It may have been the copy that was amended by the Congress and used for printing, but in any case, it has not survived. I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress." (If Jefferson did make a "fair copy," incorporating the changes made by Franklin and Adams, it has not been preserved. I consented I drew it but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. In 1823 Jefferson wrote that the other members of the committee "unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught. Livingston of New York and one southerner, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. The committee consisted of two New England men, John Adams of Massachusetts and Roger Sherman of Connecticut two men from the Middle Colonies, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Before Congress recessed, therefore, a Committee of Five was appointed to draft a statement presenting to the world the colonies' case for independence. The tone of the debate indicated that at the end of that time the Lee Resolution would be adopted. On June 11 consideration of the Lee Resolution was postponed by a vote of seven colonies to five, with New York abstaining. There were still some delegates, however, including those bound by earlier instructions, who wished to pursue the path of reconciliation with Britain. It was in keeping with these instructions that Richard Henry Lee, on June 7, 1776, presented his resolution. #Declaration of independence free#On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention passed a resolution that "the delegates appointed to represent this colony in General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent states." By the middle of May 1776, eight colonies had decided that they would support independence. Thomas Paine's Common Sense, published in January 1776, was sold by the thousands. A "Resolution for the Formation of Local Governments" was passed on May 10, 1776.Īt the same time, more of the colonists themselves were becoming convinced of the inevitability of independence. The Privateering Resolution, passed in March 1776, allowed the colonists "to fit out armed vessels to cruize on the enemies of these United Colonies." On April 6, 1776, American ports were opened to commerce with other nations, an action that severed the economic ties fostered by the Navigation Acts. One by one, the Continental Congress continued to cut the colonies' ties to Britain. The weight of these actions combined to convince many Americans that the mother country was treating the colonies as a foreign entity. And in May 1776 the Congress learned that the King had negotiated treaties with German states to hire mercenaries to fight in America. In August 1775 a royal proclamation declared that the King's American subjects were "engaged in open and avowed rebellion." Later that year, Parliament passed the American Prohibitory Act, which made all American vessels and cargoes forfeit to the Crown. By the end of July of that year, it created a post office for the "United Colonies." In June 1775 the Congress established the Continental Army as well as a continental currency. The Congress gradually took on the responsibilities of a national government. When the Second Continental Congress, which was essentially the government of the United States from 1775 to 1788, first met in May 1775, King George III had not replied to the petition for redress of grievances that he had been sent by the First Continental Congress. The Lee Resolution was an expression of what was already beginning to happen throughout the colonies. On that date in session in the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall), the Continental Congress heard Richard Henry Lee of Virginia read his resolution beginning: "Resolved: 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." The clearest call for independence up to the summer of 1776 came in Philadelphia on June 7. That birth was unique, not only in the immensity of its later impact on the course of world history and the growth of democracy, but also because so many of the threads in our national history run back through time to come together in one place, in one time, and in one document: the Declaration of Independence. The birth of our own nation included them all. Military rebellion, civil strife, acts of heroism, acts of treachery, a thousand greater and lesser clashes between defenders of the old order and supporters of the new-all these occurrences and more have marked the emergences of new nations, large and small. The Declaration of Independence: A History
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