How America Gained Independence
After the successful conclusion of the French and Indian War in 1763, the British government decided to make its North American colonies pay more of the costs of governing and defending them. Over the next 12 years Britain imposed a series of new taxes and other revenue-raising measures on the colonies that aroused heated opposition. The American colonists resented the trade regulations by which Britain utilized American economic resources to its own advantage, and they likewise resented their lack of representation in the British Parliament. British intransigence to these grievances spurred a growing desire for independence on the Americans' part. Open fighting broke out between the British and Americans in 1775, and the next year the American colonies declared their independence from Britain.
And so the conflict began as a civil war within the British Empire over colonial affairs, but, with America being joined by France in 1778, Spain in 1779, and the Netherlands in 1780, it became an international war.
The war began when the British general Thomas Gage sent a force from Boston to destroy American rebel military stores at Concord, Massachusetts. After fighting broke out at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, rebel forces began a siege of Boston that ended when the American general Henry Knox arrived with artillery captured from Fort Ticonderoga, forcing General William Howe, Gage's replacement, to evacuate Boston on March 17, 1776.
The British government sent Admiral Lord Richard Howe, with a large fleet to join his brother in New York, authorizing them to treat with the Americans and assure them pardon should they submit. When the Americans, who declared themselves independent on July 4, 1776, refused this offer of peace, General Howe landed on Long Island and on August 27 and defeated the army of General George Washington. When Washington retreated into Manhattan, Howe drew him north, defeated his army at Chatterton Hill near White Plains on October 28, and then stormed the garrison Washington had left behind on Manhattan, seizing prisoners and supplies. On Christmas night, Washington crossed the Delaware and attacked Cornwallis's garrison at Trenton, taking nearly 1,000 prisoners. Though Cornwallis soon recaptured Trenton, Washington escaped and went on to defeat British reinforcements at Princeton.
In 1777 a British army under General John Burgoyne moved south from Canada with Albany in New York as its goal. Burgoyne captured Fort Ticonderoga on July 5, but as he approached Albany he was twice defeated by an American force led by Generals Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold, and on October 17, 1777, at Saratoga, he was forced to surrender his army.
After a mildly successful attack at Germantown on October 4, Washington quartered his 11,000 troops for the winter at Valley Forge. Though the conditions at Valley Forge were bleak and food was scarce, a Prussian officer, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, was able to give the American troops valuable training in maneuvers and in the more efficient use of their weapons. Von Steuben's aid contributed greatly to Washington's success at Monmouth, New Jersey, on June 28, 1778. After that battle British forces in the north remained chiefly in and around the city of New York.
While the French had been secretly giving financial and material aid to the Americans since 1776, in 1778 they began to prepare fleets and armies and in June finally declared war on Britain. With action in the north largely a stalemate, their primary contribution was in the south, where they participated in such undertakings as the siege of British-held Savannah and the decisive siege of Yorktown. Cornwallis destroyed an army under Gates at Camden, South Carolina, on August 16, 1780, but suffered heavy setbacks at Kings Mountain on October 7 and at Cowpens on January 17, 1781. After Cornwallis won a costly victory at Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina, on March 15, 1781, he entered Virginia to join other British forces there, setting up a base at Yorktown. Washington's army and a force under the French Count de Rochambeau placed Yorktown under siege, and Cornwallis surrendered his army of more than 7,000 men on October 19, 1781.
The Treaty of Paris (September 3, 1783) ended the U.S. War of Independence. Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States and ceded Florida to Spain. Other provisions called for payment of U.S. private debts to British citizens, American use of the Newfoundland fisheries, and fair treatment for American colonials loyal to Britain.
| Little Known Facts About the Declaration of Independence |
| The first draft of the Declaration of Independence was originally titled "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled". |
| The Declaration was ready by the 28th June 1776, then underwent changes and debates until the 4th July. |
| The Declaration was signed only by John Hancock, the then President of the Continental Congress, on the 4th of July, 1776. |
| It was signed by the other 54 delegates on the 2nd of August, 1776. |
| Thomas Jefferson, the most important writer, elected by the Committee of Five to write the Declaration, was the son of a family which had slaves. |
| The Declaration of Independence, the most monumental document in American history, was written in less than three weeks. |
| When first put to vote, on 1st of July, two states, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, voted against the Declaration of Independence. They revoked this vote on the very next day of voting, 2nd of July. |
| The state of New York, abstained from voting on the first day of voting, that is, 1st of July. It finally decided to vote for the Declaration, after it had already been approved. |
| The reason behind Thomas Jefferson being chosen to draft the Declaration, was that he came form Virginia, a place that had not been branded as rebellious, by the British. |
| Not all congress memebrs signed the Declaration of Independence. John Dickinson, considered the 'Last of the Moderates' did not sign it. The reason that he gave the Congress was that he still saw some hope in reconciling with the the British. |
| The original Declaration of Independence is written on Hemp Paper. Hemp is the fiber of the marijuana plant. |
| It is believed that a very crude and early draft of the Declaration, included a phrase asking King George to "kiss our collective arse." This line was supposed to have been written by Benjamin Franklin. It was obviously removed! |
| The original copy of the Declaration of Independence states that we have INalienable rights, but later versions say that we have UNalienable rights! Both mean the same, but the reason and time when the word was changed, is unclear. |
| The only words written on the back of the Delaration are "Original Declaration of Independence/dated 4th July 1776." |
| Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both dies on the same day, 4th July 1826. This was exactly 50 years after the Declaration of Independence was approved. |
| The youngest person to sign the document was Edward Rutledge aged 26, the oldest was Benjamin Franklin aged 70 at the time. |
| Out of al the signatories, Richard Stockton, was the only one arrested by the British, for the expres reason that he had signed the Declaration of Independence. He was made to recant his signature and plead allegiance to King George III. |
| When the Declaration was approved only 24 copies were made and distributed. A person at a flea market found one of the copies in a painting that he purchased for $4. He got it authenticated and sold it an auction for a whopping $8.14 million in 2000. |
Contents of the Declaration of Independence
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.
Nor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.