A majority of American colonists were slow to accept the notion of independence from Britain. The drift toward a full break with the mother country was accelerated by the following:
Off-site search results for "Drift toward Independence"...
American Archives: Toward independence
... independence Subthemes Toward independence: the processes and events that led to independence, including acts of the Continental Congress, elite opinion, early Declarations of Independence, and the impact of the Declaration are all included here.
http://dig.lib.niu.edu/amarch/independence.html
The 1850s: Coin Availability Improves as Nation Drifts Toward Civil War.
... for the first time ever in the 1850s, the United States continued its drift toward civil war. The Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, and the Election of 1860 dominated news during this time. The Compromise of 1850 ...
http://www.us-coin-values-advisor.com/the-nation-drifts-toward-war.htm ...
Lift and Drift
... Wilbur defines as the pressure or force directly opposed to gravity and true drift is a force perpendicular to it -- what we now call drag. Lilienthal's tables, he notes, do not contain numbers that are immediately useful. Lilienthal based ...
http://www.first-to-fly.com/Adventure/Workshop/lift_and_drift.htm