Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
colonies convened the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia's Independence Hall to
air complaints and prepare for the inevitable war ahead.
Revolution & the Republic
In April 1775, British troops skirmished with armed colonists in Massachusetts (who
were prepared for the fight, thanks to Paul Revere's famous warning), and the Revolu-
tionary War began. George Washington, a wealthy Virginia farmer, was chosen to lead
the American army. Trouble was, Washington lacked gunpowder and money (the colon-
ists resisted taxes even for their own military), and his troops were a motley collection of
poorly armed farmers, hunters and merchants, who regularly quit and returned to their
farms due to lack of pay. On the other side, the British 'Redcoats' represented the
world's most powerful military. The inexperienced General Washington had to improvise
constantly, sometimes wisely retreating, sometimes engaging in 'ungentlemanly' sneak
attacks. During the winter of 1777-78, the American army nearly starved at Valley
Forge, Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, the Second Continental Congress tried to articulate what exactly they
were fighting for. In January 1776, Thomas Paine published the wildly popular
Common
Sense,
which passionately argued for independence from England. Soon, independence
seemed not just logical, but noble and necessary, and on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of
Independence was finalized and signed. Largely written by Thomas Jefferson, it elevated
the 13 colonies' particular gripes against the monarchy into a universal declaration of in-
dividual rights and republican government.
But to succeed, General Washington needed help, not just patriotic sentiment. In 1778,
Benjamin Franklin persuaded France (always eager to trouble England) to ally with the
revolutionaries, and they provided the troops, material and sea power that helped win the
war. The British surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, and two years later the
Treaty of Paris formally recognized the 'United States of America.' At first, the nation's
loose confederation of fractious, squabbling states were hardly 'united.' So the founders
gathered again in Philadelphia, and in 1787 drafted a new-and-improved Constitution:
the US government was given a stronger federal center, with checks and balances
between its three major branches, and to guard against the abuse of centralized power, a
citizen's Bill of Rights was approved in 1791.
As radical as it was, though, the Constitution also preserved the economic and social
status quo. Rich landholders kept their property, which included their slaves; Native
Americans were excluded from the nation; and women were excluded from politics.
These blatant discrepancies and injustices, which were widely noted, were the result of
