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In 1763, when England's King George III began forcing
his authority over the American Colonies in an effort to make them
share the cost of the Seven Year's War England had just won against
France, colonists protested, invoking their rights as free men and
loyal subjects. Using the thirteenth-century English document
the Magna Carta as their bases that no one is above the law, including
the King, colonists began a ten year struggle to defend their
rights, which eventually led to the
American Revolution.
During the revolution that started in 1774, the only
governing body representing the thirteen colonies was known as
Congress. At their beginning they had no power to regulate
commerce or lay taxes, and had little ability to enforce any of their
decisions, but it would be this group that would declare independence
and create a new political entity that would become the United States
of America.
Fifty-four men made up the First Continental Congress,
which represented the various interests, religions and conflicting
opinions of the colonists. This group of men, despite not
knowing each other and with no history of successful cooperation,
overcame their differences and started down the road to separation
from England.
In June of 1776, as the largest invasion force in
British Military history was headed for New York Harbor,
Thomas Jefferson was busy composing a draft of the Declaration of
Independence. This declaration announced the separation of
the thirteen colonies from Great Britain and the establishment of the
United States of America, explaining the causes in a long list of
charges against King George III. At the time, Jefferson wasn't writing
anything original, but simply articulating the ideals of the
Revolution, beliefs in liberty, and the right to self-determination.
American's embraced a view of the world in which a persons position
was determined not by birth, rank or title, but by talent, ability,
and enterprise. That wildly held view had already started circulating
in newspapers, pamphlets, sermons and schoolbooks, but it was
Jefferson who would put the immortal words to it that have inspired
downtrodden people throughout the world to rise up against their
oppressors.
On July 4, 1776, Congress completed its editing of Jefferson's
document, reducing a quarter of its text, and formally adopted the
Declaration, thus throwing off the British monarchy from power.
Though approved and adopted, the document wouldn't be signed until
August 2, 1776.
Thanks to the
National Library of Congress, here is the full text of
the United States Declaration of Independence.
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
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.
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