The Declaration of Independence

Tim McNeese

Description

In 1776, one year into the American Revolution, members of the Continental Congress gathered to sign the Declaration of Independence. Drafted by future U.S. president Thomas Jefferson, this document was not just a rallying cry against British tyranny, but also a statement that would provide the guiding principles of government, law, and citizenship needed to build a new country. With a striking preamble that states "all men are created equal," the Declaration of Independence set the fundamental beliefs and ideals that would shape the United States and its identity abroad. In The Declaration of Independence, examine the events that sparked a rebellion in the colonies and gave birth to one of the most famous pieces of writing in history.

Sujets

• Histoire
• América
• History of the United States
• American Revolution
• American
• United States
• History
• Law
• Independence
• American History
• Thomas Jefferson

Informations

• Publié par: Infobase Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 février 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781617530852
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Declaration of Independence
Copyright © 2020 by Infobase
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ISBN 978-1-61753-085-2
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Contents Chapters Introduction: A Question of Independence Origins of the Conflict A Serious Turn of Events War and Revolution New Steps Toward Independence An Advancing Cause Creating the Declaration Framing the Document A Historic Document Lives, Fortunes, Sacred Honor Support Materials Chronology Further Reading Bibliography About the Author Index
Chapters
Introduction: A Question of Independence
The streets of colonial Philadelphia were busy with citizens scurrying up and down Chestnut Street, headed to and from the Pennsylvania State House. (Today, many Americans know it as "Independence Hall.") It was Election Day, and a momentous decision was in the wind, literally, as a stiff breeze ran up the streets from the Delaware River. The day was May 1—Mayday—of the year 1776, a sunny, but chilly spring morning.
The polls had opened at 10 a.m. and were scheduled to remain open until six that evening. The election had required a shift of rooms inside the State House for the men who made up the Second Continental Congress. That first-floor room, with its tall windows and green-baize-covered tables, had been home to the Congress since September 1774, when the First Continental Congress had convened to begin inter-colonial discussions about what steps to take regarding the British Parliament and King George III [1738–1820], and the increasing raft of trade taxes and repressive measures supported by both. Now, with the election underway, Congress had been kicked upstairs, if only for a couple of days.

