The American Revolution (1775–1789)

The American Revolution is both a war of independence (1775–1783) and a constitutional revolution (1776–1789). Within fourteen years thirteen British colonies became a single federal republic — the first large-scale modern democracy and a template for political revolutions across the Atlantic world.

Outbreak of war (1775)

After the Intolerable Acts of 1774 and the First Continental Congress, both sides drifted toward armed confrontation. On 19 April 1775 British troops under Lt-Col. Francis Smith marched out of Boston to seize colonial arms at Lexington and Concord, where militia met them with the "shot heard round the world". Eight Americans died at Lexington; some 273 British casualties followed at Concord. The siege of Boston had begun.

Second Continental Congress convened at Philadelphia on 10 May 1775. It appointed George Washington of Virginia commander-in-chief on 15 June 1775 and assumed the powers of a national government. The bloody Battle of Bunker Hill (17 June 1775) demonstrated that British regulars could be made to pay a heavy price.

Declaration of Independence (1776)

Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense (10 January 1776) sold over 120,000 copies in three months and made independence common discourse. On 7 June 1776 Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed independence. The Congress appointed a Committee of Five — Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, Livingston — to draft a declaration.

The Declaration of Independence, principally authored by Thomas Jefferson with revisions by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, was adopted on 4 July 1776. Its preamble articulated the doctrine of natural rights:

"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."

The War of Independence (1775–1783)

Year	Major event
1775	Lexington and Concord (Apr); Bunker Hill (Jun); siege of Boston
1776	British evacuate Boston (Mar); Declaration (Jul); New York lost; Washington crosses Delaware; Trenton (26 Dec)
1777	Princeton (Jan); Brandywine; Saratoga (Oct) — turning point; Valley Forge winter
1778	France enters war (Feb); Monmouth
1779	Spain joins anti-British coalition
1781	Yorktown — Cornwallis surrenders to Washington/Rochambeau, 19 Oct
1783	Treaty of Paris, 3 September

Saratoga and the French Alliance

General John Burgoyne's surrender of nearly 6,000 troops at Saratoga, New York, on 17 October 1777 was the war's strategic turning point. It convinced France, under Foreign Minister Vergennes, to recognise American independence and conclude the Treaty of Alliance (6 February 1778), decisively shifting the balance.

Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris

General Charles Cornwallis, hemmed in at Yorktown on the Chesapeake by Washington's army and a French naval blockade under Admiral de Grasse, surrendered 8,000 troops on 19 October 1781. The Treaty of Paris, signed on 3 September 1783 and ratified by Congress on 14 January 1784, recognised American independence and set the new nation's boundaries from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and from the Great Lakes to Florida.

The Articles of Confederation (1781–1789)

The first national constitution, the Articles of Confederation, was drafted in 1777 and ratified on 1 March 1781. It created a "firm league of friendship" among sovereign states, with a single-chamber Congress in which each state had one vote. Its weaknesses were structural:

1. No power to tax — only to requisition money from states.
2. No executive or national judiciary.
3. No power to regulate commerce or coin currency.
4. Amendment required unanimity; major legislation a nine-state majority.

Successes included the Land Ordinance of 1785 (rectangular survey of the Northwest) and the Northwest Ordinance of 13 July 1787, which guaranteed civil liberties, prohibited slavery north of the Ohio, and provided a model for admitting new states.

But the Shays's Rebellion (August 1786 – February 1787) — a tax revolt by Massachusetts farmers under Daniel Shays — exposed the impotence of the central government. The Annapolis Convention (September 1786) called for a broader meeting at Philadelphia to revise the Articles.

The Constitutional Convention (1787)

Fifty-five delegates from twelve states (no Rhode Island) met at the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) State House from 25 May to 17 September 1787, presided over by George Washington. Key figures included James Madison ("Father of the Constitution"), Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, and Roger Sherman.

Major compromises

Compromise	Issue	Resolution
Great (Connecticut) Compromise	Representation	Bicameral: equal Senate, proportional House
Three-Fifths Compromise	Counting slaves	3/5 of enslaved persons counted for representation and taxation
Commerce Compromise	Trade and slave imports	Congress can regulate commerce; slave imports protected until 1808
Electoral College	Choosing the president	Indirect election via state electors

Structure of the Constitution

• Article I — Congress (House and Senate).
• Article II — Executive (President, 4-year term; Electoral College).
• Article III — Judiciary (Supreme Court and inferior courts).
• Article IV — Relations among states.
• Article V — Amendments (two-thirds proposal; three-fourths ratification).
• Article VI — Supremacy clause; federal law over state law.
• Article VII — Ratification by nine of thirteen states.

Ratification and the Bill of Rights

The Constitution was signed on 17 September 1787 and submitted to the states. The ratification battle pitted Federalists — favouring the new framework, defending it in the 85 Federalist Papers (1787–88) by Hamilton, Madison and Jay — against Anti-Federalists like Patrick Henry, who feared a powerful centralised state.

The ninth ratifying state, New Hampshire (21 June 1788), brought the Constitution into force. Virginia and New York followed; North Carolina (1789) and Rhode Island (29 May 1790) ratified last.

The Bill of Rights

To meet Anti-Federalist concerns, Madison drafted twelve amendments; ten were ratified on 15 December 1791 as the Bill of Rights:

1. Religion, speech, press, assembly, petition.
2. Right to bear arms.
3. No quartering of troops.
4. No unreasonable searches and seizures.
5. Due process, no double jeopardy, no self-incrimination.
6. Speedy public trial by jury; right to counsel.
7. Civil jury trial.
8. No cruel and unusual punishments.
9. Unenumerated rights retained by the people.
10. Powers not delegated reserved to states or people.

The new government

George Washington was unanimously elected the first President and inaugurated at Federal Hall, New York City, on 30 April 1789. John Adams became Vice-President; the first Cabinet included Thomas Jefferson (State), Alexander Hamilton (Treasury), Henry Knox (War), and Edmund Randolph (Attorney General). Hamilton's financial programme — funding the national debt, assuming state debts, creating the First Bank of the United States (1791) — laid the basis of national finance; Jefferson's opposition coalesced into the first political party system, Federalists vs Democratic-Republicans.

By the time Washington left office in 1797, the United States had survived its first national elections, ratified the Bill of Rights, settled its capital question (a federal district on the Potomac, later Washington, D.C., founded 1791), and begun the world's first sustained experiment in large-scale federal democracy.