Independence Day (United States) other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the National Day of the United States. During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain in 1776 actually occurred on July 2, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain's rule. After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been
History of the United States (1776–1789) the federal government's powers of defense and taxation with the Constitution of the United States of America in 1789, still in effect today. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British colonies in America had been largely left to their own devices by the crown; it was called salutary neglect. The colonies were thus largely self-governing; half the white men in America could vote, compared to one percent in Britain. They developed their own political identities and systems which were in many ways separate from those in Britain. This new ideology was a decidedly republican political viewpoint, which rejected royalty,