congress was in a mood to respond to the shift in public opinion soon seemed evident. As early as April, 1776, the North Carolina delegates received instructions to work for independence. On May 4, 1776, two full months before the other twelve of the thirteen original colonies did so, independence from the mother country - Great Britain - was formally declared by the General Assembly of the Colony of Rhode Island. This bold and brave historic action created the first free republic in the New World. Virginia soon followed and openly proclaimed her own secession from the British Empire. On the seventh of June, in Congress, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, seconded by John Adams, offered a resolution "that these United Colonies, are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states." Doubtless this resolution expressed the sentiments of an overwhelming majority of the delegates, but to satisfy a small minority it was agreed, June 10, that the vote should be delayed three weeks. Not until July 1, however, was the debate resumed, and at this time a vote in committee of the whole showed only nine states favorable. But when the formal vote was taken next day, every state save New York, whose provincial convention gave its assent a week later, was for independence.
On June 11, in anticipation of the impending vote for independence from Great Britain, the Continental Congress appointed five men -- Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston -- to write a declaration that would make clear to all the people why this break from their sovereign, King George III, was both necessary and inevitable.
The committee then appointed Jefferson to draft a statement. Jefferson produced a "fair" copy of his draft declaration, which became the basic text of his "original Rough draught." The text was first submitted to Adams, then Franklin, and finally to the other two members of the committee. Before the committee submitted the declaration to Congress on June 28, they made forty-seven emendations to the document. During the ensuing congressional debates of July 1-4, Congress adopted thirty-nine further revisions to the committee draft.
The four-page "Rough draught" illustrates the numerous additions, deletions, and corrections made at each step along the way. Although most of these alterations are in Jefferson's own distinctive hand -- he later indicated the changes he believed to have been made by Adams and Franklin -- he opposed many of the revisions made to his original composition.
On July 2, 1776, the same day that Congress voted for independence, the committee presented its report. Debates took up the greater parts of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. After striking from the document a passage which censured the British people as well as their rulers, and another which severely arraigned the King for forcing the slave trade upon the colonies, the remainder of the Declaration of Independence that the committee had formulated was, in the evening of July 4th, 1776, again reported by the committee, agreed to by the house and signed by every member present, except Mr. Dickinson. At the signing ceremony, John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress, signed first, boldly, so, he said, King George IV would not need his spectacles to identify him as a traitor and double the reward for his head! Two weeks later Congress decided that the document should be engrossed on parchment and signed by all the delegates; and this was done. On August 2 the members of Congress who were present affixed their signatures, and later as occasion offered those who had been absent, were given an opportunity to sign their names. [3]
The Declaration of Independence, written almost entirely by Jefferson, borrowed heavily from Locke's Second Essay of Government, and asserted in language already familiar the natural rights of men, including the right of revolution. It differed markedly from earlier American protests in that it directed its attack primarily against the King rather than against Parliament. Hitherto the Americans, while they had denounced Parliament unsparingly for assuming powers unwarranted by the British Constitution, had been content to acknowledge the King as a common sovereign, and to protest their loyalty to him. But if, as many of the American leaders had come to maintain, the only bond of union with the mother country lay through the King, then to break that bond their attack would have to be directed against George III himself, rather than against Parliament. The Declaration of Independence even blamed the King for the "acts of pretended legislation" to which he had given his assent, and found in the long list of grievances it recited a kind of breach of contract on the part of the monarch which gave the colonies the right, if they chose, to become free and independent states. The "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence, one of the great milestones in American history, shows the evolution of the text from the initial "fair copy" draft by Thomas Jefferson to the final text adopted by Congress on the morning of July 4, 1776.
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