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N0KFQ > TODAY 04.07.15 16:43l 107 Lines 5198 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 60571_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Jul 4
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N0KFQ
Sent: 150704/1441Z 60571@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.63
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.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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