3.1: The Declaration of Independence

Before America became an independent country, it was a set of 13 British colonies, established between 1607 and 1732. The first inhabitants of these colonies included European entrepreneurs looking to make or increase their fortunes in the New World, religious outcasts fleeing persecution in other lands, native peoples who saw their territory decrease in size as the new settlements became larger and more numerous, and slaves bought or captured in Africa and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean.

By the 1770s, over two million people lived in colonial America. The colonies were governed by the British parliament and by decrees issued by the King of Great Britain, George III. The colonials generally regarded themselves as British subjects — which they were — but a distinctly American culture had begun to emerge.

Being governed by a distant King and Parliament displeased the colonials. The British Crown placed heavy tax burdens on the colonies to pay off its war debts and imposed many economic and political restrictions. Unlike British subjects living in Great Britain, the colonials had no voting representation in Parliament, meaning they could not influence or block these laws. Popular sovereignty was lacking: the colonials were ruled by a government in which they had no formal say and which ignored their appeals for relief from the negative effects of its policies.

After many failed attempts to persuade King George III to address their concerns, the colonials took extreme action. The Second Continental Congress, comprising delegates from all 13 colonies, signed the Declaration of Independence, a document written mainly by Thomas Jefferson.

The first part of the Declaration (which you can find in Appendix A) tallied the colonials’ grievances against the King. He had failed to pass laws the colonies wanted, and would not allow colonial governments to pass them in his name. He controlled the appointment of colonial judges, causing them to be biased in favor of the Crown in court cases. Large numbers of British troops were present in the colonies even during peacetime, forcing colonials to provide them free room and board. The British parliament had imposed burdensome taxes on the colonials, who lacked representation in Parliament to speak and vote against those taxes.

The Declaration of Independence was highly critical of King George III, labeling him a “tyrant.” However, most of its complaints were not specific to King George III. Had they been, the colonials might have demanded that the King abdicate and allow himself to be replaced by a better ruler. Rather, the Declaration made it clear that the problems were rooted in the British monarchy itself, and would therefore persist no matter who was King. Because of this, the only sensible solution in the colonials’ view was “to throw off such government” — to declare their independence — and “to institute new government” to prevent these problems from recurring.

In the opinion of the delegates who signed the Declaration of Independence, America was already an independent country even before the ink had dried on the parchment. From the King’s perspective, America was simply a rebellious region of the British Empire that needed to be reminded who was in charge. The American Revolutionary War was fought between the two sides to settle this dispute. Had the colonials lost, the British Crown would have restored control over the colonies, and the Declaration would have gone down in history as the treasonous spark of a failed insurrection. But the colonials — henceforth the Americans — won their war for independence, and in 1783 the British government acknowledged as much by signing the Treaty of Paris, ending the war and establishing the United States as a free and independent nation.

When the 56 men whose names appear at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence declared “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor,” it was not just a figure of speech. They knew war was coming, and that if they lost they would have signed their own death warrants by adding their names to the Declaration.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy for us to envision ourselves confidently signing our names alongside theirs with untrembling hands. We tend to underestimate the courage it took to do what they did, because we, unlike them, never had to imagine our own necks in a traitor’s noose.