That is an interesting story! We found some of the early details at National Today website [LINK].
“In the 1700s, America wasn’t really a nation of ‘united states.’ Instead, there were 13 colonies with distinct personalities. From 1763 to 1773, Britain’s King George III increasingly placed pressure on the colonies as he and the British Parliament enacted a succession of draconian taxes and laws on them. Excessive taxes on British luxury goods like tea and sugar were designed to benefit the British crown without any regard for the hardships of the colonists. By 1764, the phrase “Taxation without representation is tyranny” spread throughout the colonies as the rallying cry of outrage.
“The more the colonists rebelled, the more King George doubled down with force. Imagine if enemy soldiers not only had the right to enter your home but the soldiers could demand that you feed and house them. The Quartering Act of 1765 allowed British soldiers to do just that.”
The Battles Begin
Yes, the fight was on. The British passed something called the Stamp Act, which basically taxed any piece of printed paper, including newspapers, legal documents, ships’ papers — and even playing cards! The story tells us about the first real fight: “Tensions boiled over on March 5, 1770, in Boston Harbor during a street fight between a group of colonists and British soldiers. The soldiers fired shots that killed 47-year-old Crispus Attucks, the first American and Black man to die along with three other colonists in the Boston Massacre.”
Readers have probably heard about the Boston Tea Party. A group of colonists dressed up as Native Americans, (the Mohican tribe) and they boarded a British ship and threw all of the tea overboard. The article tells us: “Continued pressure led to resistance and the start of the Revolutionary War in the towns of Lexington and Concord when a militia of patriots battled British soldiers on April 19, 1775. Conditions were ripe for American independence.”
American Independence
We’re now entering a significant meeting, with an important document being created. “On June 7, 1776, the Continental Congress met at the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in Philadelphia and Richard Henry Lee, the Virginia delegate, introduced a motion calling for the independence of the colonies. Amid heated debate, Congress rescheduled the vote on Lee’s resolution but appointed a five-man committee — including Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Robert R. Livingston of New York — to draft a formal statement justifying the defect from Great Britain.”
Now we’re approaching the date of July 4th. Let’s see the document they’re creating: “On July 2, 1776, in a virtually unanimous vote, the Continental Congress voted in favor of Lee’s resolution for independence, and on July 4th, it formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, which had been written largely by Jefferson.”
Well, there we have it… the representatives of the Colonies argued quite a bit about what to include and what to leave out. Thomas Jefferson was the one who pulled it all together. The document made it clear: “The document proclaimed the 13 American colonies’ liberation from Britain and reaffirmed their rights as free men — declaring that they were no longer subject (and subordinate) to the monarch of Britain, King George III, and were now united, free, and independent states.”
Enjoy the Holiday
We went to the government’s Archives website [LINK] for the text of the Declaration of Independence, written in most part by Thomas Jefferson. Here we will offer the first paragraph, and we encourage readers to enjoy the full document.
“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
This incredible moment in time is what we celebrate on July 4th, with fireworks and picnics and all kinds of enjoyable recreation. We encourage readers to visit the document and get a feel for what these incredibly brave leaders told the King.
We’re celebrating the birthday of America at AMS Fulfillment and we wish all of our employees, clients and friends a wonderful 4th of July weekend!
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