CHAPTER 6From Empire to Independence

1750-1763

5, 10E

First Continental Congress, 1774

John Adams

Patrick Henry

The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve colonies (Georgia was not present) that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts (also known as Intolerable Acts by the Colonial Americans) by the British Parliament. The Intolerable Acts had punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party.

The Congress was attended by 56 delegates appointed by the legislatures of twelve of the Thirteen Colonies, the exception being the Province of Georgia, which was hoping for British assistance with Native American problems on its frontier.[1]

The Congress met briefly to consider options, including an economic boycott of British trade; rights and grievances; and petitioned King George III for redress of those grievances.

The Congress also called for another Continental Congress in the event that their petition was unsuccessful in halting enforcement of the Intolerable Acts. Their appeal to the Crown had no effect, and so the Second Continental Congress was convened the following year to organize the defense of the colonies at the onset of the American Revolutionary War. The delegates also urged each colony to set up and train its own militia.

Continental Congress building in Philadelphia, to react to the Intolerable Acts from the British people. This is Carpenter’s Hall September 1774

Causes of American Revolution:

French and Indian War

Stamp Act

Townshend Acts

Boston Massacre

Boston Tea Party

Thomas Paine and “Common Sense”

First and Second Continental Congress

The French Indian War is apart of the World Wide Seven Years War.The French Indian War is where you have:French, Austrian, Spain versus Britain, Colonists, and Prussian.

There were three flash points for the war between Great Britain and the United States. 1) was the northern Atlantic coast the boundary between New France and new England. In 1745during King George’s War, New Englanders captured Louisburg but the French reclaimed it upon the settlement of the conflict2) Was the border region between New France and New York extending from Niagara Falls to Lake Champlain where Canadians and New Yorkers were rivals for the lucratic Indian trade.3) Was the conflict of the Ohio Country. British government issued a royal charter for 200,000 acres to the Ohio Company were direct challenge to French claims

Seven Years War

In the French Indian War hundreds of Ohio Indians became disciples of the Indian Visionary named Neolin (The Enlightenment) The core of Neolin’s teaching was that Indians had been corrupted by European ways and need to purify themselves by returning to their traditions and prepare for a holy war. Pontiac took up these ideas. In May 1763 Pontiac’s alliance simultaneously attacked all the British posts in the West but unable to take key forts at Niagara and Ft. Pitt.

The Emergence of American Nationalism

An American Identify

The Anglo-French hostilities were ended in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris, which involved a complex series of land exchanges, the most important being France's cession to Spain of Louisiana, and to Great Britain the rest of New France except for the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. Faced with the choice of retrieving either New France or its Caribbean island colonies of Guadeloupe and Martinique, France chose the latter to retain these lucrative sources of sugar,[94] writing off New France as an unproductive, costly territory.[95] France also returned Minorca to the British. Spain lost control of Florida to Great Britain, but received part of New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi River from the French. The exchanges suited the British as well, as their own Caribbean islands already supplied ample sugar, and with the acquisition of New France and Florida, they now controlled all of North America east of the Mississippi. Historical re-enactment of the Battle of Warburg fought on 31 July 1760.In India, the British retained the Northern Circars, but returned all the French trading ports. The treaty, however, required that the fortifications of these settlements must be destroyed and never rebuilt, while only minimal garrisons could be maintained there, thus rendering them worthless as military bases. Combined with the loss of France's ally in Bengal and the defection of Hyderabad to the British side as a result of the war, this effectively brought French power in India to an end, making way for British hegemony and eventual control of the subcontinent.

