When the American People Seceded from the British People
A philosophical point about the Declaration of Independence
In the Declaration of Independence, its authors announced that it had become “necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another”: that is, it had become necessary for the people of America to politically separate (i.e., secede) from the people of Great Britain.
That is how the document started. The first sentence made no mention of the British government: whether King or Parliament. It only referred to the British people.
This is a reflection of the Declaration’s theory of government, derived predominantly from John Locke, which holds that “Governments are instituted among Men” by the people to “secure” the “rights” of the people. The Declaration added that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”
According to the Declaration, the British government had become destructive to the rights of the people of the American colonies. But the document did not address whether that government had also become destructive to the rights of Britons outside the colonies. The Americans didn’t presume to speak for all Britons, only themselves.
Thus, it makes sense that the Americans did not seek “regime change” for the whole British Empire. Instead they just declared a political separation from their British compatriots. This separation from the British people implied a separation from the government instituted by those people. The people of the American colonies were then free to institue new governments: namely, the thirteen original “united States of America.”