On July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence is exactly what it sounds like: an announcement to the world that the United States of America was declaring its independence from King George III and Great Britain - a sort of Brexit of our own. The declaration came more than a year (442 days to be exact) after shots were fired at Lexington, Massachusetts, considered the beginning of the first battle of the American Revolutionary War. Contrary to what some believe, the Declaration of Independence did not mark the end of the Revolutionary War. It was quite the opposite: it signaled that the United States no longer wished to accept British …show more content…
rule. This was a big deal. The British had ruled the colonies since the early 17th century when the Virginia Company became the Virginia Colony in 1624, the first of the original thirteen British colonies. The United States wasn't the only part of the world - or even the only part of the Americas - subject to British colonization. The British had also exerted control over parts of Canada, the Caribbean, and South America. But ruling the world gets expensive. Guarding colonies and occasionally invading new lands takes money. And not everyone is in agreement as to who owns what so fighting occasionally ensues. That's exactly what happened in the mid-18th century when Great Britain found itself battling a number of countries - but primarily France - in the Seven Years’ War. When the war ended in 1763, Great Britain could declare a win but the years of fighting had come at a significant cost: the British government was nearly bankrupt. The King needed to raise revenue – and quickly. What better way than a series of taxes and tariffs? And who better to tax than subjects who were far enough away - like the American colonists - to muffle the complaining? There was just one problem with this plan: the King underestimated exactly how loudly the colonists would react. The first big post-war tax imposed on the colonists was the Stamp Act of 1765. Stamps, as they apply to taxes, don't have anything to do with postage. Rather, stamps are an official confirmation of compliance with a certain rule or requirement. In this case, materials which were printed and used in the colonies, like magazines and newspapers, were required to be produced on stamped paper and embossed with a revenue stamp, confirming that tax had been paid. Colonists, of course, didn't like it, and the Stamp Act was repealed the next year. The second attempt at raising revenue was actually series of acts known as the Townshend Acts of 1767 (individually, they were the Revenue Act of 1767, the Indemnity Act, the Commissioners of Customs Act, the Vice Admiralty Court Act, and the New York Restraining Act).
These taxes were a little bit different than the Stamp Act - these were indirect taxes. However, the result was no different. The colonists weren't happy and the Townshend Acts were partially repealed. The partially repealed bit is important. In 1773, the Tea Act was imposed on top of the remaining Townshend Acts. It was the last straw for many colonists even though it wasn't a new tax. What the Tea Act did was keep in place the duty (tax) on tea imported to the colonies (already in place under the Townshend Act). And the purpose of the Tea Act wasn't to raise revenue but rather to give the East India Tea Company a trade advantage, more or less cutting out the ability of the colonists to do business on own their terms. Tax or not, the colonists viewed the Tea Act as another way they were being …show more content…
controlled. The colonists figured that the best way to stand up to the Tea Act was to turn away ships carrying tea headed for the colonies. The colonists were able to do so in Philadelphia and New York - but not in Boston. The Governor of Massachusetts wouldn't allow the ships to be turned back and the colonists would not allow the ships to unload in the harbor. It was a stand-off. To end it, colonists snuck onto the ships and dumped out the tea - the event that you and I call the Boston Tea Party. The Boston Tea Party did not immediately lead to the Declaration of Independence or the Revolutionary War, even though we like to link them as though they happened in quick succession.