European boundaries were returned to their status quo ante bellum by the Treaty of Hubertusburg (February 1763). Prussia thus maintained its possession of Silesia, having survived the combined assault of three neighbours, each larger than itself. Prussia gained enormously in influence at the expense of the Holy Roman Empire. This increase in Prussian influence, it is argued, marks the beginning of the modern German state, an event at least as influential as the colonial empire Great Britain had gained. Others, including Fred Anderson, author of Crucible of War, believe the war was needless and overly costly.[96]

France's navy was crippled by the war. Only after an ambitious rebuilding programmed by France in combination with Spain was it again able to challenge Britain's command of the sea.[97]

However, the British government was close to bankruptcy, and Britain now faced the delicate task of pacifying its new French-Canadian subjects, as well as the many American Indian tribes who had supported France. George III's Proclamation of 1763, which forbade white settlement beyond the crest of the Appalachians, was intended to appease the latter, but led to considerable outrage in the Thirteen Colonies whose inhabitants were eager to acquire native lands. The Quebec Act of 1774, similarly intended to win over the loyalty of French Canadians, also spurred resentment among American colonists.[98] Victorious in 1763, Great Britain would soon face another military threat in North America—this time from its longtime subjects, who no longer had to fear a hostile neighbouring power

7 British Seven Years War Debt‘Before 1763 American colonies paid the lowest taxes of any citizens in the western world. Colonial subjects were taxed about one shilling per head per year, whereas in Great Britain subjects were taxed around 26 shillings each. Between 1756 and 1763 the British fought the Seven years war and the French and Indian war in order to expand its empire. During the course of the Seven Years War the British national debt doubled to almost $150m, the yearly interest payments were nearly $4m alone. Ordinary Britons staged riots to let Parliament know that they would pay no more taxes.’

Robert Morris a Philadelphia merchant banker became director of congressional fiscal policy State and federal effort to regulate prices cease. But the clash between these two vision of economic free would be seen up till today.

5.10A

moon

There was a dislike between the English Militia and the Colonial Forces over 1) Involvement of 1765 Seven Years War 2) Regular British soldiers derogatory called colonists “Yankees” (thought to be derived from the Dutch “Jan Kass” “yan-kee” or John Cheese.

The origin of the term is uncertain. In 1758, British General James Wolfe made the earliest recorded use of the word Yankee to refer to people from what was to become the United States, referring to the New England soldiers under his command as Yankees: "I can afford you two companies of Yankees, and the more because they are better for ranging and scouting than either work or vigilance".[5] Later British use of the word often was derogatory, as in a cartoon of 1775 ridiculing "Yankee" soldiers.[5] New Englanders themselves employed the word in a neutral sense: the "Pennamite-Yankee War", for example, was the name given to a series of clashes in 1769 over land titles in Pennsylvania, in which the "Yankees" were the claimants from Connecticut. Yankee Chief George Washington

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company

An engraving of James Otis graces the cover ofthe Boston Almanac for 1770.

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyA warning by the Sons of Liberty

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyThe Mitred Minuet

Press, Politics and Republicanism

Adam Smith

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon, Adam Smith and Thomas Paine all wrote books in 1776 which gave cause to revolt against England. Gibbon’s attack despotism, Smith attack government control of economics and Paine attack contradictions of English Bill of Rights not giving representation to the colonists. All authors were English.

Gibbon returned to England in June 1765. His father died in 1770, and after tending to the estate, which was by no means in good condition, there remained quite enough for Gibbon to settle fashionably in London at 7 Bentinck Street, independent of financial concerns. By February 1773, he was writing in earnest, but not without the occasional self-imposed distraction. He took to London society quite easily, joined the better social clubs, including Dr. Johnson's Literary Club, and looked in from time to time on his friend Holroyd in Sussex. He succeeded Oliver Goldsmith at the Royal Academy as 'professor in ancient history' (honorary but prestigious). In late 1774, he was initiated a freemason of the Premier Grand Lodge of England.[22] And, perhaps least productively in that same year, he was returned to the House of Commons for Liskeard, Cornwall through the intervention of his relative and patron, Edward Eliot. He became the archetypal back-bencher, benignly "mute" and "indifferent," his support of the Whig ministry invariably automatic. Gibbon's indolence in that position, perhaps fully intentional, subtracted little from the progress of his writing.[23]

After several rewrites, with Gibbon "often tempted to throw away the labours of seven years," the first volume of what would become his life's major achievement, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published on 17 February 1776. Through 1777, the reading public eagerly consumed three editions for which Gibbon was rewarded handsomely: two-thirds of the profits amounting to approximately £1,000.[24] Biographer Leslie Stephen wrote that thereafter, "His fame was as rapid as it has been lasting." And as regards this first volume, "Some warm praise from David Hume overpaid the labour of ten years."

