United States Declaration of Independence

United States Declaration of Independence
1823 facsimile of the engrossed copy
Created	June–July 1776
Ratified	July 4, 1776
Location	Engrossed copy: National Archives Original: lost Rough draft: Library of Congress
Authors	Thomas Jefferson et al.
Signers	56 delegates to the Continental Congress
Purpose	To announce and explain separation from Britain[1]

The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, announcing that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were no longer a part of the British Empire. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The birthday of the United States of America—Independence Day—is celebrated on July 4, the day the wording of the Declaration was approved by Congress.

After approving the wording on July 4, Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in several forms. It was initially published as a printed broadside that was widely distributed and read to the public. The most famous version of the Declaration, a signed copy that is usually regarded as the Declaration of Independence, is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Contrary to popular mythology, Congress did not sign this document on July 4, 1776; it was created after July 19 and was signed by most Congressional delegates on August 2.

Philosophically, the Declaration stressed two Lockean themes: individual rights and the right of revolution. These ideas of the Declaration continued to be widely held by Americans, and had an influence internationally , in particular the French Revolution . Abraham Lincoln, beginning in 1854 as he spoke out against slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska Act,^[2] provided a reinterpretation^[3] of the Declaration that stressed that the unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” were not limited to the white race.^[4] "Lincoln and those who shared his conviction" created a document with “continuing usefulness” with a “capacity to convince and inspire living Americans.”^[5] The invocation by Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address of the Declaration of Independence defines for many Americans how they interpret^[6] Jefferson's famous preamble:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Background

Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration, argued that Parliament was a foreign legislature that was unconstitutionally trying to extend its sovereignty into the colonies.

Parliamentary sovereignty

By the time the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain had been at war for more than a year. Relations between the colonies and the parent country had been deteriorating since the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763. The war had plunged the British government deep into debt, and so Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase tax revenue from the colonies. Parliament believed that these acts, such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767, were a legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the costs to keep the colonies in the British Empire.^[7]

Many colonists, however, had developed a different conception of the empire. Because the colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, they argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them, a view expressed by the slogan "No taxation without representation". After the Townshend Acts, some essayists began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all.^[8] By 1774, American writers such as Samuel Adams, James Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson were arguing that Parliament was the legislature of Great Britain only, and that the colonies, which had their own legislatures, were connected to the rest of the empire only through their allegiance to the Crown.^[9] Parliament, by contrast, contended that the colonists received "virtual representation."

Congress convenes

The issue of parliamentary sovereignty in the colonies became a crisis after Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in 1774 to punish the Province of Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party. Many colonists saw the Coercive Acts as a violation of the British Constitution and a threat to the liberties of all of British America. In September 1774, the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia to coordinate a response. Congress organized a boycott of British goods and petitioned the king for repeal of the acts. These measures were unsuccessful because King George III and his ministers were determined to force the issue. As the king wrote to Prime Minister Lord North in November 1774, "blows must decide whether they [the colonies] are to be subject to this country or independent".^[10]

Even after fighting in the American Revolutionary War began at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, most colonists still hoped for reconciliation with Great Britain.^[11] When the Second Continental Congress convened at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia in May 1775, some delegates hoped for eventual independence, but no one yet advocated declaring it.^[12] Although many colonists no longer believed that Parliament had any sovereignty over them, they still professed loyalty to King George, whom they hoped would intercede on their behalf. They were to be disappointed: in late 1775, the king rejected Congress's second petition, issued a Proclamation of Rebellion, and announced before Parliament on October 26 that he was even considering "friendly offers of foreign assistance" to suppress the rebellion.^[13] A pro-American minority in Parliament warned that the government was driving the colonists towards independence.^[14]

Towards independence

In January 1776, just as it became clear in the colonies that the king was not inclined to act as a conciliator, Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense was published.^[15] Paine, who had only recently arrived in the colonies from England, argued in favor of colonial independence, advocating republicanism as an alternative to monarchy and hereditary rule.^[16] Common Sense introduced no new ideas,^[17] and probably had little direct effect on Congress's thinking about independence; its importance was in stimulating public debate on a topic that few had previously dared to openly discuss.^[18] Public support for separation from Great Britain steadily increased after the publication of Paine's enormously popular pamphlet.^[19]

The Assembly Room in Philadelphia's Independence Hall, where the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

Although some colonists still held out hope for reconciliation, developments in early 1776 further strengthened public support for independence. In February 1776, colonists learned of Parliament's passage of the Prohibitory Act, which established a blockade of American ports and declared American ships to be enemy vessels. John Adams, a strong supporter of independence, believed that Parliament had effectively declared American independence before Congress had been able to. Adams labeled the Prohibitory Act the "Act of Independency", calling it "a compleat Dismemberment of the British Empire".^[20] Support for declaring independence grew even more when it was confirmed that King George had hired German mercenaries to use against his American subjects.^[21]

