[3] On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, after receiving instructions and wording from the Fifth Virginia Convention, proposed to Congress that they cut their political ties with Britain, declare themselves independent, and create a constitution.

Two days later, on July 4, 1776, the 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress, unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, which was overseen by the Committee of Five and written principally by Thomas Jefferson in Philadelphia over a period of two weeks in June 1776.

On March 14, 1776, as proposed by John Adams to the Congress: After the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, New England American patriot militias mobilized to surround the British Army in Boston.

They concluded, "We mean not to dissolve that union which as so long and so happily subsisted between us, in which we sincerely wish to see restored....We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent states.

[12] On September 14, 1775, Washington, as "Commander in Chief of the Army of the United Colonies of North America", instructed Colonel Benedict Arnold to invade Quebec, seize military stores, and attempt to convince French Canadians to join the American Revolution.