Volumes II and III appeared on 1 March 1781, eventually rising "to a level with the previous volume in general esteem." Volume IV was finished in June 1784;[25] the final two were completed during a second Lausanne sojourn (September 1783 to August 1787) where Gibbon reunited with his friend Deyverdun in leisurely comfort. By early 1787, he was "straining for the goal" and with great relief the project was finished in June. Gibbon later wrote:

It was on the day, or rather the night, of 27 June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. ... I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be the future date of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious

5, 13A

COMMON SENSE:*supported the “rights of man”*encouraged troops to fight England*prompted mobilization for war

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyThe cover of Common Sense

Paine's arguments against British rule It was absurd for an island to rule a continent. America was not a "British nation"; but was composed of influences and peoples from all of Europe. Even if Britain were the "mother country" of America, that made her actions all the more horrendous, for no mother would harm her children so brutally. Being a part of Britain would drag America into unnecessary European wars, and keep her from the international commerce at which America excelled. The distance between the two nations made governing the colonies from England unwieldy. If some wrong were to be petitioned to Parliament, it would take a year before the colonies received a response. The New World was discovered shortly before the Reformation. The Puritans believed that God wanted to give them a safe haven from the persecution of British rule. Britain ruled the colonies for her own benefit, and did not consider the best interests of the colonists in governing Britain.

That didn't seem to matter, though, because printed by Bell, Common Sense sold almost 100,000 copies in 1776,[8] and according to Paine, 120,000 copies were sold in the first three months. One biographer estimates that 500,000 copies sold in the first year (in both America and Europe – predominantly France and Britain), and another writes that Paine's pamphlet went through twenty-five published editions in the first year alone. Aside from the printed pamphlet itself, there were many handwritten summaries and whole copies circulated. At least one newspaper, the Connecticut Courant, printed the entire pamphlet in its February 19, 1776, issue and there may have been others that did the same. While it is difficult to achieve a fixed figure for the number of circulated copies, what is certain is that Paine's words reached far and wide out to most of America's 2.5 million colonists. His pamphlet was read at countless town meetings and gatherings even to those who could not read. Paine managed to carefully maintain his anonymity, even during potent newspaper polemics generated by Robert Bell, for nearly three months. His name did not become officially connected with the independence controversy until March 30, 1776. He donated his royalties from Common Sense to George Washington's Continental Army, saying:

As my wish was to serve an oppressed people, and assist in a just and good cause, I conceived that the honor of it would be promoted by my declining to make even the usual profits of an author.[12] —Thomas Paine

Freedom Defined:What are Markets?Who should decide my salary, price of good? The Government or the Market?

Freedom Defined: “ Market values is why the American Revolution was fought”. Adam Smith

The Invisible Hand; simply means that markets will determine prices and salaries not governments with taxes and tariffs. Pure Freedom

Economic Sciences Nobel Prizes University of Chicago Thomas J. Sargent, 2011 Leonid Hurwicz, 2007 Roger B. Myerson‡, 2007 Edward C. Prescott, 2004 Daniel L. McFadden, 2000 James J. Heckman‡, 2000 Robert A. Mundell, 1999 Myron S. Scholes*, 1997 Robert E. Lucas Jr.*‡, 1995

