What Founding Document Said the American Colonies Were Free From Britain? Civics Question 9

The answer is the Declaration of Independence.

Question 9 asks which founding document said the American colonies were free from Britain. One answer counts: the Declaration of Independence. No other document is accepted, and no date or author is required.

Three Founding Documents, Three Jobs

The test refers to several founding documents, and each one did something different.

• Declaration of Independence, 1776. Announced that the colonies were no longer under British rule.
• U.S. Constitution, 1787. Built the government and gave it its powers.
• Bill of Rights, 1791. Added the first ten amendments, protecting rights.

Only one of the three announced a separation. The other two came after the break and dealt with running the new country.

Why the Officer Asks This

Questions 2 through 12 move across all of these documents, and applicants who study hard often learn the facts without learning which document each fact belongs to. This question tests the sorting.

It also has a single accepted answer. Several questions on the list accept two or three responses, so an officer can hear different things and mark you correct. Not this one.

How to Remember Which Document Did the Declaring

Put the two big dates side by side and read them as a sequence.

1776, declare. 1787, govern.

A country has to leave before it can build. The colonies broke away first, and only then wrote rules for the government that replaced British rule. Eleven years separate the two events, and the earlier document is always the one that did the declaring.

If the dates slip, the titles still work. A declaration declares. A constitution constitutes. The job is inside each name.

Common Ways People Get This Wrong

The usual wrong answer is “the Constitution,” because it is the document applicants study most. The Constitution never mentions freeing the colonies from Britain. By the time it was written, that was already settled.

“The Bill of Rights” is the other miss, and it is the wrong direction twice over. It came fifteen years after the break and it deals with rights, not independence.

What to Say on Test Day

Say “the Declaration of Independence.” Then stop.

You do not need July 4, 1776, and you do not need to name who wrote it. The officer is listening for the title of the document.