The Tea Party happened on December 16, 1773, long before the shots at Lexington and before the Declaration of Independence. What the Boston Tea Party did do pretty quickly, however, was annoy the British Parliament. As far as the British were concerned, the Tea Party was more or less the equivalent of the Americans throwing a giant tantrum and destroying their stuff. As a result, the British attempted to punish the Americans through a series of laws called the Coercive Acts. Under the Coercive Acts, Boston Harbor was closed to merchant shipping, town meetings were banned, and the British commander of North American forces was appointed the governor of
Massachusetts. The colonists had enough. They convened the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, to consider their next steps. Resistance against the British increased - that's what led to those first shots in Massachusetts triggering the Revolutionary War. Finally, the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted to separate from Great Britain. Two days later, on July 4, the Declaration of Independence was formally adopted by 12 of the 13 colonies (the one holdout of the colonies, New York, approved it a couple of weeks later). The Declaration of Independence is technically a letter to the King. When the Declaration was being drafted, the colonists felt that it was important that the exact reasons for their unhappiness were made clear. The largest section of the Declaration - after the lines that we all memorized in elementary school - is that list of grievances. Of course, taxes were included: 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. ... For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: The word "Consent" was important. Under the British Constitution, no British subjects could be taxed without the consent of their representatives in Parliament. But the colonies didn’t elect representatives to Parliament. They were, however, clearly being taxed. The colonists considered the constant imposition of taxes without a vote to be unconstitutional. It was, they felt, "taxation without representation." The idea that the colonists had such little control over their own lives didn't just lead to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the accompanying vote, it set the United States down the road to real independence. The Revolutionary War would last for five more years: in 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the United States formally became an independent nation.
After the Seven Years Way England was broke for she had spent more money needed to win the war. Also winning the war gave the colonist a “we can do it spirit”. However because England now was facing debt she decided to tax the colonies. One the first acts passed was the sugar act passed in 1764. This Act was the raise revenue in American colonies. What it did was lowered the tax from six penses to three penses per gallon on foreign molasses. Molasses is a product made by refining sugarcane, grapes or sugar beets into sugar. This upset the colonist because before the sugar act they didn’t have to pay the tax so even if it was lowered that meant nothing for they now had to pay for it. A year later, in 1765, the Britain’s passed another act known as the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act put a tax on stamped paper, publications, playing cards, etc. Because it was on all paper products in a way it affected everyone; from the papers for the upper class such as lawyers, publications such as newspapers for the middle class, and playing cards for the lower class for entertainment. Next, the Townshend Act passed by Charles Townshend. This came in 1767, which imposed taxes on colonial tea, lead, paint, paper, and glass which just like the Stamp Act affected all of the classes in the colonist in the Americas. Though this act was removed three years later in 1770, it still left colonists with a warning that conditions may become worse. Around 1773, parliament passed the Intolerable Acts one of those acts which affected taxation was the Bost...
When the British passed the Stamp Act, the colonists reacted in various ways. The Stamp Act, passed in 1765, put taxes on all printed goods in the colonies. Specifically, newspapers, legal documents, dice,
By this point, the colonists were beginning to question Britain’s motives. They believed they were being treated like slaves and being used solely for the economic growth of Britain. One night, in 1773, the colonists rebelled against these taxes on their tea. A group of men dressed as Native Americans boarded a ship at Boston Harbor and unloaded three vessels of taxed tea (Boston Tea Party). This event, known as the Boston Tea Party, enraged King George III, and inevitably prompted Parliament to pass the Intolerable Acts in 1774....
When the Boston Tea Party occurred on the evening of December 16,1773, it was the culmination of many years of bad feeling between the British government and her American colonies. The controversy between the two always seemed to hinge on the taxes, which Great Britain required for the upkeep of the American colonies. Starting in 1765, the Stamp Act was intended by Parliament to provide the funds necessary to keep peace between the American settlers and the Native American population. The Stamp Act was loathed by the American colonists and later repealed by parliament.
