American History - Formation of the United States (1776-1789)

During this period the United States won its independence from Great Britain in the American War of Independence, or the American Revolutionary War as it is called in Great-Britain, and the thirteen former colonies established themselves as the United States of America under the Articles of Confederation.

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, still meeting in Philadelphia, declared the independence of the United States in a remarkable document, the Declaration of Independence, primarily authored by Thomas Jefferson. Morocco was the first country in the World to recognize the newly sovereign United States in 1777. The Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship stands as the U.S.'s oldest non-broken friendship treaty. Signed by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, it has been in continuous effect since 1783.

The United States celebrates its founding date as July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress―representing thirteen British colonies―adopted the Declaration of Independence that rejected British authority in favor of self-determination. The structure of the government was profoundly changed on March 4, 1789, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The new government reflected a radical break from the normative governmental structures of the time, favoring representative, elective government with a weak executive, rather than the existing monarchial structures common within the western traditions of the time. The system borrowed heavily from enlightenment age ideas and classical western philosophy, in that a primacy was placed upon individual liberty and upon constraining the power of government through division of powers and a system of checks and balances.

The colonists' victory at Saratoga led the French into an open alliance with the United States. In 1781, a combined American and French Army, acting with the support of a French fleet, captured a large British army, led by General Cornwallis, at Yorktown, Virginia. The surrender of General Cornwallis ended serious British efforts to find a military solution to their American problem.

A series of attempts to organize a movement to outline and press reforms culminated in the Congress calling the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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