The view from inside 1776
How the 13 Colonies became ‘States’
We’re now in the months leading up to the most important national celebration in 50 years: the 250th birthday of our founding. In 2026, much will be said about the Declaration of Independence. But those reflections will be meaningful only if they are steeped in what the Declaration meant to those responsible for it.
With that in mind, let’s travel back to the months leading to the Founding. Set aside hindsight. The outcome of the War of Independence in 1776 remained well-hidden “among the secrets of providence,” as Thomas Jefferson put it. So what brought Jefferson and those around him to the decisive moment?
The Year of ‘Common Sense’
The year 1776 began with gloomy skies.
Just eight months had passed since the first crackles of musket fire rang out at Lexington and Concord. The defeat of Gens. Richard Montgomery (dead) and Benedict Arnold (wounded) at the Battle of Quebec on New Year’s Eve had ended hopes of including Canada in the American cause.
Gen. Washington was headquartered at Cambridge, bemoaning his undermanned Army in the face of a “Reinforced Enemy”: “Months past I have scarcely immerged from one difficulty before I have plunged into another – how it will end God in his great goodness will direct, I am thankful for his protection to this time. We are told that we shall soon get the Army completed, but I have been told so many things which have never come to pass, that I distrust every thing.”
Meanwhile, across the colonies, it was normal to find Tories clutching their pearls and referring to Patriots as “the violent people.” The word “independence” remained a topic only for allusion in private correspondence or closed-door conversations.
Something was needed to galvanize and define the American cause. The common Patriot knew the real-world indignities that had rankled him into armed action, while the statesmen and civic elite thrashed out the philosophical underpinnings of their efforts.
It took a firebrand named Tom Paine to bridge the gap and articulate the cause. Years later, his growing indulgence in vulgarity and radicalism would leave him dissipated and disregarded. But in January 1776, Thomas Paine had met his moment.
The release of his Common Sense pamphlet in Philadelphia put the arguments for the American cause into plain, pragmatic language. It also prophesied the significance of what was unfolding: “’Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age: posterity is virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected even to the end of time, by the proceedings now.”
To be sure, the pamphlet also contained unflinching emotional appeals to reject reconciliation with Great Britain. To men of “passive tempers,” Paine wrote: “Hath your house been burnt? … Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bred to live on? Have you lost a parent or child by their hands …? If you have not, then you are not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then you are unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and … you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.”
As such voices grew louder, and the boot-print of the war grew larger, more households were animated to separate from a country no longer regarded as a “mother” – but, in Paine’s word, as a “monster.”
March Toward Independence
Patriot military prospects brightened in February 1776 with the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge in North Carolina. The victory over Loyalist forces dashed hopes of a British campaign in North Carolina and turned it into a pro-independence stronghold.
Less than two months later, Washington seized Dorchester Heights, forcing the British to evacuate Boston. And with the Halifax Resolves in April, North Carolina’s Provincial Congress gave its delegates to the Continental Congress explicit permission to vote for independence from Great Britain.
Richard Henry Lee had suddenly elevated the word “states” in American parlance.
In Philadelphia, the Congress was suddenly abuzz with the question of independence. “The novelty of the thing deters some,” Benjamin Franklin wrote, “the doubts of success, others, the vain hope of reconciliation, many.” But John Adams had contrived “a machine to fabricate independence,” via a motion calling on the colonies to set up their own governments. The motion passed May 15.
On June 7, Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution in Congress stating “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.” Lee had suddenly elevated the word “states” in American parlance. The Lee Resolution suggests a metamorphosis. Each colony was now conceived as its own “state” – each a sovereign entity to be united with its fellows in a confederation still to be defined.
Not everyone was on board. Delegates like James Wilson of Pennsylvania and Robert Livingston of New York worried that the people of the middle colonies were not ready. They warned, among other things, that a premature decision would split the union in two, with the middle colonies seceding and possibly remaining under the crown.