Independence Hall in Philadelphia was the setting for both the Second Continental Congress in 1775 and the writing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Source: National Archives and Records Administration. Special Media Archives Services Division.
Election Day
The election taking place that day in Philadelphia—and across Pennsylvania—hinged on one word: independence. Shots had been fired more than a year earlier on the village green of Lexington, Massachusetts, and over the intervening months, war had unfolded between the colonists and the British military. During that first year of fighting, the conflict had seesawed back and forth. Lexington had become a metaphor for violent, colonial resistance, the flash-point for something that soon took on a life of its own. The First Continental Congress had become the Second Continental Congress, a deliberative body that the British Crown did not even recognize as legitimate. British authority, including the British army and navy, had come to bear on such resistance, with thousands of well-trained and red-coated troops delivered by dozens of ships to American seaports and coastal towns and villages. Skirmishes such as Lexington and neighboring Concord had been overshadowed by larger-framed, pitched battles such as the ranging battle of Bunker Hill, fought in mid-June, 1775, a fiery engagement that pitted nearly 1,200 Americans dug into the hillsides north of Boston against a British army twice their number. Through three tenacious assaults uphill, the British finally defeated their American opponents, but not before the rebels had inflicted 1,300 casualties, a number equivalent to a 40 percent casualty rate. One hundred British officers were killed that day. Among the Americans, the casualties included 100 killed, 271 wounded, and 30 captured. The entire battle had taken place in less than one hour. But such bloody engagements made it difficult for anyone on either side to imagine the conflict coming to any easily negotiated end. The war was being fought in earnest, and its accompanying politics could be just as visceral.
The importance of the election taking place that day in Philadelphia was monumental, relating not simply to the future of Pennsylvania, but to the colonial conflict itself. On its surface, the voters were choosing a new Pennsylvania assembly. They, in turn, would appoint delegates to the Continental Congress. The question before the voters was whether the colony, through its delegates, would support independence or continue to back attempts to reconcile with the British government. Those supporting reconciling—suing for peace, ending the war, making amends with the Crown and returning to the fold of British authority and law—were many in the colonies, including Pennsylvania. Many of the more fiery radicals could be found to the north, in New England, or even the south, especially in Virginia. Pennsylvania was a Middle Colony, those lying in the geographic center of the British Empire's Thirteen Colonies. As the largest of the Middle Colonies, as well as the wealthiest and most important, how Pennsylvania voted on independence would likely have significant sway on other Middle Colonies, including Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, and, perhaps, even New York. But whether that influence would support independence or reconciliation lay in the hands of the voters.
With so much at stake, emotions were running high. Around two o'clock in the afternoon, a violent encounter erupted. Joseph Swift, whose family had resided in Philadelphia for several generations, began to express his anger over the presence of so many immigrants at the polls. He was especially irate over the number of Germans who were showing up to vote. Swift felt the Germans—called the "Pennsylvania Dutch" by many English-descended residents—were not worthy of the right to vote. They were not Englishmen, so they should not have the same rights as Englishmen; they spoke a guttural language, lived and worked in clannish neighborhoods, even ate strange foods. Swift became obnoxious as he expressed his distaste for the Germans. He said they had no more right to vote than African Americans or even American Indians. After a time, one group of Germans, hearing Swift's nativist eruptions, had enough and moved to attack him. When his friends did not intervene on his behalf, Swift scurried down Chestnut Street and only managed to escape the Germans by ducking into the home of one of the city's wealthy merchants. Tension was the order of the day outside the Pennsylvania State House.
When six o'clock arrived, many working-class citizens had not yet voted. When the sheriff announced the polls would reopen the following morning, it was not enough. The city's common workers would be at work before the polls opened at 9 a.m. Threats and shouting caused the sheriff to reopen the doors to the State House polling room, and the voting continued.
The following day, May 2, once the voting was completed, anxious citizens waited breathlessly for the results. They did not have to wait long. The voters of Pennsylvania in general and of Philadelphia more specifically had voted to return a majority of lawmakers to the Pennsylvania Assembly who supported reconciliation, which meant they would be serving as a barrier to the advancement of American independence, beginning that summer of 1776.
At least, that's what seemed to be the direction the colony would take. However, a series of events began to unfold through the early days of May that signaled a redirection in the minds of many Pennsylvanians. With the election completed, the Continental Congress returned to its room on the first floor of the Pennsylvania State House. Among its members, a fire-eating delegate from Massachusetts was already making plans to redirect the election that would otherwise deal the death blow for a pro-independence delegation from Pennsylvania. For more than a decade, Boston agitator Samuel Adams, had directed radicals in organized defiance of the Crown. Outside the State House, two events would help fuel his plans. For months, the colonies had buzzed with rumors regarding the alleged arrival of a royal peace commission that Parliament was sending to America to negotiate peace with Congress. Parliament had included such a commission in a new piece of legislation, the American Prohibitory Act. Such a commission terrified Adams who was so ardently in favor of separation from Great Britain—that's what independence would result in—that he was soon attempting to counter such rumors.

The Second Continental Congress, which first met on May 10, 1775, was the congress of the United States during the American Revolution. The Second Continental Congress was the forerunner of the U.S. Congress. Left to right : John Adams, delegate from Massachusetts; Gouverneur Morris, delegate from New York; Alexander Hamilton, delegate from New York; and Thomas Jefferson, delegate from Virginia.
Source: Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division.
Adams and others began suggesting that King George III was actually "the author of all our miseries." 1 The Prohibitory Act, after all, had been passed to hamper American sea trade. The act authorized privateers (to some, they were nothing short of pirates) to seize American merchant ships on the high seas and confiscate their cargoes in the name of the king and turn the captured booty over to the Crown. Effectively, the act removed the protections of the king from American shippers and merchants, if not from the very economies of the colonies themselves. The act was designed to separate the colonies from one another through a carrot-and-stick ploy that allowed a peace commission to negotiate with each colony separately. 2 Samuel Adams would have none of it.
Instead, he announced a different threat to the colonies. Not only was the king organizing a massive infusion