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Chapter III - Independence Declared
Independence Declared 1776
Following the lead of Thomas Paine and others, the Second Continental Congress recommended that individual colonies form governments that in the opinions of the representatives would best provide for "the happiness and safety of their constituents." On June 7, delegates Richard Henry Lee and John Adams introduced the crucial resolution: "These united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states that are absolved of all allegiance to the British Crown." Congress appointed a committee composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman to draft a declaration of independence from Britain. After making several revisions, including the deletion of an attack on slavery, Congress adopted Jefferson's forceful draft on July 41 1776.
Like Paine, Thomas Jefferson no longer distinguished between a kindly king and a corrupt parliament. He accused the king of "repeated injuries and usurpations," of attempting to destroy representative government in the colonies and of oppressing Americans through an unjustified use of excessive force." Jefferson fervently urged the colonists to throw off such a government and provide for their own future security. The Declaration of Independence contained no strikingly original ideas. In fact, John Adams wrote, "there is not an idea in it but what had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before." Nevertheless, the Declaration of Independence continues to define the aspirations of Americans and oppressed people throughout the world with its powerful rationale for revolution and principles such as the ones expressed in its second paragraph which reads:
With this stirring document, the United States of America wrote itself into being.
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