—John Adams to Abigail, July 3, 1776

This course on the history of the American Revolution is designed for public-school teacher from elementary through high school and is oriented toward the Virginia standards of learning. The purpose of the course is to allow teachers to explore thoroughly the background, the military struggle, and the resolution of the American Revolutionary period which came with the implementation of a constitutional, republican form of government.

The American Revolution began, as John Adams put it, in the “hearts and minds” of the people long before the fighting started at Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775. in fact, it can be argued that the the real American Revolution began in the hearts and minds of the colonists even before they left England. They came to the New World seeking a new life, new opportunities, new freedoms under which to practice their religion without interference, or merely to escape what they saw as the oppressive economic and social conditions in the countries which they left. The revolution was formalized with the passing of the motion for independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 2, 1776, and was given a measure of stability with the adoption of the Constitution in 1789.

We Americans of the 21st century tend to take our freedom and constitutional protections for granted, but they were hard won, and the achieved result was never a foregone conclusion. Surely the United States would eventually have left the British Empire, but the path might not have been via revolutionary war, narrowly won. The Constitution was ratified by the slimmest of margins, and had our first president and his successors been different men, the country might not have survived, even under that founding document.