America Did Not Have an Easy Birth
Independence was not guaranteed.
J.B. Shurk | July 4, 2026
Two-hundred-fifty years ago, the Second Continental Congress lit the fuse for human freedom by declaring the United States of America independent from Great Britain. Although we Americans celebrate the Fourth of July as our nation’s birthday, our country did not have an easy birth.
In July 1776, the men who became known as our “Founding Fathers” had many problems. First among them was the reality that not everyone believed the United Colonies of North America (as they were then called) should sever ties with the Crown. During the First Continental Congress, convened in Philadelphia for fewer than two months in the early autumn of 1774, delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies (Loyalist Georgia did not attend.) could not agree how best to respond to Britain’s naval blockade of Boston Harbor and Parliament’s imposition of the Intolerable Acts as collective punishment for the Boston Tea Party. Staunch Loyalist and Pennsylvania delegate Joseph Galloway even proposed a Plan of Union to formally unite Great Britain and the North American colonies. That did not sit well with Massachusetts firebrand Samuel Adams, and the proposal was eventually struck from the official record of the proceedings.
Following the April 19, 1775, Battles of Lexington and Concord — the first armed conflicts in America’s War for Independence — colonial delegates reconvened in Philadelphia on May 10. For the next fourteen months, the Second Continental Congress debated what to do next. Formal separation from Great Britain remained a contentious issue. Even after fighting in Massachusetts had begun, most American colonists resisted calls for independence throughout 1775. However, public support for the cause of liberty grew as Christian ministers exhorted members of their congregations to recognize the fight against political tyranny as a struggle for God-given rights and a duty to pursue His will (and our happiness) here on Earth. Patriots of Massachusetts and Virginia worked tirelessly to shift public sentiment throughout the colonies and to persuade each colony’s representatives that the time for revolution had arrived.
Then an anonymously authored forty-seven-page essay was published in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776. Written by Thomas Paine and “Addressed to the Inhabitants of America,” its title was simple: Common Sense. Described by recently deceased historian Gordon Wood as “the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era,” it remains the best-selling American work of all time. In the first half of 1776, American colonists read aloud from its pages in taverns and secret meeting places while British soldiers passed on nearby streets. Colonial sentiment quickly transformed from hopes for reconciliation with Britain to fervent cries for independence. Paine ignited in Protestant Christians a passion that united the colonies in a righteous war for freedom against the Crown.
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