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Abuses by King John caused a revolt by nobles who compelled him to execute this recognition of rights for both noblemen and ordinary Englishmen. It established the principle that no one, including the king or a lawmaker, is above the law.
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The Petition of Right is a major English constitutional document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing. The Petition of Right was produced by the English Parliament in the run-up to the English Civil War.
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The Act described the abuses of power of King James II that led to his departure, and defined the agreement between Parliament and William of Orange if he was to be king.
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In the early 1750s, rivalry between England and France over who would control the North American continent led inexorably to what is known as the French and Indian Wars. This conflict lasted from 1756 to 1763, and left England the dominant power in the area that now comprises the eastern United States and Canada.
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The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry.
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A violent demonstration in 1773 by American colonists. Colonists boarded vessels in Boston harbor and threw the cargoes of tea into the water in protest at the imposition of a tax on tea by the British Parliament.
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The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen North American colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution.
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On May 10, 1775, the members of the Second Continental Congress met at the State House in Philadelphia. There were several new delegates including: John Hancock from Massachusetts, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, and Benjamin Franklin from Pennsylvania.
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The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire.
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The Articles of Confederation was the original binding document of the United States and served as the supreme law of the land from March 1, 1781 until the ratification of the United States Constitution (on June 21, 1788).
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Shays' Rebellion, the post-Revolutionary clash between New England farmers and merchants that tested the precarious institutions of the new republic, threatened to plunge the "disunited states" into a civil war. The rebellion arose in Massachusetts in 1786, spread to other states, and culminated in the rebels' march upon a federal arsenal.
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On May 29, 1787, Virginiadelegate Edmund Randolph proposed what became known as "The Virginia Plan." Written primarily by fellow Virginian James Madison, the plan traced the broad outlines of what would become the U.S. Constitution: a national government consisting of three branches with checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power. In its amended form, this page of Madison's plan shows his ideas for a legislature.
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The United States Constitutional Convention (also known as the Philadelphia Convention, the Federal Convention, or the Grand Convention at Philadelphia) took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America.
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The New Jersey Plan (also known as the Small State or Paterson Plan) was a proposal for the structure of the United States Government proposed by William Paterson at the Constitutional Convention on June 15, 1787.