Robert W. Fogel‡, 1993 Gary S. Becker*‡, 1992 Ronald H. Coase‡, 1991 Harry M. Markowitz*, 1990 Merton H. Miller, 1990 Trygve Haavelmo, 1989 James M. Buchanan Jr.*, 1986 Gerard Debreu, 1983 George J. Stigler*, 1982

Lawrence R. Klein, 1980 Theodore W. Schultz, 1979 Herbert A. Simon*, 1978 Milton Friedman*, 1976 Tjalling C. Koopmans, 1975 Friedrich August von Hayek, 1974 Kenneth J. Arrow, 1972 Paul A. Samuelson*, 1970

Sugar and Stamp Acts

Prime Minister George Greenville need to raise revenue. He lowered French West Indies from six to three pence per gallon but ended widespread smuggling of colonists

Molasses Act of 1733 sought to curtail trade between New England and the French Caribbean by imposing a prohibitive tax on French produced molasses used to make rum in American distilleries

Currency Act of 1764 which controlled the printing of currency by the Motherland England

Enlightenment:New ideas on freedom and taxation

Wool Act of 1699 place control and taxation on the wool industry. Help the manufacturers of English Wool

Production of Iron was controlled by the British Parliament in 1750

5, 10F

Signatures being obtained in the colonies to boycott various goods imported from England. This was a non violent approach

Hypocrisy of King George III of England

The Stamp Act

Books newspaper and written word in the United States was the strongest in the world. 7Times more printed materials were with the United States versus England in 1775

When the war ended as many as 100,000 Loyalist including 20,000 slaves were banished from the United States or emigrated voluntarily mostly to Britain, Canada or the West Indians . But for those who remained hostility proved to be short lived. In the Treaty of Paris of 1783 state and local governments had to restore property seized during he war

Salutary neglect is a term used in American history, referring to an unofficial and long-lasting 17th- & 18th-century British policy of avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws, meant to keep the American colonies obedient to England.The term comes from Edmund Burke's "Speech for the Conciliation with the Colonies" given in the House of Commons March 22, 1775"That I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt, and die away within me." (Burke p. 186)Prime Minister Robert Walpole stated that "If no restrictions were placed on the colonies, they would flourish".[1] This policy, which lasted from about 1607 to 1763, allowed the enforcement of trade relations laws to be lenient. Walpole did not believe in enforcing the Navigation Acts, established under Oliver Cromwell and Charles II and designed to force the colonists to trade only with England

Colonial Displeasure

William Hogarth’s

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company

A woodcut depicting a crowd attempting tointimidate a New Hampshire official charged

North Carolina

Mecklenburg Resolves or Declaration (May 1775) Liberty Point Resolves (June 1775) Tryon Resolves (August 1775) Halifax Resolves (April 1776)

Virginia

Fairfax Resolves (July 1774) Fincastle Resolutions (January 1775) Virginia Declaration of Rights (June 1776)

1st ContinentalCongress

Declaration and Resolves (October 1774) Continental Association (October 1774) Petition to the King (October 1774)

2nd ContinentalCongress

Olive Branch Petition (July 1775) Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (July 1775) Lee Resolution (July 1776)

Essays and pamphlets A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774) Novanglus (1775) Common Sense (1776) Thoughts on Government (1776)

COLONIAL VOTING QUALIFICATION

Thoughts on Government, or in full Thoughts on Government, Applicable to the Present State of the American Colonies, was written by John Adams during the spring of 1776 in response to a resolution of the North Carolina Provincial Congress which requested Adams's suggestions on the establishment of a new government and the drafting of a constitution. Adams says that "Politics is the Science of human Happiness -and the Felicity of Societies depends on the Constitutions of Government under which they live." Many of the ideas put forth in Adams's essay were adopted in December 1776 by the framers of North Carolina's first constitution.

