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The act required that, starting in the fall of 1765, legal documents and printed materials must bear a tax stamp provided by commissioned distributors who would collect the tax in exchange for the stamp.
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This new act allowed royal governors, rather than colonial legislatures, to find homes and buildings to quarter or house British soldiers.
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By issuing the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress, the 13 American colonies severed their political connections to Great Britain. The Declaration summarized the colonists' motivations for seeking independence.
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British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered his army of some 8,000 men to General George Washington at Yorktown, giving up any chance of winning the Revolutionary War
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The capture of another army left the British without a new strategy and without public support to continue the war. Peace negotiations took place in France and the war came to an official end
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The Constitution of the United States established America's national government and fundamental laws, and guaranteed certain basic rights for its citizens
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Naturalization Act defined citizenship in stark racial terms. To be a citizen of the US republic, an immigrant had to be a “free white person” of “good character.”
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Adopted in 1791, the bill consisted of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution and outlined many of the personal rights state constitutions already guaranteed.