Nations come into being in many ways. Military rebellion, civil strife, acts of heroism, acts of treachery, a thousand greater and lesser clashes between defenders of the old order and supporters of the new--all these occurrences and more have marked the emergences of new nations, large and small.
The birth of our own nation included them all. That birth was unique, not only in the immensity of its later impact on the course of world history and the growth of democracy, but also because so many of the threads in our national history run back through time to come together in one place, in one time, and in one document: the Declaration of Independence. The clearest call for independence up to the summer of came in Philadelphia on June 7.
On that date in session in the Pennsylvania State House later Independence Hall , the Continental Congress heard Richard Henry Lee of Virginia read his resolution beginning: "Resolved: 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 that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.
The Lee Resolution was an expression of what was already beginning to happen throughout the colonies. When the Second Continental Congress, which was essentially the government of the United States from to , first met in May , King George III had not replied to the petition for redress of grievances that he had been sent by the First Continental Congress.
The Congress gradually took on the responsibilities of a national government. In June the Congress established the Continental Army as well as a continental currency. By the end of July of that year, it created a post office for the "United Colonies. In August a royal proclamation declared that the King's American subjects were "engaged in open and avowed rebellion. And in May the Congress learned that the King had negotiated treaties with German states to hire mercenaries to fight in America.