The document is notable in that Adams sketches out the three branches of American government: the executive, judicial, and legislative branches, all with a system of checks and balances. Furthermore, in response to Common Sense by Thomas Paine, Adams rejects the idea of a single legislative body, fearing it may become tyrannical or self-serving (as in the case of Holland at the time). Thus, Adams also conceives the idea of two legislative bodies that will serve as checks on each other's power

Save your Money and Save Your Country

The Townshend Revenue Acts

Townshend persuaded Parliament to impose new taxes on goods imported into the colonies and to create a new board of commissioner to collect taxes and suppress smuggling. He intended to use new revenues to pay colonial officials

Massachusetts Circular Letter

Origins of the American Revolution: writingsAmerican resolves, declarations, petitions, essays and pamphlets prior to the Declaration of Independence (July 1776)Following theStamp Act (1765)

Virginia Resolves (May 1765) Braintree Instructions (September 1765) Declaration of Rights and Grievances (October 1765) An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies (1766)

Following theTownshend Acts (1767)

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (1767) Massachusetts Circular Letter (February 1768) Boston Pamphlet (1772) Sheffield Declaration (January 1773)

Following theCoercive Acts (1774) Maryland

Chestertown Resolves (May 1774) Bush River Resolution (March 1775)

Massachusetts

Suffolk Resolves (September 1774)

New York

Orangetown Resolutions (July 1774) A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress (1774) The Farmer Refuted (1775)

The Boston Massacre

On March 5, 1770 a fight between a snowball throwing crowd of Bostonians and British troops escalated into an armed confrontation that left five Bostonians dead. British soldiers who competed for jobs in Boston became unpopular became a cause for this tension

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyThe Boston Massacre

From Resistance to Rebellion

Committees of Correspondence

Colonial ship Liberty was seized by British officials in 1767 this ship was owned by John Hancock the wealthiest man in Boston

The Boston Tea Party

There was a need to bail out the East India company. The British government was now headed by Frederick Lord North, offered the company a series of rebates and tax exemptions. These enabled it to dump low priced tea on the American market undercutting both established merchants and smugglers. Money raised through the taxation of imported tea would be used to defray the costs of colonial government. The loyalty of the American Colonist made this plan back fire/

The Intolerable Acts

The act had wide-ranging effects, in Quebec itself, as well as in the Thirteen Colonies. In Quebec, English-speaking immigrants from Britain and the southern colonies objected to a variety of its provisions, which they saw as a removal of certain political freedoms. Canadians varied in their reaction; the land-owning seigneurs and clergy were generally happy with its provisions although the populace resented their loss of liberties.[1][2] In the Thirteen Colonies, the act, which had been passed in the same session of Parliament as a number of other acts designed as punishment for the Boston Tea Party and other protests, was passed along with the other Intolerable Acts also known as the Coercive Acts. The provisions of the Quebec Act were seen by the colonists as a new model for British colonial administration, which would strip the colonies of their elected assemblies, and promote the Roman Catholic faith in preference to widely-held Protestant beliefs. It also limited opportunities for colonies to expand on their western frontiers, by granting most of the Ohio Country to the province of Quebec.[citation needed]

The War of Independence weakened the deep tradition of American anti-Catholicism/ In the Second Continental Congress decided invited the inhabitants of Quebec (Catholics ) to fight against England. In 1778 the United States formed an alliance with France a Catholic nation.

