250 years ago on July 4, 1776 the Declaration of Independence was formally adopted by the Second Continental Congress marking the revolutionary surge that overthrew British rule.
The Declaration of Independence was drafted by a committee of five – John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R Livingston and Roger Sherman – appointed to draft a declaration outlining the colonies’ decision to declare independence from British rule.
Famously the declaration articulated the enduring principles of equality and inalienable rights saying:
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’
It asserted that governments rule by consent of those governed and exist to secure these rights and that if a government becomes destructive to these rights then the people have the right and duty to abolish it saying:
‘That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.’
In asserting these unalienable rights the declaration concluded:
‘That these untied colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent states, and that all political connections between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.’
The American revolution had begun in earnest the year before with the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775; the first major military actions between the British army and Patriot militias from America’s Thirteen Colonies.
The driving force behind the American revolution was the tyranny of the British state over its American colony.
The Declaration lists 27 specific grievances against the British ruler, King George III, illustrating the abuses and usurpations designed to enrich the capitalist ruling class in Britain at the expense of the American bourgeoisie.
Britain operated an oppressive colonial system where colonies like America were exploited as sources of raw materials for British industry while the vast country was treated as just another market for British manufacturers.
Competition with British industry was forbidden including the textile and iron industry, considered to be vital to British manufacturing.
Americans were forced to import even hats and scarves while Britain exercised a rigid control of trade with the most important colonial exports only legally sent to Britain.
Imports from other countries were outlawed or subject to such high rates of tax as to become unaffordable.
The economic exploitation of America by a British capitalist system struggling under the weight of a massive national debt following the French and Indian War (1754-1763) over its domination of Canada increased dramatically.
Discontent in the colony with colonial rule started to build up following the ending of this war as Britain imposed a raft of new taxes to compensate for the cost of the war.
Prior to this war Parliament had adopted an unofficial policy of ‘salutary neglect’ towards the American colonies meaning they were largely left to manage their own affairs.
Now faced with having to pay for the French-Indian war in Canada the British Parliament imposed new taxes on the colonies without granting these colonies any representation sparking the popular demand ‘no taxation without representation’ that swept across America.
In response Britain sent in troops to impose British colonial rule at the point of the gun.
What started as a political rebellion in the Thirteen Colonies evolved quickly into a revolution against British colonial rule.
The American capitalist class were joined by the poor after King George III issued a Royal Proclamation in 1763 forbidding colonists from settling in the newly acquired lands west of the Appalachian Mountains.
This move, ostensibly to avoid conflict between settlers and the native people of North America, was driven by the British fear that westward expansion would provide the colonies with greater opportunities for economic independence.
This hit the poor, impoverished farmers and those who saw their chance of obtaining land in the west of America denied by a British parliament.
Resistance to British rule grew in the years following with the demand for complete independence from British rule growing from a small number of radicals into a mass movement.
These radicals organised, forming groups the Sons of Liberty and the Committees of Correspondence, which engaged in protests and riots.
A confrontation between British soldiers and Patriot militiamen in April 1775 resulted in nearly 15,000 New England militiamen laying siege to the city of Boston.
Shortly after the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to take command of the rebellion and named George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.
The American bourgeoisie still hoped to de-escalate by appealing directly to King George.
On 5th July 1775, they sent a petition to the King expressing their loyalty to the crown while blaming the conflict entirely on the tyranny of Parliament.
George didn’t even read the petition and instead issued a proclamation in October 1775 declaring the colonies in open rebellion.
Following this contemptuous rebuff, all thoughts of de-escalation and compromise of any kind went out the window and a revolutionary struggle for complete independence from the British empire swept throughout the colonies culminating on 2nd July, 1776, with Congress voting in favour of independence and the adoption of the Declaration of Independence two days later on July 4, 1776.
The war of independence raged on until Britain was finally forced to accept defeat and in September 1783 American and British diplomats signed the Treaty of Paris which recognised the independence of the United States of America.
The American revolution, with its declaration of equality and its assertion of the rights of oppressed people to take up arms to overthrow their oppressors, resonated across the globe.
This bourgeois democratic revolution provided inspiration for the French revolution of 1789 and the wave of revolutions that swept Europe in the 19th century.
America was born out of a revolutionary struggle, something that the ruling capitalist class and its political leaders treat as worthy of only trotting out on July 4th every year while collapsing US capitalism tears up all concepts of legality and the unalienable rights of people both inside America and across the globe.
In its death agony of imperialism the American ruling capitalist class has turned to war at home and abroad in a desperate attempt to stave off its rapidly unfolding economic catastrophe.
Today, it falls to the working class in America and across the world to turn the revolutionary principles articulated 250 years ago into reality by consigning capitalism to the pages of history with the victory of the World Socialist
Revolution.