MY PERSPECTIVE, Gary Damron

Although fighting began at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, most colonists at that point hoped to reconcile and retain government by consent under the British crown. However, between 1763 and 1776, Britain and the colonies became trapped in self-fulfilling prophecies. British fears of losing control provoked colonial resistance that confirmed fears, convincing Britain domination was needed, which in turn pushed colonials closer together. Initially, there was no desire for full independence, but repeated crises destroyed mutual trust.

The Olive Branch Petition, sent to King George III on July 5, 1775, affirmed loyalty and pleaded for a "happy and permanent reconciliation". It reached London alongside news of the Battle of Bunker Hill, and he refused to even receive it, which strengthened the radicals' hand in Congress. On August 23, 1775, the king issued a Proclamation of Rebellion.

Throughout the second half of 1775, the Second Continental Congress assumed greater authority and functioned more like a national government, assuming royal powers. It took command of the Continental Army, printed paper money, opened diplomatic relations with Indian nations, controlled the royal post office, and determined legitimate colonial governments. Continued British acts of violence and threats alienated more colonists. In October 1775, the British navy burned Falmouth, Massachusetts (now Portland, Maine). On November 7, Virginia’s royal governor Lord Dunmore offered freedom to enslaved people who would join British forces, and bombarded Norfolk on January 1, 1776.

Other British efforts failed. A loyalist uprising in North Carolina was crushed on February 27. A British naval attack on Charleston, South Carolina in June was repulsed. Cherokee attacks against Virginia were defeated. The greatest colonial victory came at Boston. On March 17, 1776, George Washington’s forces fortified Dorchester Heights to the south of the city and brought heavy artillery from Ticonderoga. The British evacuated Boston and sailed for Nova Scotia, giving patriot forces control of territory in all thirteen colonies.

Early in 1776, delegates from New England, Virginia, and Georgia already favored independence; the British attack on Charleston nudged the Carolinas toward it. Resistance to breaking away came mostly from the mid-Atlantic colonies, New York through Maryland.

In the struggle for loyalties, Thomas Paine’s pamphlet "Common Sense" and its argument against monarchy was compelling. Published in Philadelphia in January 1776, it sold more than 100,000 copies in months. It called King George III “the Royal Brute of Great Britain,” arguing that monarchy was a decadent and absurd form of government. Paine also indicated that England, rather than behaving like a mother, resembled a monster making war on and devouring her young.

Paine’s attack laid the violations of rights, reflected later in the Declaration, at the feet of the monarch.  Focusing on the king as the central problem helped shift colonial thinking. Colonists, already fed up with a parliament that didn’t represent them, now became convinced they had to break with the king.

Like John Locke, Paine affirmed that governments exists to protect life, liberty, and property, and people have the right to replace a government that becomes destructive. Paine rejected monarchy, especially that of hereditary rule, as unnatural and insulting to future generations: all men are created equal, so no family has a divine right to rule forever. He dismissed the British constitution as a mix of tyranny (monarchy and aristocracy), with only a small republican element in the Commons, but it was corrupted by the Crown. Paine insisted Law should be king in a free country, not any single person. He argued it was ridiculous for a vast continent to be governed by a small island. America had the opportunity, he wrote, to “begin the world over again,”creating a simple republican government based on representation, elections, and the consent of the people.

Additional British actions accelerated the movement toward independence. The Prohibitory Act and roughly 17,000 German mercenaries convinced many that Britain had no interest in reconciliation. Colonists realized they would need foreign alliances, particularly France, to win the war, but such help would only come if they declared independence.

Congress created a committee to correspond with foreign powers.

Final steps were taken in the spring of 1776, when about ninety local communities issued calls for independence. On May 10, Congress passed a resolution urging colonies without adequate governments to form new ones. Five days later, it added a radical preface, stating that authority under the Crown should be suppressed and new governments established under the authority of the people. That same day, Virginia instructed its delegates to propose that the United Colonies declare themselves independent.

So we see that by mid-1776, the colonies had already achieved practical independence. They controlled their own territory, operated their own governments, and fielded an army. The formal Declaration of Independence on July 4 would simply announce to the world what was already reality.

It's also evident the British had no systematic plan to destroy liberty, and until the winter of 1775-1776 few colonists favored independence. The imperial crises were caused by British acts and reactions which undermined trust and brought about an independent American identity. Unable to govern its land in North America, Britain was now faced with the challenge of invading and conquering a united foe.

By the summer of 1776, declaring independence was not a sudden leap. It was rather the logical conclusion of events that in practice had already made America independent.