The First Continental Congress

The First Continental Congress met briefly in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from September 5 to October 26, 1774. It consisted of fifty-six delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies that would become the United States of America. The delegates, who included George Washington (then a colonel of the Virginia volunteers), Patrick Henry, and John Adams, were elected by their respective colonial assemblies. Other notable delegates included Samuel Adams from Massachusetts Bay, and Joseph Galloway and John Dickinson from Pennsylvania.[1] Benjamin Franklin had put forth the idea of such a meeting the year before but was unable to convince the colonies of its necessity until the British placed a blockade at the Port of Boston in response to the Boston Tea Party in 1773. All of the colonies sent their delegates except Georgia, which had its own troubles and needed the protection of British soldiers. Most of the delegates were not yet ready to break away from Great Britain, but they wanted the British King and Parliament to act more fairly. Convened in response to the Intolerable Acts passed by the British Parliament in 1774, the delegates organized an economic boycott of Great Britain in protest and petitioned the King for a redress of grievances. The colonies were united in their effort to demonstrate their authority to Great Britain by virtue of their common causes and through their unity, but their ultimate objectives were not consistent. Pennsylvania and New York had sent delegates with firm instructions to pursue a resolution with Great Britain. While the other colonies all held the idea of colonial rights as paramount, they were split between those who sought legislative equality with Britain and those who instead favored independence and a break from the Crown and its excesses. On October 26, 1774 the First Continental Congress adjourned but agreed to reconvene in May 1775 if Parliament still did not address their grievances. In London, Parliament debated the merits of meeting the demands made by the colonies; however, it took no official notice of Congress's petitions and addresses. On November 30, 1774, King George III opened Parliament with a speech condemning Massachusetts and the Suffolk Resolves. At that point it became clear that the Continental Congress would have to convene once again

The Intolerable Acts was the American Patriots' name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in throwing a large tea shipment into Boston harbor. In Great Britain, these laws were referred to as the Coercive Acts.

The acts took away Massachusetts self-government and historic rights, triggering outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies. They were key developments in the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775.

Four of the acts were issued in direct response to the Boston Tea Party of December 1773; the British Parliament hoped these punitive measures would, by making an example of Massachusetts, reverse the trend of colonial resistance to parliamentary authority that had begun with the 1765 Stamp Act. A fifth act, the Quebec Act, enlarged the boundaries of what was then the Province of Quebec and instituted reforms generally favorable to the French Catholic inhabitants of the region; although unrelated to the other four Acts, it was passed in the same legislative session and seen by the colonists as one of the Intolerable Acts. The Patriots viewed the acts as an arbitrary violation of the rights of Massachusetts, and in September of 1774 they organized the First Continental Congress to coordinate a protest. As tensions escalated, the American Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, leading in July 1776 to the creation of an independent United States of America

American Entry into American Revolution

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company

According to the doctrine of “virtual representation,”the House of Commons

Colonial Loyalist. There were between 20 to 25% of free Americans remained loyal to the British and nearly 20,000 fought for the British. Loyalist were numerous in New York, Pennsylvania, Carolina and Georgia

5, 14aB

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyAmerican Foot Soldiers

5, 10C

Governor Hutchinson

Edmund Burke:“this is the day, then,that you wish to go towar with all America, inorder to conciliate that country to this.”

Pennsylvania arrest and seized property of Quakers, Mennonites and Moravians, pacifist denominations who refused to bear armies because of religious beliefs

Son’s and Daughter’s of Liberty

Daughters of liberty

Many white colonists found it difficult to believe that an African slave was writing excellent poetry. Wheatley had to defend her authorship of her poetry in court in 1772.[9][10] She was examined by a group of Boston luminaries, including John Erving, Reverend Charles Chauncey, John Hancock, Thomas Hutchinson, the governor of Massachusetts, and his lieutenant governor Andrew Oliver. They concluded she had written the poems ascribed to her and signed an attestation, which was included in the preface of her book of collected works: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, published in London in 1773. Publishers in Boston had declined to publish it, but her work was of great interest in London. There Selina, Countess of Huntingdon and the Earl of Dartmouth acted as patrons to help Wheatley gain publication.

In 1778, the African-American poet Jupiter Hammon wrote an ode to Wheatley. He does not refer to himself in the poem, but by choosing Wheatley as a subject, he may have been acknowledging their common ethnicity

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyAmerica as a symbol of liberty

Lexington and Concord

5, 11C

Lexington and Concord

English General Gage sent troops to seize stores of gunpowder and arms from storehouses on the outskirts of Boston. The Massachusetts House of Representatives created a Committee of Safety to call up the militia. These Minutemen were armed militia of towns and communities surrounding Boston now opposed the British army quartered at the city.

