Declaration of Independence

Way back before dirt in 1258 king Henry III was urged by the bishops to make a new council or body of people called parliament. There were two different houses each one representing there own group of people. One house was called the House of Lords which represented all the nobles and the other called the House of Commons this branch represented all the regular people with large amounts of property. But tension grew between the parties, each one wanted all of the power. When one group got power they weren’t able to have it for a long time. The heat got so intense that it resulted in a civil war in the 1600s. But by the time the glorious revolution came around parliament had more power than the king so it was all good.

During The Massachusetts town meetings everyone in town got together to vote on a decision and this was a direct democracy. This works because of the small population of people could fit in a town hall and there were fewer issues. This did not include women, only grown males were allowed. You see this doesn’t work with large cities because with all the people they wouldn’t fit in a town hall. So the people elect representatives to stand for a small amount of people and the representatives can vote for them. For example, in America, we have a representative democracy. We elect several representatives from each state more or less depending on size and they vote for us

The Fundamental orders of Connecticut came about by a man whose name was Roger Williams. Williams lived in Massachusetts and he did not like the way things were going in the puritan colonies. He thought the puritans were way too strict and that he needed more freedom of religion. So Williams spoke out against the puritans and almost immediately banished. He went on to establish a colony in Rhode Island and make his own type of government. This government had the trait of separation from church and state which meant that the church doesn’t have so much power in the government and couldn’t banish people just because they didn’t like the native religion. More and more people agreed with Williams until the compact was signed and it became the first written constitution in the United States.

When Jamestown became the first successful British colony in the new world the London Company had absolute power. The London Company funded the voyage to the new world. The London Company thought it would attract more settlers if they let the people have some say in what happened around the colonies. The London Company devised a way that was just like the parliament in England to give power to the people. They split this government into two different sections the governor’s council and the other the House of Burgesses. The House of Burgesses had all the adult males. Each colony had the right to elect two representatives to represent them in the House of Burgesses. The power of the House of Burgesses was still very limited because none of the laws they could make could contradict any other British law. And the king had the power to take away any law he wanted to.    

Ok that’s it I hoped this answered any questions you had about the events leading up to the declaration of independence. All the events above were what wrote our constitution and declaration of independence. I hope you enjoyed reading this essay.