Today the Declaration of Independence is an eloquent treatise on human liberty. At the time of its creation, the Declaration was even more: it was a dangerous political statement involving profound personal risks to its signers and supporters.
The Declaration of Independence represented the culmination of years of colonial anger towards British rule. In 1773, a group of colonists threw taxed British tea into Boston Harbor in protest against taxation without representation. From that point on, Americans began the move toward independence.
