This weekend marks 250 years since the Second Continental Congress, representing the 13 American colonies, assembled in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence. The country had already been at war for more than a year and would continue its armed struggle against Britain for another seven. But on July 4 1776, the United States of America was born.
The ideas that found expression in the Declaration were not new. Tensions between the British crown and its American colonies had been
percolating for years. And the philosophical ideas behind America’s revolutionary fervour were also finding expression in Europe, particularly in France and Britain.
As Tom Cutterham, a
professor of American history at the University of Birmingham, writes, the sort of ideas that inspired America’s revolutionary thinkers had for some years “been closely tied to questions about corruption, oligarchy and executive tyranny in Britain itself”. He points to the likes of Thomas Paine, John Wilkes, Granville Sharp and Catharine Macaulay who were writing passionate arguments against British despotism.
For more from across the network on his weekend’s celebration of America’s 250th birthday, click here.
