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In Focus: The 4th of July, or Independence Day Independence Day is regarded as the birthday of the United States as a free and independent nation. It commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, 229 years ago. At that time, the people of the 13 British colonies located along the eastern coast of what is now the United States were involved in a war over what they considered unjust treatment by the king and parliament in Britain. In 1763, the end of the Seven Years' War and the French and Indian War left England in control of all of North America east of the Mississippi and Canada. The British government, faced with the problem of supporting a growing empire, decided to collect money for the colonies' defense from the colonists through a stronger central administration. New regulations and taxes on sugar, coffee, textiles and other imports were introduced.
With long years of self-government behind them and accustomed to a large measure of independence and resisted the new regulations, the colonies rallied behind the slogan "no taxation without representation." One of the new taxes that sparked the greatest organized resistance was the "Stamp Act." It provided that revenue stamps be affixed to all newspapers, broadsides, pamphlets, licenses, leases or other legal documents. In 1765, 27 representatives from nine colonies at the so-called Stamp Act Congress in New York, seized the opportunity to mobilize colonial opinion against parliamentary interference in American affairs. In 1766, the British Parliament yielded, repealing the Stamp Act and modifying other import taxes; but a year later, new duties on colonial imports of paper, glass, lead and tea exported from Britain to the colonies were introduced. In Boston, enforcement of the new regulations provoked violence.
 Faced with such opposition, the British Parliament repealed all the duties except that on tea, which was a luxury item in the colonies. In 1773, the powerful East India Company (a trading company) appealed to the British government to grant it a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies. Aroused by the monopolistic practice involved as well as the loss of the tea trade, colonial traders joined the small group of radicals who had been agitating for independence. On the night of December 16, 1773, a band of men disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded three British ships lying at anchor and dumped their tea cargo into Boston harbor. Official opinion in Britain almost unanimously condemned the Boston Tea Party as an act of vandalism and advocated legal measures to bring the insurgent colonists into line. Parliament responded with new laws that the colonists called the "Coercive or Intolerable Acts."
Colonial representatives came together in Philadelphia in 1774, at a meeting that came to be known as the First Continental Congress, "to consult upon the present unhappy state of the Colonies." The most important action taken by the Congress, however, was the formation of a "Continental Association," which provided for the renewal of a trade boycott. The Association spurred new local organizations to end what remained of royal authority. Militants began the collection of military supplies and the mobilization of troops.
A second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 10, 1775. By May 15, the Congress voted to go to war, inducting the colonial militias into continental service and appointing Colonel George Washington of Virginia as commander-in-chief of the American forces. The conflict escalated. King George III issued a proclamation on August 23, 1775, declaring the colonies to be in a state of rebellion. On May 10, 1776 -- one year to the day since the Second Continental Congress had first met -- a resolution was adopted calling for separation. Now only a formal declaration was needed. On June 7, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution declaring "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states...."
 A committee of five, headed by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, was appointed to prepare a formal declaration. Largely Jefferson's work, the Declaration of Independence, adopted July 4, 1776, not only announced the birth of a new nation, but also set forth a philosophy of human freedom that would become a dynamic force throughout the entire world. The Declaration draws upon French and English Enlightenment political philosophy, but one influence in particular stands out: John Locke's Second Treatise on Government. Locke took conceptions of the traditional rights of Englishmen and universalized them into the natural rights of all humankind. The Declaration's familiar opening passage echoes Locke's social-contract theory of government:
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 of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a 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.
In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson linked Locke's principles directly to the situation in the colonies. To fight for American independence was to fight for a government based on popular consent in place of a government by a king who had "combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws...." Only a government based on popular consent could secure natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thus, to fight for American independence was to fight on behalf of one's own natural rights.
Armed conflict between America and England lasted until 1783. Known as the Treaty of Paris, the peace settlement acknowledged the independence, freedom and sovereignty of the 13 former colonies, now states. The 13 colonies were now "free and united independent states" - but not yet one united nation. The success of the Revolution gave Americans the opportunity to give legal form to their ideals as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, and to remedy some of their grievances through state constitutions.
In May 1787, a convention met in Philadelphia to draft a new Constitution which established a stronger federal government empowered to collect taxes, conduct diplomacy, maintain armed forces and regulate foreign trade and commerce among the states. The Constitution divides the government into three branches, each separate and distinct from one another. The powers given to each are delicately balanced by the powers of the other two; and each branch serves as a check on potential excesses of the others. Within two years of its adoption, ten amendments, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, were added to the Constitution.
Excerpted from: The Road to Independence, An Outline of American History (U.S. Department of State)
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