3. The Road to Independence

3.1 Taxation without Representation
The British Colonies were unsatisfied with the fact that they are British subjects, but are not represented in the Parliament. This was just unfair to the colonies – if they were English or Irish they wouldn’t have to pay an extra tax for a bread because they are Irish. The nonsense of many taxes like stamp act, townshends acts leaded to a unisono voice of a future new nation.

Most British officials held that Parliament was an imperial body representing and exercising the power over the colonies. Te colonies agreed that, it was the king who had agreed to establish the colonies and provided them with governments, but insisted that the English Parliament had no more right to pass laws for the colonies than any colonial legislature had the right to pass laws for England.
British Parliament was unwilling to hear any unsatisfactory voice from over the sea.

3.2 Boston Tea Party
In 1773, the powerful East India Company, trading with tea, finding itself in a critical financial straits, appealed to British government, who gave them a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies.
After 1770, the most of the tea in the colonies was illegally transported, cheap and duty-free. By selling its tea through the colonies, the East India Company made smuggling less profitable. The British government permitted them to sell tea in the colonies. Aroused by the monopolistic practice involved, colonial traders joined the radicals agitating for independence.

In ports up and down the Atlantic coast, agents of the EIC were forced to resign. In Boston, however, the agents defeated the colonists. On the night of December 16, 1773, a band of men disguised as Mohawk Indians, led by Sam Adams, dumped a cargo of 3 ships into the Boston harbor. They took this step, because they feared of more new taxes on tea, this rebel act was an symbol of will of independence, and it is very important in the history of USA.

3.3 Common Sense and Independence
In January 1776, Thomas Paine, an Englishman who came to America, published a 50 page pamphlet, called Common Sense. Within three months, 100 000 copies of the pamphlet were sold. Paine attacked the idea of hereditary monarchy, declaring that the king is not interested in the colonies, he doesn’t have a common sense, and whoever has a common sense must see it! He presented the alternatives, designing a bicameral system of government, designing the basic human rights. Common sense definitely helped to open up the eyes of the people living in the colonies, and to crystallize the desire for separation. It was very courageous, and rebellious for an Englishmen to attack so directly and in front of the eyes of the whole society the British Crown as a whole.

On May 10, 1776, one year to the day since the Second Continental Congress had first met, a resolution was adopted calling for a separation. Now only a formal declaration was needed. On June 7, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution declaring “ That these Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states...” immediately a committee, headed by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, was appointed to prepare a formal declaration.
The Declaration, itself, was largely out of Jefferson´s pen. The Declaration of independence was adopted July 7, 1776, not only announced a birth of a new nation, but also set forth a philosophy of human freedom that would become a dynamic force throughout the entire world.

In the Declaration, Jefferson linked Locke´s principles directly to the situation in the colonies. To fight for American independence was to fight for a government based on democracy. Only a government based on democracy is able to secure natural rights for life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. To fight for American independence was to fight on behalf of one’s natural rights.