As the idea of freedom progressed in the middle of the 16th century many American’s started to become angry with Britain. Britain started to tax the colonies because they were in debt from the French and Indian War. The first example of a way for Britain to raise revenues was the Stamp Act, which taxed all paper goods. This would lead to ideas of breaking off from Britain. Thomas Paine wrote “Common Sense”, which motivated people to want to become an independent country and fight in the Revolutionary War. The Second Continental Congress stated many objections to British rule and why the United States should be independent. The thought of Freedom changed, and at the time the only way that Americans could be free would to fight in the war and get their independence from Great Britain. George Washington was the commander of the Army and lead the soldiers to new fighting tactics and encouragement that Freedom was possible. The United States won their freedom from the British and became a free and independent Nation. Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and others wrote the Declaration of Independence which officially made American its own separate country. Freedom became the definition of the United States and has lived on since the Revolutionary …show more content…
Many slaves sought their freedom by running away from the south to the north to create the Underground Railroad System. The opinions on slavery would be the cause of the division of the new nation: The union in the north, and the confederacy in the south. Abraham Lincoln, the president of the time, was against slavery and thought everyone deserved their basic human rights. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation that strengthened the Unions cause for the abolishment of slavery by freeing all slaves from the confederate states if the North won the war. The Union won the Civil war and Abraham Lincoln issued the 13th amendment which abolished slavery. This was a start to granting freedom to all people. Freedom meant something a little different than it did a couple years before, and would continue to be pushed in the years that