The Unalienable Rights

Signing of the Declaration

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Does this sound familiar? Don't be surprised if it does because this little piece is actually part of the Declaration of Independence or also the Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, as it was known back in 1776. As most people know the United States declared its independence from Britain on July 4, 1776.

So what exactly are the "unalienable rights"?  Well, an unalienable right is a basic human right which cannot be taken away by government, in Benjamin Franklin's view, they also cannot be given away by the person.   Some of these rigths are mentioned in the Declaration such as the right of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. A government is established to secure these rights. The possession of property and having it protected is also one of the natural, inherited and unalienable rights of men. 
As you can see all men were created equal and for many different reasons some men to seen more important then others in someone's eyes, but what we all should remember is that no one os above another person, no matter who.

"Common Sense" by Thomas Paine

On January 1776 a short, but powerful book was published. It expressed the ideas that most colonists had. This book was publishes with the name of "Common Snese" written by Thomas Paine. Paine was a recent immigrant from Britain that used to be a tax collector and artesant. This book was written with a simple, but forceful and direct language and its three main proposals were:

1) Independence from Britain.

2) A Republican state government.

3) Union of the new states.

Paine also denounced the king as a tyrant and the aristocrats as parasites and a fraud. He believed that the common people should be able of choosing the whole goverment. He was sure that America would be able to trade with other countries once free from the empire. He argued that a republic would reward merit, not inherited privileges. He concluded that no one wants their liberty taken away.

This book in the most sold and circulated book in American History. It was very popular because, aside from the fact that it expressed the ideas of most colonists, it was written in a from that was very easy to read for the common people. Besides that, Paine believed that it was absurd for an island to rule a continent.

Many ideas of this book actually appeared in the Declaration of Independence.

Second Continental Congress of the 13 Colonies

 Unlike the First Continental Congress, all 13 colonies were represented in the  Second Continental Congress.

The Second Continental Congress was a unicameral delegation, having only one legislative chamber, representing the 13 colonies during the American Revolutionary War. The group met for the first time in Pennsylvania States House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 10 May 1775. The Second Continental Congress spent that year stretgthing its power, assuming the role of legislative and executive authority of the 13 colonies.

The Second Continental Congress meeting started with the battle of Lexington and Concord.The New England militia were still camped outside of Boston trying to drive the British out of Boston. The Second Continental Congress established the militia as the Continental Army to represent the thirteen states. They also elected George Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.

The Lexington and Concord Battles

The British government realized that maybe the colonists were a real threat, and so General Thomas Cage was ordered to arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams, two of the leaders in Massachusetts. If the order would have been received a day earlier, it would have been much easier to arrest the leaders because the entire Massachusetts Congress would have been in session. Adams and  Hancock were advised  to leave town immediately and decided to go to Lexington. Another troop was sent to seize all the stockpiled arms in Concord. 

This attack was supposed to be kept a secret, but by morning 70 Patriots had gathered in Lexington Green waiting for the troops. Somebody fired the first shot, known as "The Shot Hear Around The World". 8 Patriots died. 

Then the Redcoats (British soldiers) marched on to Concord. Minuetemen, or Patriot militia who earned their name from the quickness in which they got ready, were waiting in Concord and fired at the British. About 200 Redcoats were killed or wounded. Exhausted, the British troops finally got to Boston in the late afternoon. The Patriots seized the New England Colonies.

Intolerable Acts

Tarring and Feathring

After all the forms of protest, especially the Boston Tea Party, Parliament was angered by the Bostonian actions. In order to teach the colonists a lesson, they created the Coercive Acts. This acts were passed with the purpose to punish colonists in Boston for the destruction of private property (Boston Tea Party) and to restore British authority and power in Massachusetts. The Coercive Acts were called the Intolerable Acts by the colonists, they rejected the idea that the British could shut down trade and change colonial government at will. The Intolerable Acts included five acts:

1) Boston Port Act: it closed the port of Boston until the East India Company had been paid for the  destroyed tea. No ship could enter or leave Boston.

