Chapter 5 Section 4

Moving Toward Independence

2nd Continental Congress

• May 10, 1775 • Many delegates not ready to break away from

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Ben Franklin• One of the most

respected men in the colonies

• Member of Pennsylvania legislature

• Represented colonists in London in 1765 to secure the repeal of the Stamp Act

John Hancock

• Massachusetts• Wealthy merchant• Funded many patriot

groups• President of the 2nd

Continental Congress

Thomas Jefferson

• Brilliant thinker and writer

• Virginia legislator

Actions of 2nd Continental Congress

• Began to govern colonies• Ok’d the printing of money• Set up a post office (Franklin in charge)• Established committees • Created Continental Army• Selected George Washington as army’s

commander

Olive Branch Petition

• Congress sent a petition (formal request) to George III

• Assured king of desire for peace• Asked for protection of colonists rights• George refused to receive the document• Prepared for war – hired 30,000 German

troops to fight with British

Thomas Paine• January 1776 published Common

Sense• Called for complete independence • “Every thing that is right or natural

pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, ‘tis time to part.”

Richard Henry Lee• Delegate from Virginia• “That these United Colonies are,

and of right out to be, free and independent States… and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

• Resolution approved July 2, 1776

Declaration of Independence• Jefferson selected to write – Ben Franklin and John Adams

helped• Some ideas came from

English philosopher John Locke

• Approved with some changes on July 4, 1776

• 56 delegates signed

John Hancock

• Signed Declaration large enough for King George III to read it without glasses.

Declaration

• 4 main parts– Preamble (introduction) – Declaration of Natural Rights – List of Grievances (complaints)– Resolution of Independence