Toward Independence
Colonial America
British Policy
Declaration of Rebellion (1775)
The British Crown’s official statement deeming the American revolution an illegal insurrection.
Debating Independence
Novanglus; or, A History of the Dispute with America
John Adams refutes the arguments of the Loyalist Massachusettensis in Novanglus: or A History of the Dispute with America, from its Origin, in 1754, to the Present Time, Addressed to the Inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay (1774-1775).
US Declaration of Independence
Founding document justifying American colonists’ independence from Great Britain, 1776
Summary View of the Rights of British America
Thomas Jefferson’s proposed instructions to the Virginia delegates to the First Continental Congress.
Draft of the Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration of Independence.
The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, 1763
James Otis’ pamphlet that anaylzed British governance of the American colonies
Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, 1774
James Wilson’s essay arguing that British Parliament did not have the right to legislate for the colonies.
Continental Congress
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