THE DECLARATION

OF INDEPENDENCE
Most colonists hoped to avoid a full-scale confrontation with the mother country.
Many of them changed their minds, however, after reading

- Thomas Paine's Common Sense

Common Sense was a pamphlet that called for the colonies to break from Britain and form their own
country, free of any monarch/king.
When the Continental Congress met a second time to decide what to do, what they actually did was draft the
Declaration of Independence.
It was a warm, balmy day and with about 50 people crowded into a room with not even a window open in order
to preserve a sense of security, they drafted the Declaration. They also needed time to settle their own
disagreements before they presented their ideas to the public.
We should be grateful for these people who suffered through an unbearably hot, series of meetings. They
created a document that became the basis for our government - and a model for the rest of the world.
Written over a year after the war began, this document formally declared that the colonies were breaking free
from British rule and forming their own country - the United States of America.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

The American Revolution was fought between 1775 and 1781,
and ended with an American victory.

Two years later, the United States and Great Britain signed the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain
recognized the United States of America as an independent country and gave it the rights to all land south of
Canada and east of the Mississippi River.
The colonists, led by the Founders, had won their independence - they were colonists no more.
Now they were Americans and needed to create a government for the new nation.