TODAY IN HISTORY

In my history class I learned about the birth of the American Republic. Thomas Paine said “No taxation without Representation.” This phrase meant for many colonists that the British had no right to tax them since they had no representation in Parliament. On March 1770, the British soldiers were threatened by a small crowd. The soldiers opened fire and killed five colonists. This became known as the Boston Massacre. The Boston Tea Party was on December 16, 1773. Colonists dressed as Indians boarded three ships and threw out all the tea. The Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson was approved on July 4, 1776 by the Second Continental Congress. The treaty, signed in 1783, recognized the independence of the American colonies. The Constitution of the United States created a federal system in which power would be shared between the national government and the state governments. The New Constitution reflected the Enlightenment ideas of John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The Separation of Powers is the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government that limit and control each other in a system of checks and balances.