The American Revolution

Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams

In January 1776, a short but powerful book swung popular opinion towards independence, called "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, who was a recent immigrant from Britain, used to be a tax collector and artisan.
Similar ideas would soon be in the Declaration of Independence. He came straight to the point with his ideas. In simple language he proposed a radical course of action:
-They should declare independence in Britain
-Have a Republican State Government
-A union of the new states


Thomas Paine's Radical Proposal
Paine denounced the King and Aristocrats of Britain as frauds and parasites. He wanted all the common people to vote. He depicted Kings as the enemies of the Colonists and American Liberty. Paine hated the region class structure to smothering the hopes of the people without title.
A republic would provide opportunities to reward merit. With this freedom they could trade with anyone they wanted. They could create a model that would inspire common people from other countries to reject Kings and Aristocrats.
Paine concluded, "The cause of America is in a great measure, the cause of all man kind". They will decide to gamble their life liberty.


The Colonies Declare Independence
Many neutrals wanted this after they saw this new ideas. Congress selected committees to prepare a document that will declare independence.
Opinion Swings Towards Independence
On July 2, 1776, the Congress voted that America was free and two days later (July 4) it was approved.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the declaration, he became the 3rd President of USA. It denounced the King as a Tirane and Independence was necessary.
All man were born equal, with the same rights. These were the "unalientable rights" because no one could take it away, but many of the people who signed that had slaves, caused a civil war. The colonies had faced many obstacles to actually win Independence, they still had to fight with the best army to get it.

*The ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence were liberty, equality, unalientable rights, etc.

Most colonists supported the Continental Congress but many preferred British rules. These were called Loyalists; they favored law and order. Many dreaded the crowds and committee, they viewed them as illegal British and vermin (animals).


Loyalists Feared Disaster
Although many loyalists opposed British taxes, they thought the Parliaments must be the legitimate power and ruler.
In 1774, Jonathan Sewell also Loyalist, warned John Adams who was Patriot that the British will not allow the Patriots to rule. He said that he will never surrender against them and the more they fight, the more they will resist.


Loyalists Oppose the Patriot's Demands
About 1/5 of the Colonists remained loyal and more were neutral. According to the Stereotype which was an over simplified image, Loyalists were wealthy people with a good position in the government and many were normal people. These people didn't like the taxes, the military drafts and all that was made by the Colonists, this was the Oath of Allegiance.
Loyalists concluded that the Patriots demanded more taxes and allowed less freedom of speech than the British. Slave’s owners were revolutionaries. The enslaved people were against the Colonists.

*The Loyalists opposed the Patriot's causes because they felt more taxes, freedom of speech was none, they didn't like the Oath of Allegiance, the drafts, the oppression, etc.

The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that met beginning 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 briefly during 1774, also in Philadelphia. The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776. With the ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, the Congress became known as the Congress of the Confederation.

Membership :O
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 chose the same president Peyton Randolph and Secretary Charles Thomson. 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, and Hancock was elected president.
Georgia didn´t participate in the first continental congress and initially didn't send delegates at the second. Later 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.

On this date in 1775, the first shots in the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington and Concord.

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, are sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heros dare
To die and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first shots starting the revolution were fired at Lexington, Massachusetts. On April 18, 1775, British General Thomas Gage sent 700 soldiers to destroy guns and ammunition the colonists had stored in the town of Concord, just outside of Boston. They also planned to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock, two of the key leaders of the patriot movement.

The British Army's infantry, nicknamed "redcoats" and sometimes "devils" by the colonists, had occupied Boston and had been augmented by naval forces and marines to enforce the Intolerable Acts, which had been passed by the British Parliament to punish the Province of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party and other acts of protest. Thomas Gage had no control over Massachusetts outside of Boston, where implementation of the Acts had increased tensions between the Patriot Whig majority and the Tory minority. Gage's plan was to avoid conflict by removing military supplies from the Whig militias using small, secret and rapid strikes. This struggle for supplies led to one British success and then to several Patriot successes in a series of nearly bloodless conflicts known as the Powder Alarms.

On April 14, 1775, Gage received instructions from Secretary of State William Legge, to disarm the rebels, who were known to have hidden weapons in Concord, among other locations, and to imprison the rebellion's leaders, especially Samuel Adams and John Hancock. William gave Gage considerable discretion in his commands.

The Lexington militia in particular began to muster early that evening, hours before receiving any word from Boston. A well known story alleges that after nightfall one farmer, Josiah Nelson, mistook the British patrol for the colonists and asked them, "Have you heard anything about when the regulars are coming out?", upon which he was slashed on his scalp with a sword.

The rebellion's ringleaders with exception of Paul Revere and Joseph Warren had all left Boston April. They had received word of William's secret instructions to General Gage from sources in London before they reached Gage himself. Adams and Hancock had fled Boston to the home of one of Hancock's relatives in Lexington where they thought they would be safe from the immediate threat of arrest.

Between 9 and 10 pm on the night of April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren told William Dawes and Paul Revere that the King's troops were about to embark in boats from Boston bound for Cambridge and the road to Lexington and Concord. Warren's intelligence suggested that the most likely objectives of the regulars' movements later that night would be the capture of Adams and Hancock. They did not worry about the possibility of regulars marching to Concord, since the supplies at Concord were safe, but they did think their leaders in Lexington were unaware of the potential danger that night. Revere and Dawes were sent out to warn them and to alert colonial militias in nearby towns.


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