Video: 'The Declaration of Independence & Birth of the United States | The American Revolution | PBS'

(Thursday, July 4, 1776, afternoon; during the American Revolutionary War and the American Revolution) — The Continental Congress meeting at Philadelphia today ratified the Declaration of Independence, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer under British rule.

On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed the Committee of Five (John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman) to draft and present the Declaration.

Adams, a leading proponent of independence, persuaded the committee to charge Jefferson with writing the document’s original draft, which the Congress then edited.

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Jefferson largely wrote the Declaration between June 11 and 28, 1776. The Declaration was a formal explanation of why the Continental Congress voted to declare American independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Two days prior to the Declaration’s adoption, Congress passed the Lee Resolution, which resolved that the British no longer had governing authority over the Thirteen Colonies. The Declaration justified the independence of the colonies, citing 27 colonial grievances against the king and asserting certain natural and legal rights, including a right of revolution.

Video: 'America's Declaration - The Fight for Independence | Free Documentary History'

The Declaration was unanimously ratified on July 4 by the Second Continental Congress, whose delegates represented each of the Thirteen Colonies. In ratifying and signing it, the delegates knew they were committing an act of high treason against The Crown, which was punishable by torture and death.