Prompts
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
- Two key challenges faced by the members of the second continental congress in constructing a new American government and constitution drafting
One of the challenges that the members of the second continental congress faced included getting people to decline all kinds of trades that the country had with England and so there was supposed to be the repeal of the acts(Hinman, 2019).
Secondly, the British government declined to comprise and this proved to be a major challenge for the federation (Hinman, 2019). Congress then issued a response to the proclamation of the rebellion which stated that despite the loyalty that had been witnessed, the British did not give a legitimate claim to power over these colonies whereas there was no democratic representation.
- Institution of slavery problem for the new country
The documentary at minute 5.00 to 10.00 noted that when America broke away from England, Thomas Jefferson was asked to draft the declaration of independence at a time when there was slavery in America. Hence, Jefferson stated that the grievances of many Americans pertained to freedom and equality. More than 500,000 African Americans had been taken in as slaves and they accounted for about a fifth of the whole population. The number of slaves during that time posed a huge challenge for independence
Response
I disagree with the whole process of Jefferson talking about equality yet in essence he was an owner to about 130 slaves who worked in his house. He advocated for equality of men yet he was part of the slavery that ripped Black Americans of their own freedom.
This meant that the declaration of independence only applied to the white Americans (Minute 6.38-9.00)
References
Hinman, B. (2019). The Second Continental Congress. Mitchell Lane.