Despite this growing popular support for independence, Congress lacked the clear authority to declare it. Delegates had been elected to Congress by thirteen different governments—which included extralegal conventions, ad hoc committees, and elected assemblies—and were bound by the instructions given to them. Regardless of their personal opinions, delegates could not vote to declare independence unless their instructions permitted such an action.^[22] Several colonies, in fact, expressly prohibited their delegates from taking any steps towards separation from Great Britain, while other delegations had instructions that were ambiguous on the issue.^[23] As public sentiment for separation from Great Britain grew, advocates of independence sought to have the Congressional instructions revised. For Congress to declare independence, a majority of delegations would need authorization to vote for independence, and at least one colonial government would need to specifically instruct its delegation to propose a declaration of independence in Congress. Between April and July 1776, a "complex political war"^[24] was waged in order to bring this about.^[25]

Revising instructions

In the campaign to revise Congressional instructions, many Americans formally expressed their support for separation from Great Britain in what were effectively state and local declarations of independence. Historian Pauline Maier identified more than ninety such declarations that were issued throughout the Thirteen Colonies from April to July 1776.^[26] These "declarations" took a variety of forms.^[27] Some were formal, written instructions for Congressional delegations, such as the Halifax Resolves of April 12, with which North Carolina became the first colony to explicitly authorize its delegates to vote for independence.^[28] Others were legislative acts that officially ended British rule in individual colonies, such as on May 4, when the Rhode Island legislature became to the first to declare its independence from Great Britain.^[29] Many "declarations" were resolutions adopted at town or county meetings that offered support for independence. A few came in the form of jury instructions, such as the statement issued on April 23, 1776, by Chief Justice William Henry Drayton of South Carolina: "the law of the land authorizes me to declare...that George the Third, King of Great Britain...has no authority over us, and we owe no obedience to him."^[30] Most of these declarations are now obscure, having been overshadowed by the declaration approved by Congress on July 4.^[31]

Some colonies held back from endorsing independence. Resistance was centered in the middle colonies of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.^[32] Advocates of independence saw Pennsylvania as the key: if that colony could be converted to the pro-independence cause, it was believed that the others would follow.^[33] On May 1, however, opponents of independence retained control of the Pennsylvania Assembly in a special election that had focused on the question of independence.^[34] In response, on May 10 Congress passed a resolution, which had been introduced by John Adams, calling on colonies without a "government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs" to adopt new governments.^[35] The resolution passed unanimously, and was even supported by Pennsylvania's John Dickinson, the leader of the anti-independence faction in Congress, who believed that it did not apply to his colony.^[36]

As was the custom, Congress appointed a committee to draft a preamble that would explain the purpose of the resolution. John Adams wrote the preamble, which stated that because King George had rejected reconciliation and was even hiring foreign mercenaries to use against the colonies, "it is necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed".^[37] Everyone understood that Adams's preamble was meant to encourage the overthrow of the governments of Pennsylvania and Maryland, which were still under proprietary governance.^[38] Congress passed the preamble on May 15 after several days of debate, but four of the middle colonies voted against it, and the Maryland delegation walked out in protest.^[39] Adams regarded his May 15 preamble as effectively an American declaration of independence, although he knew that a formal declaration would still have to be made.^[40]

Lee's resolution and the final push

On the same day that Congress passed Adams's radical preamble, the Virginia Convention set the stage for a formal Congressional declaration of independence. On May 15, the Convention passed a resolve instructing Virginia's congressional delegation "to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain".^[41] In accordance with those instructions, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented a three-part resolution to Congress on June 7. The motion, which was seconded by John Adams, called on Congress to declare independence, form foreign alliances, and prepare a plan of colonial confederation. The part of the resolution relating to declaring independence read:

Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.^[42]

The resolution met with resistance in the ensuing debate. Moderate delegates, while conceding that reconciliation with Great Britain was no longer possible, argued that a resolution of independence was premature. Therefore, further discussion of Lee's resolution was postponed for three weeks.^[43] Until then, while support for independence was consolidated, Congress decided that a committee should prepare a document announcing and explaining independence in the event that the resolution of independence was approved.

Draft and adoption

On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a "Committee of Five", consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, to draft a declaration. Because the committee left no minutes, there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded—accounts written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, although frequently cited, are contradictory and not entirely reliable.^[44] What is certain is that the committee, after discussing the general outline that the document should follow, decided that Jefferson would write the first draft.^[45] Considering Congress's busy schedule, Jefferson probably had limited time for writing over the next 17 days, and likely wrote the draft quickly.^[46] He then consulted the others, made some changes, and then produced another copy incorporating these alterations. The committee presented this copy to the Congress on June 28, 1776. The title of the document was "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled."^[47] Congress ordered that the draft "lie on the table".^[48]

John Trumbull's famous painting is often identified as a depiction of the signing of the Declaration, but it actually shows the drafting committee presenting its work to the Congress.^[49]

On Monday, July 1, having tabled the draft of the declaration, Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole and resumed debate on Lee's resolution of independence.^[50] John Dickinson made one last effort to delay the decision, arguing that Congress should not declare independence without first securing a foreign alliance and finalizing the Articles of Confederation.^[51] John Adams gave a speech in reply to Dickinson, restating the case for an immediate declaration.

