Although Thomas Jefferson claimed on his tombstone to be the author of the Declaration of Independence, this claim is significantly overstated. Jefferson drafted the initial document, but it was heavily edited by the Continental Congress. Moreover, Jefferson was not drafting the document in his own voice, and interpretations of the Declaration that rely on Jefferson’s intellectual peculiarities are strained. The voice of the document is best described, not as the voice of the states, or even of the delegates to the Continental Congress, but the voice of the American people.

Americans looking back at the Declaration did so through court cases, political debate, and celebrations in popular culture. Numerous judicial decisions beginning in the late eighteenth century and continuing through the twentieth century have upheld the view that the Declaration of Independence created one nation, the United States of America. This was also the view of some of the greatest lawyers of the mid nineteenth century: Joseph Story, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln. Even Andrew Jackson, largely seen as a proponent of states’ rights, embraced this view in the nullification dispute with South Carolina. And ordinary Americans have celebrated the Fourth of July as the birth of a nation from the very beginning. For the thirteen independent nations view to be correct, all of these decisions, statements, and celebrations would have to be wrong. (They are not.)

This chapter explains how revolutionary Americans understood what had happened in 1776. There is ample evidence showing that they viewed the Declaration as creating one nation, at least with respect to the world. The United States of America was regularly spoken of as a nation and was treated as a nation with respect to issues such as foreign relations and citizenship. The Continental Congress had little hesitation in reversing the decisions of state courts. A functioning confederacy, recognized as such, long predated the Articles of Confederation. The chapter concludes with the case of North Carolina and Rhode Island and argues that they were never formally outside of the United States, even during the period in which they had failed to ratify the US Constitution.

This chapter explores how the Declaration of Independence was drafted and ratified. Congress created and assigned the task of drafting a declaration of independence to a committee of lawyers. When the draft went to the Congress, lawyers like Edward Rutledge had their chance to weigh in. The draft document and the final version was a legal document designed to place rebellion on a legal foundation. Jefferson later recalled that his draft of the Declaration of Independence merely recombined ideas that had long been discussed, and terminology long adopted, by Congress. The Declaration assumed independence, otherwise it would have had no foundation. Following this logic, as the members did, surely Jefferson among them, the Declaration was simply stating the reasons – a justification like the Declaratory Act of 1766, by which Parliament explained its authority over the colonies – for an event already transpired. The ringing elaboration of the rights of mankind, various borrowings from John Locke, echoes of natural law, and the language of prior resolves and declarations were not really pertinent to a declaration for the independence of a continent, but make sense in the more limited framework of Virginia constitutional change.

Privateers plied the waters of the Atlantic world during the American Revolution. In privately owned vessels commissioned by the Continental Congress, these seafarers brought the war to the British in the early years of the war as the Continental Navy struggled to get off the docks. The court case of Cabot v. The Nuestra Senora de Merced sheds light on this oft-overlooked aspect of the American Revolution. While sailing the waters of the Atlantic, the privateer vessel Pilgrim captured the Nuestra Senora de Merced. The privateer sent its capture into port, but these mariners would only receive payment if the Admiralty Court judged the seized ship as a lawful prize and that is where the true struggle began. Privateers were effective combatants during the war, but the means by which they achieved their ends and their public struggles for prizes colored their legacy and left them forgotten and dismissed in the Revolution’s legacy.

When considering the political institutions that helped lead the American Revolution, often we focus on the Continental Congress. Celebrated and influential figures such as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and others provided invaluable leadership during pivotal moments. However, they were not alone. Often forgotten and overlooked are the various committees, yet they too were instrumental in the Revolution’s success. Without these committees, composed of common people, the Continental Association could not have been possible. Despite the Patriots’ ultimate success, it would be inaccurate to assume that they did not encounter significant challenges. Divisions and disunity threatened the Revolution, posing complex issues for the Congress and the committees to consistently address. With legitimacy and unity hanging in the balance, Patriots used coercion, boycotts, ceremonies, and newspapers to combat dissent. Such measures allow us to recognize the Revolution as a civil war whose conclusion was anything but determined.

This chapter describes and explains the emergence of majoritarian decision-making in twenty-seven lower colonial assemblies in Ireland, mainland North America, and the Caribbean between 1619 and 1776. It documents the peculiar conditions under which majoritarian politics developed in the colonies while also registering the importance of attempts to imitate parliamentary practices. Colonial lower assemblies were created under conditions fundamentally different from those that prevailed in the Westminster House of Commons. Some were part of corporations and proprietorships, not royal colonies; and some initially admitted all freemen, not simply elected representatives. These factors led to distinctive institutional trajectories. In general and over the long run, these factors appear to have reinforced a tendency for the colonial lower assemblies to be or become majoritarian. By scrutinizing the available evidence, one is left with the overwhelming impression of a total embrace of majoritarian politics before the American Revolution and, in most cases, long before that time. As the colonial lower assemblies of North America became provincial congresses and then state lower assemblies, they predictably continued their majoritarian practices. This pattern continued in the first intercolonial assemblies and in the US House of Representatives.