As Americans commemorate the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, they should also recognize a significant political maneuver from 1775 that set the stage for the formal break with Great Britain the following year.
On July 5, 1775, the Second Continental Congress issued the Olive Branch Petition, addressing King George III as “faithful subjects” and seeking reconciliation. Just one day later, they released the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, justifying armed resistance against British forces.
The Olive Branch Petition, while controversial within Congress, represented a final attempt at peace with the British crown. Virginia’s Benjamin Harrison notably opposed the petition, stating he only approved of the word “Congress” within it. Many colonists believed King George III had been misled by corrupt advisors, leading them to support this last reconciliation attempt.
However, the petition’s timing coincided with the aftermath of the Battle of Bunker Hill, where American marksmen had inflicted heavy casualties on British officers. Rather than considering the petition, King George III’s government declared the colonies in “open and avowed rebellion” two days after receiving it. This response, coupled with escalating British aggression, pushed many Americans toward supporting complete independence.
The July 6 Declaration, authored by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson, criticized the British Parliament’s attempts to enslave the colonies through violence. Americans had long resented Parliament’s assertion of unlimited power over them, particularly through the 1766 Declaratory Act, which claimed absolute authority to make laws binding the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”
Colonial resistance centered on the concept of political slavery, with Americans rejecting laws that treated them as inferior to their British rulers. The controversial “writs of assistance,” allowing British soldiers to conduct arbitrary searches, exemplified this struggle. Massachusetts attorney James Otis condemned these writs for giving minor officials excessive power over citizens’ liberties.
The 1775 Declaration emphasized that Americans had “counted the cost of this contest” and found nothing worse than “voluntary slavery.” The term “slavery” served as a powerful political metaphor in 18th-century discourse, representing the opposite of liberty rather than chattel slavery specifically.
Congress accused the British Parliament of viewing the colonies as sources of “statuteable plunder” while offering only “servitude or death” as alternatives to submission. Though the 1775 Declaration expressed desire to maintain union with Britain, it firmly stated that arms would only be laid down when British aggression ceased
permanently.
The document’s assertion that “our attachment to no nation upon earth should supplant our attachment to liberty” remains relevant today, though often overlooked in modern foreign policy. By 1776, any hope of reconciliation had vanished, leading to Jefferson’s famous
denunciation of King George as a tyrant “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
Today, understanding of these foundational documents appears to be declining among American youth. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor noted in 2014 that fewer than 20% of high school seniors could identify the Declaration of Independence. Recent
mischaracterizations of these documents by political figures further highlight the importance of maintaining accurate historical knowledge.
The American nation’s founding principles of resistance to political slavery and rejection of unlimited governmental power remain as relevant today as they were in 1775. These documents serve as crucial reminders of the philosophical foundations underlying American independence.