Saturday marks the semiquincentennial anniversary of the formal adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress. The document wasn’t formally signed until 2 August 1776 — with John Hancock famously being the first founding father to sign. Most people aren’t aware of the complex motivations that led to the writing of that fateful document. For those who haven’t watched Ken Burns’ mini-series on “The American Revolution,” I highly recommend you take the time to watch. The series does an excellent job of discussing the factors leading up to the writing, adoption, and signing of the Declaration of Independence, including the fact that citizens of colonial America were divided between revolutionaries and loyalists. It makes clear that the United States of America emerged out of political turmoil during which neighbors, and even family members, were on different sides of the political spectrum. This fact alone should give us hope that today’s political climate will moderate and eventually lead to a stronger America.

In the book First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country, Pulitzer Prize winning author Thomas Ricks, observes, “One month before the Declaration was passed, only four colonies had instructed their delegates to support independence. But the Declaration’s appearance would do much to change that.” For the most part, the Declaration of Independence was a finger-pointing exercise aimed at King George III. It declares, “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.” What follows is a litany of complaints against the King. Many of these grievances were laid out earlier in a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine entitled Common Sense. In that document, he wrote about the King of England’s “long and violent abuse of power” and declared “the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.”

The motivations behind the movement for independence are often simplified to a single, well-known phrase: “Taxation without representation.” But taxation was only one of the motivating factors. Writer Fran Hoepfner explains, “Though taxes were a major point of contention between the colonists and the British crown, they were not the sole reason for the conflict. Mounting tensions between American colonists and the British were also caused by disputes over land distribution — the British planned to reserve the western part of North America for Indigenous peoples, angering colonists with plans to expand outward.”[1] One of the colonists who had his eye on western lands was none other than George Washington. The World History Encyclopedia lists a combination of six political, economic, and social factors that motivated the independence movement.[2] They are:

• American Identity. The Encyclopedia notes that there was a growing “American Identity.” Many of the American colonists had been born and raised in the new world and colonies had enjoyed a significant amount of self-rule for decades. There were, of course, regional differences and regional identities that persist to this day.

• Salutary Neglect. During the mid-eighteenth century, Britain had plenty of challenges around the world to keep it busy. As a result, Britain allowed the American colonies a good deal of autonomy “as long as they remained profitable under salutary neglect.” When Britain looked to the colonies to help pay for their activities elsewhere, “colonists viewed this shift as an infringement on their rights and traditions.”

• Colonial Wars. One of the activities that led Britain to pay closer attention to the American colonies was the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The Encyclopedia notes that Britain expected “the colonies to shoulder war costs through taxation [which] fueled widespread discontent.”

• Westward Expansion. Britain wanted to compensate Native American tribes for the support they provided during the colonial wars. As a result, the King issued a Royal Proclamation in 1763, which banned settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. “Colonists (speculators and landowners) saw this as a betrayal of wartime sacrifices. … The policy was viewed as limiting economic opportunities and colonial freedom.” Although the term “manifest destiny” wouldn’t enter the conversation for fourscore years, colonists were already looking westward for new opportunities.

• Unjust Taxes. Taxation did play a role in the independence movement. The cost of conflicts with European competitors, including the French and Indian War on American soil, depleted British coffers. On 22 March 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act to fund the cost of maintaining British soldiers stationed in the colonies following the French and Indian War. The 1440 staff explains, “The Act taxed most printed documents in the British colonies — everything from legal documents to magazines and playing cards, touching nearly everyone's daily life. It was the first direct tax on American colonists and had to be paid in British sterling, a currency much harder to obtain for colonists (who had long paid taxes to colonial legislatures in local currency). Act violations were prosecuted in juryless Vice-Admiralty courts that could be held anywhere in the British Empire.”[3] The Stamp Act wasn’t the only colonial grievance. The Encyclopedia notes, “Strict enforcement of trade laws, like the Sugar Act, deepened economic hardship. Colonists view these taxes as unconstitutional and an attack on their rights.”

• Conflicts and Acts. Growing grievances with Great Britain occasionally turned violent. On 5 March 1770, nine British soldiers shot into estimated crowd of between 300 and 400 people who were harassing them verbally and throwing various projectiles. Five American colonists were killed. Three years later, on 16 December 1773, the famous Boston Tea Party took place. The following year, notes the Encyclopedia, “The Intolerable Acts [were] imposed to punish Massachusetts for the Tea Party. [The Act] fueled widespread anger [and resulted in] riots [and] boycotts. Protests escalated building momentum for rebellion.” To counter British activity, the First Continental Congress met in 1774 to unite the colonies in organized resistance.

Even though the spark of protest burst into flames of rebellion, both Burns and Hoepfner point out that Americans were not united in their support of the war. Hoepfner explains, “The ‘spirit of ’76’ — a nickname for the patriotic fervor around the revolution — was really only a spirit of around 70% to 80% of the population at the time. The rest of the colonists were either loyal to the crown or skeptical of conflict.” Against all odds, however, the Continental Army succeeded in defeating the British Army. One reason Americans were able to pull together following the Revolutionary War was, as Hoepfner explains, “due in part to a mass exodus of loyalists: By 1786, between 60,000 and 80,000 loyalists left the colonies to go back to Great Britain.”

Another unifying element was the Declaration of Independence. What Americans remember most about the Declaration of Independence, is not the grievances it listed against the King, it’s the document’s list of “unalienable rights” — “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” For 250 years, those words have described the aspirations of the American people. It is up to us to preserve what has traditionally made America a beacon of hope to the world. Dov Seidman, an author and specialist in organizational culture, observes, “Without leaders who, through their example and decisions, safeguard our norms and celebrate them and affirm them and reinforce them, the words on paper — the Bill of Rights, the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence — will never unite us.”[4]

Footnotes

[1] Fran Hoepfner, “7 Myths About the American Revolution,” History Facts, 23 April 2026.

[2] Staff, “Causes of the American Revolution,” The World History Encyclopedia.

[3] 1440 Sunday email, 22 March 2026.

[4] Thomas L. Friedman, “How We’ve Lost Our Moorings as a Society,” The New York Times, 28 may 2024.