United States Declaration of Independence United States Declaration of Independence The United States Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1776. The Declaration announced that the Thirteen Colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain would regard themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. With the Declaration, these new states took a collective first step toward forming the United States of America. The declaration was signed by representatives from New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York,
Origins of the War of 1812 They made the demand as late as 1814 at the peace conference, but dropped the demand. Their position had been weakened by the collapse of Tecumseh's Confederacy after the Battle of the Thames, but the British also simply no longer considered the goal worth conflict with the United States. Much of the proposed buffer state remained largely under British and Indian control throughout the war. There were several immediate stated causes for the U.S. declaration of war. First, a series of trade restrictions called the Orders in Council (1807) introduced by Britain to impede American trade with France, a country