" Olive Branch Petition"

John Dickinson drafted the Olive Branch Petition, which was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 5 and submitted to King George on July 8, 1775. It was an attempt to assert the rights of the colonists while maintaining their loyalty to the British crown. King George refused to read the petition and on August 23 proclaimed that the colonists had "proceeded to open and avowed rebellion."

King GeorgeIII of England ,believed the Americans to be in rebellion, and believed he could quickly end it with his military force.

Interesting Questions**

What ideas were express in the declaration of independence?

= *Rights of free people to change their government when it no longer serves their needs.
*Natural law cannot be altered by any government.
*Humans have inherent rights to their life, their liberty to utilize the resources around them.
*And the most important, that all men were created equal.

Thomas Jefferson

Was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence in (1776), and for his promotion of the ideals of republicanism in the United States one of the most influential Founding Fathers. Jefferson envisioned America as the force behind a great "Empire of Liberty" that would promote republicanism and counter the imperialism of the British Empire.
As a political philosopher, Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment and knew many intellectual leaders in Britain and France.

Besides practicing law, Jefferson represented Albemarle County in the Virginia House of Burgesses beginning in 1769. Following the passage of the Coercive Acts by the British Parliament in 1774, he wrote a set of resolutions against the acts, which were expanded into A Summary View of the Rights of British America, his first published work.

Continental Army

The American Continental Army was an army formed after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War by the colonies that became the United States of America. Established by a resolution of the Continental Congress on May 10, 1775, it was created to coordinate the military efforts of the Thirteen Colonies in their revolt against the rule of Great Britain. The Continental Army was supplemented by local militias and other troops that remained under control of the individual states. General George Washington was the Commander-in-Chief of the army throughout the war.

Declaration of Idependence & It's real meaning

The legal separation of the American colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. Congress debated and revised the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4.

***** What does the declaration of Idependence said?******
= It said that all men are created equal and there are certain unalienable rights that governments should never violate. These rights include the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When a government fails to protect those rights, it is not only the right, but also the duty of the people to overthrow that government.

Thomas Paine..!!

´´Thomas Paine (February 9, 1737 was an author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Born in Thetford, Norfolk, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely-read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. The historian Saul K. Padover in the biography Jefferson: A Great American's Life and Ideas, refers to Paine as "a corset maker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination."
Paine greatly influenced the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), a guide to Enlightenment ideas. Despite not speaking French, he was elected to the French National Convention in 1792. The Girondists regarded him as an ally, so, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy. In December of 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. He became notorious because of The Age of Reason (1793–94), his book advocating deism, promoting reason and freethinking, and arguing against institutionalized religion and Christian doctrines. He also wrote the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1795), discussing the origins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income.´´
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine

``Common Sense´´ by Thomas Paine..!!

Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine. It was first published anonymously on January 10, 1776, during the American Revolution. Common Sense, signed "Written by an Englishman", became an immediate success. In relation to the population of the Colonies at that time, it had the largest sale and circulation of any book in American history. Common Sense presented the American colonists with a powerful argument for independence from British rule at a time when the question of independence was still undecided. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people understood; forgoing the philosophy and Latin references used by Enlightenment era writers, Paine structured Common Sense like a sermon and relied on Biblical references to make his case to the people. Historian Gordon S. Wood described Common Sense as, "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era".