The Continental Congress Declares Independence

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, approved the Declaration of Independence, with New York's delegates abstaining until their state convention endorsed independence on July 9. The colonies had been engaged in military conflict with Great Britain since the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, and a royal proclamation had declared them to be in open rebellion that August. In passing the Lee Resolution two days before ratifying the text, the delegates dissolved their allegiance to the British Crown, treating the Thirteen Colonies as sovereign states.

Drafting the formal announcement fell to a Committee of Five, appointed on June 11, which included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Jefferson later recalled that the other members pressed him to compose the initial draft, which he wrote while renting rooms on Market Street. The resulting paper combined an assertion of natural rights with a long list of charges against the British monarch, citing a right of revolution to justify political separation.