The Continental Congress issued A Declaration by the Representatives of the United Colonies of North-America, Now Met in Congress at Philadelphia, Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity of Their Taking Up Arms. This was written by Thomas Jefferson and Pennsylvania lawyer John Dickinson. In response to England sending soldiers to “restore order” in the colonies, Jefferson wrote:
We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force.—The latter is our choice—We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery…
—Honour, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.
Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable… With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.
Kurt Nimmo recites what followed:
The document was drafted after England sent soldiers to “restore order” in the Colonies and the Second Continental Congress thought it necessary to raise an army and justify its actions.
It also underscored the necessity to bear arms against tyranny – a concept that is almost entirely lost today as the United Nations conspires to register and confiscate the firearms of Americans and ill-informed citizens defend the Second Amendment as the right to own a gun for hunting.
Two days later, on July 8, 1775, the Olive Branch Petition was issued. It proposed a final peace deal with England and promised loyalty to the British government if it repealed the Coercive Acts and ended its taxation without representation policies.
The Olive Branch Petition was summarily dismissed by King George’s official, stating that the Colonies were in a state of rebellion. The English Parliament then passed the American Prohibitory Act, which forbid any further trade with the Colonies. In other words, they imposed what we call today sanctions, which became a further act of war against the colonies.
