Grievances of the United States Declaration of Independence

The Second Continental Congress's Committee of Five drafted the document listing their grievances with the actions and decisions of King George III with regard to the colonies in North America.

Henry Seymour Conway, the Secretary of State for the Southern Department, informed the Americans that Parliament would not pursue legal action against colonists who had actively protested against the Stamp Acts, provided that the assemblies would pay for any damage to public property.

In complying with this demand, the Assembly of Massachusetts stated it would be "wholesome and necessary for the public good" to grant a blanket pardon to all who had been engaged in the protests, and passed the act.

[4][5] This is an indictment of the King's appointed governors in the colonies, who had refused to endorse laws colonists viewed as conducive to the public good.

The Massachusetts Assembly passed a law in 1770 for taxing Government officers in that colony, but the King ordered the governor to withhold his assent.

[11][12] When Chief Justice Oliver declared it to be his intention to receive his salary from the crown,[13] the Assembly proceeded to impeach him and petitioned Governor Thomas Hutchinson for his removal.

Although the colonists initially welcomed the protection provided by the soldiers[16] by the 1760s and early 1770s they had increasingly come to see the army as a tool for Parliament to enforce various revenue acts—e.g.

Upon his arrival at Boston in 1774, Thomas Gage – commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America – assumed control of the civil government as royal governor of Massachusetts.

The Continental Congress considered that the police power of the state had been removed from accountability to the people of the province or their local, duly-elected leaders and could thus be used despotically to further the unjust policies imposed by the crown.

[3] The "others" with whom the King is thus said to have combined were the members of Parliament, the existence of which as a legally constituted body possessing authority over them the Americans thus refused even by implication to recognize.

[17] This was due to the establishment of a Board of Trade, to act independently of colonial legislation through its creatures (resident commissioners of customs) in the enforcement of revenue laws.

The establishment of this power and the remodelling of the admiralty courts to exclude trial by jury therein, in most cases rendered the government fully obnoxious to the charge in the text.

[3] In addition to the revenue taxes imposed from and were attempted to be collected utilizing writs of assistance, the Stamp Act was passed, and duties upon paper, painters' colors, glass, tea, and many other goods, were levied.

[18][3] After these functionaries were driven from Boston in 1768, an act was passed that placed violations of the revenue laws under the jurisdiction of the admiralty courts, where the offenders were tried, but the prosecutors were biased towards the crown.

[19] The text of the bill contained the following: In that case, it shall and may be lawful for the governor, or lieutenant-governor, to direct, with the advice and consent of the council, that the inquisition, indictment, or appeal, shall be tried in some other of his Majesty's colonies, or Great Britain.

[21] This is a reiteration of a charge already considered, and refers to the alteration of the Massachusetts charter, to make judges and other officers independent of the people, and subservient to the crown.

Suppression occurred of the Legislature of New York, and in several cases, the governors, after dissolving Colonial Assemblies, assumed the right to make proclamations stand in the place of statute law.

[3] John Adams said of the Prohibitory act: "It throws thirteen colonies out of the royal protection, levels all distinctions, and makes us independent in spite of our supplications and entreaties ...

"[22] Lord Dunmore ordered the seizure of several American merchant vessels, and several naval assaults were made upon the colonies, disrupting the affected towns.

He was also concerned with Governor Gage and others, and under instructions from the Government Ministry, ordered the Shawnee and other native inhabitants of the Ohio country to fight against the colonists.