Independence in 1776 meant popular representative government replacing royal rule

Evidence

Judged by their words and deeds, for Americans in 1776, “independence” meant separating from the British monarchy and establishing representative governments in the American states. Simply put, in the United States, “the people” would reign and their elected representatives would rule. The grievances that American colonists previously lodged against Parliament morphed into indictments against the king. Paine’s Common Sense, the first widely read pamphlet proposing American independence, presented this revolutionary concept in January 1776. Decrying absolutist governments as “the disgrace of human nature,” Paine called for representative ones with frequent elections to ensure “their fidelity to the Public will.” In July 1776, Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence embraced the idea of representative government by stating at its outset that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The new state constitutions of 1776 institutionalized this idea, and North Carolina’s captured their collective spirit in its opening words: “All political power is vested in and derived from the people only.” — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 5

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what ‘independence’ actually meant to Americans in 1776: not abstract nationhood but the specific shift to popular representative government.
• XREF: Directly relevant to the course’s foundational value of consent/popular sovereignty that underlies modern legitimacy doctrine. — connects to: Independence required each colony to first form its own republican government — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 162; New Hampshire wrote the first constitution assuming popular authority independent of king or Parliament; Authority to declare independence derives from the people being governed. — Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, 41 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Congress’s May 1776 resolution urged colonies to adopt republican governments #corroborates (0.90) — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 166
• Authority to declare independence derives from the people being governed. #expands (0.85) — Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, 41
• Elite patriots backed republican independence despite distrusting popular rule #complicates (0.85) — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 136