The Declaration of Independence was the ultimate rejection of British sovereignty by the 13 colonies of British North America which were to form the United States of America. It was carefully drafted during June 1776 and adopted on 4 July 1776.
The colonists had been protesting the parliamentary measures that had been implemented by Britain since 1763. However, up until the Declaration, although they had objected to the legitimacy of parliament’s actions, they had still maintained their allegiance to King George III. By the summer of 1776, even this connection had broken down. Assembled in the Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia, the leading patriots sought to publicly declare to their fellow colonists, and to the wider world, their independence from the British empire.
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