2)Massachusetts Government Act: this act altered the government of Massachusetts and gave even more power to Parliament. Town meetings were now been held just once every year.

3) Administration of Justice Act: it stated that any soldier who committed a crime at the colonies would go to trial in England. George Washington called this the "Murder Act" because it allowed the British to torment colonists and then escape justice. Some colonists thought this act wasn't needed because British soldiers had had fair trial before, during the Boston Massacre.

4) Quartering Act: the king sent troops to the colonies to make them obey and so colonies were forced to give them shelter.

 5) Quebec Act: this act enlarged the property of the Providence of Quebec, and land was taken away from some colonies.

In Massachusetts, the colonists reacted violently. Everyone who worked for the government, talked in their favor or accepted their laws were assaulted. Tarring and Feathering was a common punishment used by the colonists. It consisted in pouring hot tar over the person and then throwing feathers at him. This methosdwas both painful and humiliating.

Boston Tea Party

Well just in case you were wondering, the Boston Tea Party wasn't really a tea party held in Boston. In reality it was a form of protest that the Bostonians did because tea was taxed.
Let us explain to you the whole story of this historic event.
The British East India Company was having dome financial issues, so in order to help them , Parliament passed a law letting the company sell the tea directly to the colonies making the tea cheaper.  The price of the tea wasn't really the problem for the colonists. The real problem was that the colonists wanted to someone representing them in Parliament. Though Parliament didn't quite get the picture, instead they just thought that the colonists were stubborn.
The Bostonians got mad by this new law, so they took matters into their own hands. At 9:00 p.m.  of December 16, 1773, a group of Bostonians disguised as Native Americans boarded the British merchant ship Dartmouth. These people had a main goal:  destroy the ships' cargo of British East India Company tea. The disguised Bostonians destroyed 342 barrels of tea estimated to be worth between £10,000. Back then that was a lot of money. These people just wanted to make their point, which they did in the end.

The Townshend Acts

Charles Townshend

We previously wrote about how the colonists were angered by the Townshend Acts, but what were the Townshend Acts? As we know, colonists didn't like the idea of having to pay taxes. Charles Townshend came up with the idea of taxing colonists indirectly, such as taxes on imports. Parliament needed to raise money fast to get out of England's debt and so they agreed. They levied taxes on them for everyday products, such as paint, glass, tea, lead and paper. These products were not produced in America and the colonists weren't allowed to buy goods from any country that wasn't Great Britain. This is how colonists started smuggling all this products that had taxes on them. The British had to find a way of  making the tea exported from England cheaper than the smuggled Dutch tea, and they achieved that by passing the Indemnity Act. This act dissolved the taxes imposed on the tea imported to England, and that way it could be exported more cheaply to the colonies. At first, the money raised this way would be used to mantain the troops in the colonies, but Parliament had a better idea. They would use this raised money to pay the salaries of judges and colonial governors. We have to remember that these salaries were once paid off by the colonial assemblies, so the fact that Parliament was now responsible for paying them meant that the colonists had no power over  the judges and colonial governors anymore.

The Boston Massacre

March 5th, 1770: a day that live in history forever. The colonists in America would not accept Parliament levying  more and more taxes on them. They had not accepted the Stamp Act and the Quartering Act, so Charles Townshend thought it would be wise to charge custom duties on every-day products. From that moment on, glass, tea, paper and paint were being taxed. Colonists refused to do so, and they started smuggling.  Colonists were also forced to make housing available for the British troops, who sometimes just moved into their homes evethough there were encampments for them. On top of that, colonists where angered because the British were taking all the good jobs at the colonies. So, on March 5th  a British soldier, who was looking for a job, stopped at a public house in Boston. There was a group of colonists there, who got angered by the presence of the British and so they followed the soldier to the street. They started throwing ice, stones and snowballs. A British Captain came to the rescue with aproximately 8 more soldiers. The Captain ordered to hold their fire, but one soldier felt so threatened that he fired his gun. More shots were fired later, and five unarmed colonists were killed. This was later called the Boston Massacre. After going to trail, the charges were dismissed against all the soldiers, except two of them.