DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

The Declaration of Independence
(https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration)
Selected Works
1955 (Dumbauld, ed.)
Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Representative Selections
A curated selection of Jefferson's political writings, edited for modern readers.
1853–54 (Washington, ed.)
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (9 vols.)
The standard 19th-century collected edition of Jefferson's correspondence and public papers.
VIEW ALL 1700–1800 WORKS →

What would compel a people to dissolve their political bonds?

Accepted July 4, 1776 · Second Continental Congress

The Declaration of Independence made known to the world the causes compelling the inhabitants of regions once considered possessions of Great Britain to dissolve their political bonds to the British Empire, and so “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.”

July 2Lee’s motion acceptedJuly 4Declaration accepted

Two days in 1776

  • The motion: Richard Henry Lee of Virginia moved for independence, accepted July 2, 1776.
  • The author: Thomas Jefferson, also of Virginia, with minor alterations by the drafting committee and the Congress.
  • Before the break: Nearly two years of appeals and petitions to the king in Parliament to avoid separation.
  • A first: The first written declaration issued by a people proclaiming the liberty to choose their own political regime.
  • In the Goodrich Room: The final inscription on the wall at Wabash College.

Did Parliament have the authority to tax a people it did not directly represent?

Hover or tap each idea to weigh both sides

  • The Empire’s CaseSome argue the empire expected only its just due for supporting the government’s long-standing debt, made worse in part by the French and Indian War of the 1750s, in which the mother country had helped defend the colonies.
  • The American FearTo Americans, more was being asked than help with the debt. Excessive imperial spending had troubled England for over a century. If Parliament could claim the colonists’ domestic revenues, it would likely become a permanent yoke with no relief through appeal.
  • A Habit of Self-GovernmentFrom nearly their founding, England’s rule was hardly felt in the colonies. Colonists were expected to govern themselves in all internal matters, with few exceptions, such as the Dominion of New England under Governor Andros (1684–1689), which were glaring and quickly reversed.
  • The King, Not ParliamentPrecedent held that the king reigned over the colonies through their own legislatures, not through Parliament. When Charles II sought a permanent revenue for Virginia, he applied “not to the English Parliament, but to the General Assembly [of Virginia].”
  • No Internal TaxationRichard Bland of the Virginia House of Burgesses and John Dickinson of Philadelphia argued that Parliament could not impose internal colonial taxes on a people it did not directly represent.
  • Unwritten LawOn the basis of leges non scriptae, unwritten law, Parliament’s past inability, and at times unwillingness, to involve itself in colonial affairs defined its position as separate from, and nonbinding on, colonial practice.
  • King and Parliament in ConcertRevenue acts after 1764 revealed an effort to change the colonies’ legal standing. When petitions failed, the king appeared to be acting with Parliament to subjugate colonial liberties, confirming the Declaration’s charge that he had:“erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”
July 41776

The first written declaration issued by a people proclaiming the liberty to choose their own political regime.

The final inscription on the wall of the Goodrich Room at Wabash College needs little explanation. Yet the validity of the case it presents has long been disputed by revisionists on both sides of the Atlantic.

Separate and equal stationThe laws of nature and of nature’s GodLiberty to choose a political regime