The basic reason for this, of course, is that the
delegates to the Congress thought that it was time for the colonies to become
independent from Britain. So the better question is to ask why the delegates had come
to believe this. Why did the Congress declare independence when the First Continental
Congress had not?
I would point to three
reasons:
- Britain had rejected the "Olive Branch
Petition" that the Congress had adopted in 1775. This petition had restated the
colonies' devotion to the King and had asked that he stop his government from
mistreating them. By rejecting it, Britain was telling the colonies that they would not
get what they saw as fair treatment. - Thomas Paine's
"Common Sense" had been published. This pushed many more colonists towards the idea
that the colonies should be independent and that monarchy was a bad
system. - Finally, there was the war. The colonies and
Britain had been at war for a bit more than a year by this time and attitudes had
hardened on both sides.
For these reasons, the
Second Continental Congress decided to adopt a declaration of
independence.
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