why did colonist feel that they had to declare their independence?

Answer 1

The reasons ARE stated in the Declaration of Independence!!!


Thanks JD. Please remember that these were not a bunch of hotheads that acted rashly. They did not want to separate. They tried to get King George to listen - see The Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress and the Declaration:

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate
that Governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shewn
that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable than to right themselves
by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Answer 2

Heres and easy one, go buy American History for Dummies (no kidding) and it will give you the no frills version. But basically the colonists felt that the British were taxing them to high but not providing enough protection from the Indians. Britian, at the time, actually couldnt give any more protection as they were fighting the Napoleonic war. The colonists, who still felt that they were English, were also miffed about being treated as '2nd class' citizens. They used the taxation thing as a reason to go to war and they came close to getting the asses kicked. It was only brilliant tactitians, help from the French and the Spanish, and the inability of the British to deploy more troops to the colonies, that we won.

Answer 3

“No taxation without representation.” Does that ring a bell? The British looked at the colonies as a market for their goods and a significant tax source. The English would not allow colonist to manufacture many goods because the Brits wanted to maintain a monopoly for their goods. Remember the “Boston Tea Party?” It was about taxes. There were many other issues but taxes were a major cause for the original break from England.

Answer 4

You might want to start with the Boston Tea Party.. will fill in many of the blanks for you..

Answer 5

Need to read your text book, it is quite interesting.

Answer 6

It was a Bunch of hot headed radicals that started everything. Sort of like today's demi-god who shouts "you are with us or you are the enemy".

Nothing has changed

Answer 7

so they could enslave the blacks...in my opinion!

and they did eventually to all the thumbs down people!

Answer 8

As dmdb1 Said (Above)

READ The Declaration
You Will Learn EXACTLY Why The colonists felt
that they had to declare their independence

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events
it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another
and to assume among the powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station
to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,
a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are
Life,
Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness. —

That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —

That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate
that Governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shewn
that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable than to right themselves
by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same Object
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
it is their right,
it is their duty,
to throw off such Government,
and to provide new Guards for their future security. —

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies;
and such is now the necessity
which constrains them to alter
their former Systems of Government.

The history of the present King of Great Britain
is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,
all having in direct object
the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws,
the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors
to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance,
unless suspended in their operation
till his Assent should be obtained;
and when so suspended,
he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws
for the accommodation of large districts of people,
unless those people would relinquish
the right of Representation in the Legislature,
a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies
at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant
from the depository of their Public Records,
for the sole purpose of fatiguing them
into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly,
for opposing with manly firmness
his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions,
to cause others to be elected,
whereby the Legislative Powers,
incapable of Annihilation,
have returned to the People at large for their exercise;
the State remaining in the mean time
exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without,
and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States;
for that purpose
obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners;
refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither,
and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice
by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone
for the tenure of their offices,
and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices,
and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people
and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us,
in times of peace,
Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military
independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others
to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution,
and unacknowledged by our laws;
giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them,
by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas
to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws
in a neighbouring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitrary government,
and enlarging its Boundaries
so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument
for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters,
abolishing our most valuable Laws
and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures,
and declaring themselves invested with power
to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here,
by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas,
ravaged our coasts,
burnt our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time
transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries
to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny,
already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy
scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages,
and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens
taken Captive on the high Seas
to bear Arms against their Country,
to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren,
or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us,
and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers,
the merciless Indian Savages
whose known rule of warfare,
is an undistinguished destruction
of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions
We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms:
Our repeated Petitions have been answered
only by repeated injury.
A Prince, whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a Tyrant,
is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren.

We have warned them from time to time
of attempts by their legislature
to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances
of our emigration and settlement here.
We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity,
and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred.
to disavow these usurpations,
which would inevitably interrupt
our connections and correspondence.

They too have been deaf
to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.

We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity,
which denounces our Separation,
and hold them,
as we hold the rest of mankind,
Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore,
the Representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress,
Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world
for the rectitude of our intentions,
do, in the Name, and by Authority
of the good People of these Colonies,
solemnly publish and declare,
That these United Colonies are,
and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States,
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown,
and that all political connection between them
and the State of Great Britain,
is and ought to be totally dissolved;
and that as Free and Independent States,
they have full Power to levy War,
conclude Peace contract Alliances,
establish Commerce,
and to do all other Acts and Things
which Independent States may of right do. —

And for the support of this Declaration,
with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence,
we mutually pledge to each other
our Lives,
our Fortunes
and our sacred Honor.