Written by Thomas Jefferson and revised by John Dickinson,[1] the Declaration explains why the Thirteen Colonies had taken up arms in what had become the American Revolutionary War.
The Declaration describes what colonists viewed as the effort of the British Parliament to extend its jurisdiction into the colonies following the Seven Years' War.
Even though British troops have been sent to enforce these unconstitutional acts, the Declaration insists that the colonists do not yet seek independence from the mother country.
The opening paragraph likens the colonies as being enslaved to the Legislature of Great Britain by violence, against its own constitution, and gives that as the reason for the colonies taking up arms: The Legislature of Great Britain, however, stimulated by an inordinate passion for power, not only unjustifiable, but which they know to be peculiarly reprobated by the very Constitution of that Kingdom, and desperate of success in any mode of contest where regard should be had to the truth, law, or right, have at length, deserting those, attempted to effect their cruel and impolitic purpose of enslaving these Colonies by violence, and have thereby rendered it necessary for us to close with their last appeal from reason to arms.
[citation needed] According to Boyd, an initial draft was reportedly written by John Rutledge, a member of a committee of five appointed to create the Declaration.