When the Second Continental Congress met on May 10, 1775, it confronted an unanticipated problem: war had broken out at the Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775). The Congress was divided between radicals and moderates, with the moderates acknowledging the need for defensive measures but still hoping that somehow an accommodation could be reached. The radicals believed that more drastic action was needed--some even thought of independence. To placate the moderates, Congress agreed to send yet another petition to King George III--the Olive Branch Petition--reiterating the points made in the petition sent by the First Continental Congress. But the radicals also wanted to have a statement explaining why North American colonists needed to fight the British army. On July 6, 1775, the Congress issued just such a statement, which could be read to the troops that were then gathered around Boston under the command of George Washington and were to become the nucleus of the Continental army.

Originally drafted by Thomas Jefferson and then edited and amended by John Dickinson, who was a moderate, the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms fell short of asking for independence but offered a one-sided interpretation of events that emphasized the colonists' defense of liberty.

The document began with a Whig interpretation of colonial history asserting that the colonists had come to North America for "civil and religious freedom" and had established prosperous colonies that had contributed significantly to the triumph of Great Britain in the French and Indian War (1754-63). The document continued by arguing that rather than reward the colonies, Parliament had in 11 years sought to alter the previous mutually beneficial relationship and attempted to take colonial property without the colonists' consent. The declaration stated that the colonists had responded with petitions, which Parliament and the king had ignored. Congress then explained that within this context, General Thomas Gage had sent troops into the Massachusetts countryside, making an "unprovoked assault on the inhabitants" and murdering several at Lexington. The British troops then "proceeded in warlike array to the town of Concord, where they set upon another party of inhabitants." From this perspective, not only did the British start the war, but Gage's "troops have butchered our countrymen, have wantonly burnt Charlestown, besides a considerable number of houses in other places; our ships and vessels are seized; the necessary supplies of provisions are intercepted, and he [Gage] is exerting his utmost power to spread destruction and devastation around him."

If this view of events satisfied the radicals in the Continental Congress, there were also words suggesting that reconciliation was still possible. The declaration assured "our friends and fellow-subjects" elsewhere in the empire "that we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored." The document continued: "We fight not for glory or for conquest. We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of offence." The Revolutionaries needed to take up arms "in defence of the freedom that is our birthright, and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it--for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our fore-fathers and ourselves." The declaration ended by invoking the Almighty, while leaving the door open for possible settlement: "With an humble confidence in the mercies of the supreme and impartial Judge and Ruler of the Universe, we most devoutly implore his divine goodness to protect us happily through this great conflict, to dispose our adversaries to reconciliation on reasonable terms, and thereby to relieve the empire from the calamities of civil war."

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