The Declaration of Independence

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds 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.

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 to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security….


By the time these extraordinary words were drafted, the colonies of the American States had effectively been at war with Great Britain for over a year. The “Seven Years War” (1754–1763), which some considered to be the real “first world war” because of the multitude of European nations that were involved, had strained England’s finances and placed the British government deeply in debt. Previous attempts to raise additional taxes in England had resulted in violent protests and were therefore, out of the question. In an attempt to restore solvency to the treasury and to cover the costs of keeping military forces in the American colonies, Britain imposed a number of taxes on the colonies rather than risk further dissent in England.

The first tax enacted after the Seven Years War was the Sugar Act of 1764 (a modification of the Molasses Act of 1733). The Molasses Act places a 6 pence tax per gallon on molasses imported into Great Britain. The Sugar Act taxed Molasses imported to the Americas from the British West Indies at the rate of 3 pence per gallon.

Stamp Act of 1765 required that a tax stamp be purchased and affixed to most printed materials. The act was met with resistance and violent protests in the colonies. Many of the agents responsible for selling the required stamps were intimidated into resigning their commission as the local population began to join in protests instigated by the Son’s of Liberty. The Stamp Act was also met with resistance from British merchants and manufacturers that exported to the colonies. There trade was being threatened by the economic problems in the colonies that the tax had only worsened; as a result, the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766.

In 1765, Parliament also enacted the Quartering Act. This Act stated that British troops stationed in the colonies would be housed in barracks and public houses. If the number of troops stationed in a particular area outnumbered the available military accommodation, the act permitted that the troops would be housed in a variety of structures including inns, stables, outbuildings, taverns, etc. and that the owners of those establishments would be required to provide food, bedding and other necessities without compensation. New York refused to cooperate with this act and the troops that arrived there remained quartered on board their ships. For their insolence, Parliament suspended the Province of New York's Governor and legislature in 1767 and 1769. In 1771, the New York Assembly acquiesced and allocated funds for the quartering of the British troops.

Since the colonies had reacted so violently to the imposed taxes and other acts, the British Parliament enacted the Declaratory Act in 1766 in an attempt to restrain the behavior of the colonies. The act declared that Parliament had the right to make laws for the colonies in all matters. Unlike the British colonies in other parts of the world, the American colonists, for the most part, had either emigrated from England or at the very least, were direct descendents of Englishmen. The notion that they could be taxed without having representation in Parliament did not sit well in the America’s since the British Constitution prevented Parliament from exacting taxes without the consent of the governed in England proper. Clearly, England did not recognize that this provision of law applied to English subjects living in the colonial states.

Even after the disaster of the Stamp Act, Parliament enacted the Townshend Acts in 1767. The Townsend Acts were as series of five different laws whose intent was to raise revenue in the colonies to pay for governors and judges independent of colonial control, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies regardless of Parliamentary representation. By 1768 matters had deteriorated so badly that the British Military had occupied Boston and by 1770, The Boston Massacre had forever dimmed the hopes that reconciliation with England was possible.

Although reconciliation was unlikely, the loyalists living in the colonies had sent several letters pleading for Parliament to intercede and asking that the American colonies be granted the same rights and privileges afforded to all Englishmen residing within Great Britain. All attempts to illicit assistance from Parliament were rebuffed and the colonies were declared to be in revolution with the members of the Continental Congress branded as traitors to the Crown. In April of 1775, the battles of Lexington and Concord signaled the earnest beginning of the war of revolution and by June of that year, Congress had passed a resolution formally creating the Continental Army.

Of course you know that on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. Had the colonies not won the war with England, the Declaration would have no more importance that any other piece of paper but with the eventual assistance of France, Spain and the Dutch Republic, the Continental Army prevailed and accepted the surrender of the British military forces in 1783 and secured the future of this fledgling nation.

These were not the wanton acts of lawless barbarians. These were decent and good men that were denied the right to live as subjects of the British Crown with the same privileges enjoyed by all other Britons. The acts of oppression employed by the Army of Great Britain and the British Parliament that were meant to strangle the colonies into submission served only to fuel the fires if dissent. The Declaration of Independence was drafted to serve as an honorable statement of their intentions. It was to be a legal notice that the colonies were in fact, separate and apart from Great Britain and would continue the armed conflict to enforce that separation. The Declaration listed the offenses and atrocities committed against the people of the colonies and served as their lawful justification for the revolution that was already under way.

These were people that were not fighting to be free; they were fighting because they were already free. Freedom was a right that they strongly believed was granted to them by a mighty and just God. Their freedoms were not a proclamation of Congress or the whim of a benevolent King, but a divine right that had always existed. These beliefs would guide them in the work that lay ahead in drafting the most profound document human hands had ever created; The Constitution of the United States of America. The Constitution would embody the essence of every struggle mankind had faced to live freely and without fear. The first ten amendments to the Constitution could easily be seen as a brief list of those struggles and the righteous solutions to them.

Please join me tomorrow as we begin to explore the Constitution of The United States of America.

Paul