Lee, with John Adams, the Virginian George Wythe and others, argued that independence was already a fact, and a declaration was now needed merely to state it. Among many other reasons, it was argued that waiting for unanimity would be in vain because, in Jefferson’s words, “it was impossible that all men should ever become of one sentiment on any question.”
Out of concern that six colonies (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina) needed more time, a vote on Lee’s Resolution was delayed until the beginning of July. In the meantime, a committee to draft a declaration was formed, consisting of John Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Livingston and Roger Sherman of Connecticut.
The Declaration – and its ‘Mutilations’
The committee swiftly turned drafting duties over to Jefferson. Adams later recalled giving three reasons why it should be Jefferson and not himself: “Reason first: you are a Virginian and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third: You can write ten times better than I can.”
By June 28, Jefferson had a draft ready. His language drew inspiration from his own previous works, from his contemporaries George Mason and James Wilson, from Lee’s Resolution, from philosophers like Locke and Hume, and from Cicero. To secure the God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, he wrote, “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Adams and Franklin suggested a few minor modifications. The document was submitted.
There were hesitations. One was that the tone was too harsh toward the British. Jefferson reflected scornfully that these changes came from “the pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with.” But, in truth, some of the discarded phrases may have been imprudent. For instance, Jefferson’s draft professed that “manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them … .”
But by far the most significant edit came with the deletion of the final, culminating – and rhetorically most damning – accusation in a crescendo of accusations leveled at King George. One need only read the deletion to envisage how different American history might have been, but for the editor’s pen:
“[The king] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation hither. … Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.”
And that’s just part of Jefferson’s rebuke of the King on the matter of the slave trade.
John Adams was especially delighted with the passage. Yet it was removed at the request of South Carolina and Georgia, who Jefferson believed wished to continue the slave trade. He also believed “our northern brethren … felt a little tender” about the language because northerners “had been pretty considerable carriers of [slaves] to others.”
Franklin, perceiving that Jefferson was not “insensible to these mutilations,” attempted to console him with a funny anecdote about the problems with editing by committee.
Finally, an edit was made to bookend Jefferson’s opening lines referring to “nature’s God” and the “Creator” who endowed all men with certain inalienable rights. Before the closing line pledging “to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” the Congress added “a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence.” Yes, they were laying everything on the line to launch the American Experiment – and assuredly they would hang should they fail. But now they had God on their side.
Early July
On the morning of July 2, Caesar Rodney rode in breathless and muddy after an 80-mile night ride from Delaware, just in time for the crucial vote on the Lee Resolution. Two Pennsylvania delegates, who opposed the resolution, were no-shows, allowing their remnant to vote with a majority in favor. The delegates from New York abstained, as they still lacked authority for the vote. But the other 12 “states” voted to approve the Lee Resolution.
Meanwhile, at his New York headquarters, Washington wrote words –a non sequitur nestled among his general orders – that in an age of faster communication might have been written to stir the Continental Congress to dip their quills in signature ink. Said Washington: “The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves … The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army … and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us now rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions.”
On July 3, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail his fear that the “Declaration of Independency” might be coming late. Had it come earlier, the Americans might have won the support of foreign powers and taken possession of Canada. On the other hand, he said, the delay gave the American people time to discuss the question of independence and to “ripen their Judgments.” “The Hopes of Reconciliation,” he wrote, “which were fondly entertained by Multitudes of honest and well meaning tho weak and mistaken People, have been gradually and at last totally extinguished.”
He then went on to make an extraordinary prediction in the midst of war, saying that Independence Day “will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory.”
July 4 was a Thursday. After limited debate, Congress put the Declaration to a vote. The vote matched the one taken two days earlier for the Lee Resolution. Congressional President John Hancock and Charles Thomson signed the document. Congress moved on to other business.
Jefferson ducked out to get some air and go shopping. He bought a thermometer and a pair of ladies’ gloves.
Peter Reichard is chief development officer at the Sutherland Institute in Utah. He has served as a public policy organization executive and researcher for more than 20 years.