In 1767 many horrible things were happening to the thirteen colonies. England was punishing America for the way they were acting. They did not want the colonies to be independent; but wanted them to ask for permission to do things, and listen to what they were told. Just the year before, the Declaratory Act was passed stating that England could do what they wanted and America had to do as they said. They could pass any law onto the colonies and they would have to deal with it. Which leads to the Townshend Acts; “a series of measures introduced into the English Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend in 1767” (Mifflin). The Townshend Acts began with the English parliament wanting to teach the colonies responsibility and ended in a massacre and boycott from all English products. Charles Townshend, being in charge of the treasury, came up with the idea to put a low tax on several small things so that the colonists would not be able to tell as much as a large tax on one thing. He proposed a tax on glass, led,
Instead they passed new acts which were worse than the ones passed before. As a result of the Tea Act, all the taxes except the tax on tea was repealed in order to keep Parliament’s right to tax the colonies, and the colonists did not like this act. As a result of their anger towards the British, the Boston Tea Party occurred: Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships in the Boston Harbor and empty 342 chests of tea to the Boston. Still, the British kept on trying to control the Americans, but this time, they passed 4 acts, the Intolerable Acts, in order to punish and control people; The Boston Harbor would be closed, the people of Boston would have a curfew, Massachusetts would lose its self-government/town meetings, royal officers would be allowed to be tried in Britain, and the British troops would use empty buildings. Instead of giving Americans the freedom they wanted, the British punished them. Yet, this did not stop Americans. Instead, they were even angrier to the British for the strict rules the British was passing in order to control the colonists. They knew they had to do something, which resulted in continental congresses, the Articles of Confederation, and the American Revolution. The British was not going to stop trying to hold power over the colonies, and as Patrick Henry started off by saying “Caesar had his Brutus — Charles the first, his Cromwell — and George the third — ” and finished “may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it”(Wolverton, Joe, II). This was no longer of a fight against the British, but a fight to be
The Boston Tea Party was not really a tea party. Instead it was a group of people dressed like Indians with axes dumping tea off three ships to protest British taxes. It took place in Boston Harbor, Boston, Massachusetts on December 16, 1773, from 7:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M.
The shot heard around the world happened in Lexington when the killed 8 colonist. Soon British retreated back to Boston fighting all the away. Finally the declaration of independence was written in 1776 by Thomas Jefferson. An import aspect came to form this document was the French would side with the Americans if we separated from Britain. Only one state was against it, New York. He listed more than two dozen specific grievances about the king and about slavery. On July 4th the declaration of independence was a success and a moth later they went to sign the official parchment copy. The document was printed and read everywhere in celebration.
The Boston tea party was a brief incident among many, composing, economic, and political crisis that ultimately caused a revolution. These events consisted of The French and Indian war, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Revenue Act, the Tea Act, and of course the Boston Tea Party. The incident caused by the colonies infuriated the British government therefore as punishment parliament responded to the abuse with the Coercive Acts of 1774 . When the thirteen colonies once again decided to resist the British troops revolution spread. “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” This act later on lead to the American Revolutionary War, were years later independence was
The Declaration of Independence was written on July 4, 1776. On that day the 13 Colonies became free and Independent states. The Declaration of Independence states this “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...
It was the 4th of July in 1776 when delegates from all thirteen colonies assembled at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Not knowing the full significance of what was about to take place that day,the delegates would do something that would forever change the course of the American people.
The Declaration of Independence was created by the British colonies of North America who sought independence, July 4th 1776. They have overthrown their tyrannical unjust ruler. Since then America has been on their own, with the democracy they choice, everything how they would like no more getting ruled by Britain.
The Declaration of Independence includes four parts. The first part is the Preamble, which explains why the Continental Congress drew up the Declaration. They felt their reason should be explained to England.
There are many important factors in the Declaration of Independence, which enable the foundation of a new government. These range from describing grievances with England, to how government should be run differently, to the first statement of separation. The first step to the foundation of a new government is the uniting of a people in a common goal. Since all people were feeling violated by English soldiers, it was necessary to state these grievances in order to make people aware that they are not alone. When people learned that others felt the same as them emotion was stirred. The Declaration of Independence listed the grievances such as, “He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” The next important step to the foundation of a new government was to gain peoples ambition by showing how the government would be run if a new party took over. This goal was achieved by stating the rights of man. “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.” This statement made people hopeful and feel kindly toward this new government. The final step in the preparation for a new government was separation from the old government. This was declared twice in the Declaration of Independence. In the beginning, “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, driving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and in the end, “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. In conclusion, the Declaration of Independence was able to motivate people, give them ambition, and made it simple for Americans to take action.
In 1773, the Tea Act placed taxes on tea, threatening the power of the colonies. The colonies, however, fought back by pouring expensive tea into the Boston harbor in an event now known as the Boston Tea Party. The enraged Parliament quickly passed the Intolerable Acts, shutting down the port of Boston and taking control over the colonies.