Writing a “Declaration of Independence”
A Milestone Documents E-text
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https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844520.book.part.028

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Abstract

Few, if any, documents in U.S. history are more important or inspiring than the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration was adopted by the Second Continental Congress, a meeting of representatives of the thirteen North American colonies. Citing the principle of “no taxation without representation,” which they traced back to the English Magna Carta (1215), delegates had gathered to contest the pretensions of the British Parliament to tax the colonists, who did not have the right to elect representatives to that assembly. Congressmen were responding as well to repressive measures that the British had taken in reaction to the Boston Tea Party and other colonial expressions of grievance.

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