King George III believed time for war had come. On the evening of April 18 Gage ordered 700 troops to Concord which is outside Boston to take possession of the armory there. Learning o the operation the Boston Committee dispatched two men Paul Revere and William Dawes to alert the Militia of the country side. By the time the British forces had reached Lexington. British soldiers told the Minutemen (American Rebels to put their weapons down which they did not) shots were fired and eight Americans lied dead. The war had started.

5, 10BThomas Gage

King George III

5, 11A

5, 11B

Scruffy the horse

Paul

Butch

5, 11E

5, 11D

“Stand your ground . . . if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!"- Captain John Parker, Lexington Militia

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyThe Battle of Concord

Deciding for Independence

Second Continental Congress

5, 12B

John Adams, Norris, Hamilton, Jefferson

Leaders of the 2nd Continental Congress

5, 12C

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=second+continental+congress&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=TnSCMEUHWLPQ8M&tbnid=YDFJrlTM9ueKtM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312848/ccs.htm&ei=7RAFUqSUM66ayQG_2YDYAQ&bvm=bv.50500085,d.aWc&psig=AFQjCNErnTXdakOq0XF7fzAJZ_NFAsG26Q&ust=1376150014877176

The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the thirteen colonies that started meeting on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met between September 5, 1774 and October 26, 1774, also in Philadelphia. The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. By raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making formal treaties, the Congress acted as the de facto national government of what became the United States.[1] When the Second Continental Congress came together on May 10, 1775 it was, in effect, a reconvening of the First Continental Congress. Many of the same 56 delegates who attended the first meeting were in attendance at the second, and the delegates appointed the same president (Peyton Randolph) and secretary (Charles Thomson).[2] Notable new arrivals included Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and John Hancock of Massachusetts. Within two weeks, Randolph was summoned back to Virginia to preside over the House of Burgesses; he was replaced in the Virginia delegation by Thomas Jefferson, who arrived several weeks later. Henry Middleton was elected as president to replace Randolph, but he declined. Hancock was elected president on May 24.[3] Delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies were present when the Second Continental Congress convened. Georgia had not participated in the First Continental Congress and did not initially send delegates to the Second Continental Congress. On May 13, 1775, Lyman Hall was admitted as a delegate from the Parish of St. John's in the Colony of Georgia, not as a delegate from the colony itself.[4] On July 4, 1775, revolutionary Georgians held a Provincial Congress to decide how to respond to the American Revolution, and that congress decided on July 8 to send delegates to the Continental Congress. They arrived on July 20

1.boycott British imports, curtail exports, and refuse to use British products; 2.pay "no obedience" to the Massachusetts Government Act or the Boston Port Bill; 3.demand resignations from those appointed to positions under the Massachusetts Government Act; 4.refuse payment of taxes until the Massachusetts Government Act was repealed; 5.support a colonial government in Massachusetts free of royal authority until the Intolerable Acts were repealed; 6.urge the colonies to raise militia of their own people.

5, 10DHouse of Commons

Ben Franklin:“The Parliament has noright to make any lawwhatever, binding on thecolonies…”

The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 5, 1775, in a final attempt to avoid a full-blown war between the Thirteen Colonies that the Congress represented, and Great Britain. The petition affirmed American loyalty to Great Britain and entreated the king to prevent further conflict. However, the Petition succeeded the July 6 Declaration of Taking up Arms which made its efficacy in London dubious.[1] In August 1775 the colonies were formally declared to be in rebellion by the Proclamation of Rebellion, and the petition was rejected in fact, although not having been received by the king before declaring the Congress-supporting colonists traitors

The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 5, 1775, in a final attempt to avoid a full-blown war between the Thirteen Colonies that the Congress represented, and Great Britain. The petition affirmed American loyalty to Great Britain and entreated the king to prevent further conflict. However, the Petition succeeded the July 6 Declaration of Taking up Arms which made its efficacy in London dubious.[1] In August 1775 the colonies were formally declared to be in rebellion by the Proclamation of Rebellion, and the petition was rejected in fact, although not having been received by the king before declaring the Congress-supporting colonists traitors

