LT: Students will understand that Colonial Independence from Great Britain was justified for many reasons U3 Day 9
Name______Block/day______Simmons/Harter
2nd Continental Congress and “Common Sense”
The Second Congress was called on May 10 1775. States had sent their best men to ensure that their interests would be protected and their grievances solved. Men like Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry attended. This second Congress made two important steps; one was the setting up of a committee to write a Declaration of Independence, the second was George Washington had been appointed as leader of the American forces on June 20 1775.
What were the important steps taken at the Second Continental Congress?
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Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, the writing that sparked an American Revolution!!
Common Sense by Thomas Paine had a major impact on American Independence
The Continental Congress in Philadelphia began to think seriously about declaring independence from Great Britain. The idea of independence gained overwhelming popular support following the publication of Thomas Paine’s CommonSense in January 1776. His pamphlet criticizeda monarchy as a form of government. Thomas Paine was English born AmericanWriter and political pamphleteer, whose 'Common Sense' and 'Crisis' papers were important influences on the American Revolution.
Paine's political pamphlet brought the rising revolutionary feeling into sharp focus by placing blame for the suffering of the colonies directly on the reigning British monarch, George III. Impressed by Paine, Benjamin Franklin sponsored Paine's emigration to America in 1774.
- What type of government was Thomas Paine against?
- How did Common Sense affect the colonists?
Directions-Primary Document: make annotations in the margins or on sticky notes
I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense ...
“Everything that is right or reasonable pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'tis time to part.”
“Now is the seedtime of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now, will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read in it full grown characters.”
“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.”
“This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still”
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
“The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.”
“The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth”
"Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil."
“There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required”
“... have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months."
“O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe.”
“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.”