After winning the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control

over local colonial affairs, creating colonial political resistance; one of the
primary colonial grievances was a denial of their rights as Englishmen,
particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them.
In 1774, the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, and passed the
Continental Association, a colonial boycott of British goods that proved effective.
The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in the 1775 Battles of
Lexington and Concord, igniting the American Revolutionary War. At the Second
Continental Congress, the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief
of the Continental Army, and created a committee led by Thomas Jefferson to write
the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted on July 4, 1776, two days after
passing the Lee Resolution to create an independent nation.[61] The political
values of the American Revolution included liberty, inalienable individual rights;
and the sovereignty of the people;[62] supporting republicanism and rejecting
monarchy, aristocracy, and hereditary political power; virtue and faithfulness in
the performance of civic duties; and vilification of corruption.[63] The Founding
Fathers of the United States, who included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin,
Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, Thomas Paine, John
Adams and many others, were inspired by Greco-Roman, Renaissance, and Enlightenment
philosophies and ideas.[64][65]