Transcript THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION - Jon M. Huntsman School of …

HEROES OF INDEPENDENCE
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GEORGE WASHINGTON
JOHN ADAMS
THOMAS PAINE
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
THOMAS JEFFERSON
BENEDICT ARNOLD
DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE
• Towards Freedom
– 1st Continental Congress--plan resistance
– 2nd Continental Congress--already at war
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
• PREAMBLE
– When in the Course of human events, it becomes
necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of
Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare
the causes which impel them to the separation.
• DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
– 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.
– Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it
is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new
Government.
– Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should
not be changed for light and transient causes;
– But when a long train of abuses ….evinces a design to reduce them
under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it their duty, to throw off such
government and to provide new Guards to their future security.
• GRIEVANCES
– Such has been the patience sufferance of these Colonies.
– The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III]
is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in
direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over
these States.
• GRIEVANCES
– The “Dirty Deeds”
• Refused his Assent to laws
• Dissolved legislatures
• Prevented expansion
• Standing armies
• Cut off trade
• Taxes w/o consent
• No trial by jury
• Abolished charters
• Promoted domestic insurrection
• + 17 OTHERS
• FAILED APPEALS
– In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for
Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have
been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character
is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to
be the ruler of a free people.
• DECLARE INDEPENDENCE
– We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of
America, ….appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world
for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by
the authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly
publish and declare. 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 for support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on
the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to
each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
WHAT GOT LEFT OUT AND
WHY?
• Criticism of Parliament and British people
• Slavery
He has waged cruel war against
human nature itself, violating its most
sacred rights of life & liberty in the
persons of a distant people who never
offended him, captivating & carrying
them into slavery in another
hemisphere, or to incur miserable
death in their transportation thither
SIGNIFICANCE
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Announce formal separation from Britain
Convince the colonists
Convince other nations
State basic principles/common values
Transition point and attack on old ideas
WHY WAS INDEPENDENCE A
MIRACLE?
• PROBLEMS
– British military power
– Washington’s “army”
– Lack of colonial support
WHY WAS INDEPENDENCE A
MIRACLE?
• MIRACLES
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New York
Trenton
Saratoga
Washington’s survival
Washington’s surrender
MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC
VICTORY
• Yorktown, VA (1781)
• Treaty of Paris (1783)