The Suffolk Resolves was a declaration made on September 9, 1774 by the leaders of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, of which Boston is the major city. The declaration rejected the Massachusetts Government Act and resolved on a boycott of imported goods from Britain unless the Intolerable Acts were repealed. The Resolves were recognized by statesman Edmund Burke as a major development in colonial animosity leading to adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence from Kingdom of Great Britain in 1776, and he urged British conciliation with the American colonies, to little effect. The First Continental Congress endorsed the Resolves on September 17, 1774

A Summary View of the Rights of British America was a tract written by Thomas Jefferson in 1774, before the U.S. Declaration of Independence, in which he laid out for delegates to the First Continental Congress, a set of grievances against the King, especially against his (and Parliament's) response to the Boston Tea Party. Jefferson declares that the British Parliament did not have the right to govern the Thirteen Colonies. He argues that since all of the colonies were founded they were independent of British rule.[1] Jefferson, in this work, held that allodia title, not feudal title, was held to American lands; thus the people did not owe fees and rents for that land to the British crown. The work was presented to and debated by the First Continental Congress. When this took place, Jefferson did not attend. Despite his attempts, the members of the house agreed to a more moderate decision than Jefferson's proposed concept. Despite not being able to completely convince Congress, friends of Jefferson printed the Summary in a pamphlet form. It was distributed throughout London, New York and Philadelphia. Research states that the document "helped establish Jefferson's reputation as a skillful, if radical, political writer

5, 12D

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson

5, 13F

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company

An early draft, with corrections, of theDeclaration of Independence

5, 13E

House where Thomas Jefferson wrote Declaration of Independence

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross Delaware: George Read, Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Signatures on the Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776

Declaration of Independence

5, 13B

Thomas Jefferson’s argument natural rights, the right to resist arbitrary authority drew on the writings of John Locke who social contract allowed the colonist to rebel.

The preparation of the first Virginia Constitution began in early 1776, in the midst of the early events of the American Revolution. Among those who drafted the 1776 Constitution were George Mason and James Madison. Thomas Jefferson was Virginia's representative to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia at the time, and his drafts of the Virginia constitution arrived too late to be incorporated into the final document.[2] James Madison's work on the Virginia Constitution helped him develop the ideas and skills that he would later use as one of the main architects of the United States Constitution.[3]

The 1776 Constitution declared the dissolution of the rule of Great Britain over Virginia and accused England's King George III of establishing a "detestable and insupportable tyranny". It also established separation of governmental powers, with the creation of the bicameral Virginia General Assembly as the legislative body of the state and the Governor of Virginia as the "chief magistrate" or executive. The accompanying Virginia Declaration of Rights, written primarily by Mason, focuses on guarantees of basic human rights and freedoms and the fundamental purpose of government. It, in turn, served as a model for a number of other historic documents, including the United States Bill of Rights.

Critically, the 1776 Constitution limited the right to vote primarily to property owners and men of wealth. This effectively concentrated power in the hands of the landowners and aristocracy of Southeastern Virginia.[1] Dissatisfaction with this power structure would come to dominate Virginia's constitutional debate for almost a century.

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyInspired by the American Revolution

5, 13C

5, 13D

James Madison wrote the Workshop of Liberty to the Civilized World. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. This new nation as an asylum for man kings expressed a sense that the Revolution was an event for global concern. End Monarchies, aristocracy, hereditary privilege, and the oppression of the Old World

Mt. Vernon, Virginia the home of George Washington; A wealthy multi-purposed man. A distiller "The proof is in the pudding”

The Calm Before the Storm

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyMap 5.1 The Revolutionary war in the North 1775–1781

Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd EditionCopyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyTriumphant Entry of the Royal Troops into New York