Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America.
-Thomas Jefferson, November 29, 1775
By the time the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain had been at war for more than a year. Relations between the colonies and England had been deteriorating since the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763. The war put the British government deep into debt so Parliament enacted a tax increase to increase revenue from the colonies. This was the colonies share of the costs to keep them in the British Empire.
John Adam had drafted a "radical" preamble which Congress passed on May 15, 1776. June 7, Virginia presented a resolution to Congress.
Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.
-Richard Henry Lee
Delegates from Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, and New York threatened to leave Congress if the resolution was adopted. Congress voted to postpone Lee's resolution for three weeks. Until then, Congress decided a committee prepare a document announcing and explaining independence. On June 11, Congress appointed a Committee of Five. The Committee discussed the general outline and Jefferson wrote the first draft. Considering Congress's busy schedule, Jefferson had limited time to write.
June 28 Jefferson's document was presented to Congress. After days of speeches and voting the resolution of independence was adopted July 2nd. Congress made a few changes in wording and deleted nearly a fourth of the text concerning a passage critical of the slave trade. On July 4, 1776, the wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved and sent to the printer for publication which are known as the Dunlap broadsides. About 34 delegates signed the document on July 4, the others signed on or after August 2.
The first sentence asserts the Natural law for people to assume political independence. The next section is the famous preamble asserting the "right of revolution when a government violates people's rights. The next section is a list of charges against King George III showing the violations against the people. The next section expresses the disappointment the appeals to the British Parliament had been unsuccessful. The finial section, incorporating some of Lee's resolution, state conditions where a people must change their government and the British produced these conditions.
Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.
-Thomas Jefferson
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