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| The Second Continental Congress (1776) As fighting spread and became more serious, a Second Continental Congress was held (May 1776). This time it was decided that a committee, led by Thomas Jefferson, would write a "Declaration of Independence" from Britain. This would give the different colonies a common cause to fight for and would, perhaps, attract help from European countries. Throughout June 1776, Jefferson shut himself up in a hot, dark room above a carpenter's shop in Philadelphia. With the smells and flies from a nearby stable penetrating the room, he drafted his Declaration. Many of the ideas were inspired by Locke's "Treatises on Government" - that all men are created equal, that they have certain inalienable rights, those of life, liberty and the "pursuit of happiness", (by "pursuit of happiness", Jefferson meant "property", but he was too shy to actually write it down), and that a government's job is to protect these rights and, if it fails to protect them, it should be replaced. The key expression of the Declaration is "government by the consent of the governed". This, and the other ideas contained in the Declaration, would inspire numerous similar declarations in other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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© Shirley Burchill, Nigel Hughes, Richard Gale, Peter Price and Keith Woodall 2007 Footnote : As far as the Open Door team can ascertain the images shown on this page are in the Public Domain. |
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