The Founding Fathers were divided in their reactions to the Boston Tea Party.

After the Boston Tea Party (1773), colonists boycotted tea and turned to coffee, with coffeehouses becoming hubs for revolutionary discussions. The stimulating import from the Caribbean helped shape the nascent American taste.

The reaction to the first direct tax on colonists prompted the second-ever colonial congress and a broad boycott of British goods. It also gave birth to the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, the congress's document articulating the "no taxation without representation" stance. The act's passage was a major stepping stone to revolution.

The economic situation in the colonies formed the backbone of the central events of the Revolution. British war debts caused it to lay the first direct taxes on colonists, cease their westward expansion claims, and adhere to stringent trade regulations, leading to backlash and eventual separation.

In 1783, citizens celebrated the signing of the Preliminary Articles of Peace with nationwide parties. Across the new country, many made 13 toasts to the 13 states. They also drank to George Washington. One poet in Boston wrote, “Health to his honor I’d freely drink, Had I a glass of wine; And whosoever with me shall think, May mix their toast with mine.”

When Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration, he wrote that its truths were “sacred and undeniable.” Benjamin Franklin urged replacing that phrase with “self-evident,” grounding the document in reason rather than religious authority and sharpening its Enlightenment logic.

In the decade before independence, New York City saw Stamp Act riots, liberty pole confrontations, the 1770 Battle of Golden Hill, and defiance of the Quartering Act, and organized efforts to block and destroy taxed British tea.

Adopted October 19, 1765, the resolutions argued that taxation without colonial consent violated the British constitution, that admiralty courts without juries subverted English liberties, and that paying the tax in hard currency was practically impossible. Each grievance was framed not as rebellion but as a defense of rights the colonists already believed they possessed.

This video highlights lesser-known facts about the Declaration of Independence, including that Congress approved independence on July 2—leading many Founders to believe that would be the day Americans would celebrate their independence.

The 1765 gathering of 27 delegates from nine colonies at New York's Federal Hall produced the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, which asserted that colonists could only be taxed by their own elected representatives. The document codified the principle that would define the road to revolution.

The Revolutionary War led to independence and significant debt for most states. In 1786, a group of veterans and farmers from western Massachusetts protested against the state government’s increased taxes. Led by Daniel Shays, the group attempted to capture an armory in Springfield but failed.

A uniquely American iteration of the Enlightenment movement thrived during the Revolution. This selection from a longer write-up on the American Enlightenment highlights six core ideas: deism, liberalism, republicanism, conservatism, toleration, and scientific progress.

John Adams urged Congress to choose Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration because of his literary skill and low-profile reputation. Read Jefferson's initial draft, which included passages later removed, including a forceful denunciation of slavery.

British parliamentarian William Pitt laid out the argument supporting “no taxation without representation,” a major feature of the colonial debate around the Stamp Act in 1765. Arguing taxes are valid, Pitt acknowledged they aren’t if those taxed don’t have representation in the body that passes the tax laws.

Colonial Williamsburg's timeline situates the act within the local political culture of Virginia: colonists accustomed to taxing themselves through their own representatives in Williamsburg's House of Burgesses were outraged that Parliament could reach into their pockets from across the ocean. The timeline also covers Patrick Henry's proposed "Resolves," which prompted shouts of "treason" from his co-legislators, as well as commemorative objects (buttons, teapots) that followed the repeal.

In a March 1776 letter to John, Adams urged the Founders not to grant husbands unchecked power over their wives. Historians note it was not a demand for suffrage but a challenge to coverture—the legal doctrine that denied a married woman an independent identity.

British taxes on colonists to pay for the French and Indian War were just one element. Thousands of miles of separation between London and the Colonies, expanding territories, a distinct Colonial identity, and political conflicts combined to prompt the Revolution.

In letters written during the Revolution, Adams clearly opposed slavery—calling it an unjust scheme and highlighting the contradiction of fighting for freedom while enslaving others. Read it in her own words here in a letter to John Adams.

This online exhibit from the Daughters of the American Revolution presents a visual slideshow of all 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, pairing portraits and biographies with photographs of their handwritten signatures.

The Founding Father was asked to judge a contest for the Royal Academy of Brussels, but was incensed by one of the contest's questions, which he believed was highly impractical. In response, he wrote a piece suggesting that the most essential problem for scientists to solve was the "fetid Smell" that came with passing gas.

The elaborate stamp bore royal symbols and the word "America" and was printed in Britain and shipped to the colonies to be sold by government officials. Protests erupted in nearly every colony before it could take effect, often violently targeting stamp collectors.

Colonial juries refused to convict Americans who violated British trade laws, and Britain's response, stripping away jury rights, became a central grievance of the Revolution. The Declaration of Independence explicitly cited the denial of the right to trial by jury as a charge against King George III.

The troops the act funded weren't left in America to guard against France, but to manage the aftermath of Pontiac's Rebellion and keep the peace between colonists and Indigenous nations. Some historians argue this means Native American resistance to British expansion indirectly triggered the tax that sparked the Revolution.

This Library of Congress collection comprises early arguments for Colonial rights, protests against British authority, draft constitutions, and multiple working drafts of the Declaration of Independence. It traces the ideas and language that preceded the final document adopted in 1776.

Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson clashed over how power should be divided in the new republic—Hamilton favoring a strong national government with broad implied powers, and Jefferson warning that such authority would erode state power and threaten republican liberty.

As Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton designed an excise tax on whiskey that provoked violent resistance in western Pennsylvania. The Whiskey Rebellion ended when George Washington mobilized state militias under federal authority to enforce the law.

This article breaks down the Declaration’s 27 grievances against King George III, illustrating how they were intended not only to express colonial anger but also to justify rebellion and garner support abroad.

While John was away during the Revolution and his diplomatic career, Adams managed the family's finances and investments skillfully. When John urged her to buy farmland in 1783, she refused—investing instead in government bonds and earning up to 25% annually, compared to his farmland's 1%.

Adams regarded him as dangerously ambitious and untrustworthy. Her letters are among the most vivid contemporary assessments of Hamilton, providing a portrait of one of the founding era's most contentious figures.

As a brief, punchy statement rejecting unjust authority, "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God" became widely adopted during the American Revolution. The phrase is often misattributed to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, the latter of whom used it on his personal seal. This fact-checked article dives into the history of the phrase, claiming it was first used in 1770 in an epitaph for an English judge. Read more here.

From 1787 to 1788, Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay anonymously published a collection of essays known as the Federalist Papers to promote the new Constitution. Of the 85 essays that proved pivotal to the eventual ratification of the document, Hamilton wrote 51.