After a long day of speeches, a vote was taken. As always, each colony cast a single vote and the delegation for each colony—numbering two to seven members—voted amongst themselves to determine the colony's vote. Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted against declaring independence. The New York delegation, lacking permission to vote for independence, abstained. Delaware cast no vote because the delegation was split between Thomas McKean (who voted yes) and George Read (who voted no). The remaining nine delegations voted in favor of independence, which meant that the resolution had been approved by the committee of the whole. The next step was for the resolution to be voted upon by the Congress itself. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, who was opposed to Lee's resolution but desirous of unanimity, moved that the vote be postponed until the following day.^[52]

On July 2, South Carolina reversed its position and voted for independence. In the Pennsylvania delegation, Dickinson and Robert Morris abstained, allowing the delegation to vote three-to-two in favor of independence. The tie in the Delaware delegation was broken by the timely arrival of Caesar Rodney, who voted for independence. The New York delegation abstained once again, since they were still not authorized to vote for independence, although they would be allowed to do so by the New York Provincial Congress a week later.^[53] The resolution of independence had been adopted with twelve affirmative votes and one abstention. With this, the colonies had officially severed political ties with Great Britain.^[54] In a now-famous letter written to his wife on the following day, John Adams predicted that July 2 would become a great American holiday.^[55]

After voting in favor of the resolution of independence, Congress turned its attention to the committee's draft of the declaration. Over several days of debate, Congress made a few changes in wording and deleted nearly a fourth of the text, most notably a passage critical of the slave trade, changes that Jefferson resented. On July 4, 1776, the wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved and sent to the printer for publication.

Text

The first sentence of the Declaration asserts as a matter of Natural Law the ability of a people to assume political independence, and acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable, and therefore explicable, and ought to be explained.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The next section, the famous preamble, includes the ideas and ideals that were principles of the Declaration. It is also an assertion of what is known as the "right of revolution": that is, people have certain rights, and when a government violates these rights, the people have the right to "alter or abolish" that government.^[56]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, 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, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The next section is a list of charges against King George which aim to demonstrate that he has violated the colonists' rights and is therefore unfit to be their ruler:

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Many Americans still felt a kinship with the people of Great Britain, and had appealed in vain to the prominent among them, as well as to Parliament, to convince the King to relax his more objectionable policies toward the colonies.^[57] The next section represents disappointment that these attempts had been unsuccessful.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish [sic] brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

In the final section, the signers assert that there exist conditions under which people must change their government, that the British have produced such conditions, and by necessity the colonies must throw off political ties with the British Crown and become independent states. The conclusion incorporates language from the resolution of independence that had been passed on July 2.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Influences

Thomas Jefferson considered English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) to be one of "the three greatest men that have ever lived".^[58]

Historians have often sought to identify the sources that most influenced the words of the Declaration of Independence. By Jefferson's own admission, the Declaration contained no original ideas, but was instead a statement of sentiments widely shared by supporters of the American Revolution. As he explained in 1825:

Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.^[59]

Jefferson's most immediate sources were two documents written in June 1776: his own draft of the preamble of the Constitution of Virginia, and George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Ideas and phrases from both of these documents appear in the Declaration of Independence.^[60] They were in turn directly influenced by the 1689 English Declaration of Rights, which formally ended the reign of King James II.^[61] During the American Revolution, Jefferson and other Americans looked to the English Declaration of Rights as a model of how to end the reign of an unjust king.^[62]

English political theorist John Locke is usually cited as a primary influence on the Declaration. As historian Carl L. Becker wrote in 1922, "Most Americans had absorbed Locke's works as a kind of political gospel; and the Declaration, in its form, in its phraseology, follows closely certain sentences in Locke's second treatise on government."^[63] The extent of Locke's influence on the American Revolution was questioned by some subsequent scholars, however, who emphasized the influence of republicanism rather than Locke's classical liberalism.^[64] Historian Garry Wills argued that Jefferson was influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment, particularly Francis Hutcheson, rather than Locke,^[65] an interpretation that has been strongly criticized.^[66] The Scottish Declaration of Arbroath (1320) and the Dutch Act of Abjuration (1581) have also been offered as models for Jefferson's Declaration, but these arguments have been disputed.^[67]

Signers

The signed, engrossed copy of the Declaration, now badly faded, is on display at the National Archives in Washington, DC.

Date of signing

One of the most enduring myths about the Declaration of Independence is that it was signed by Congress on July 4, 1776.^[68] The misconception became established so quickly that, before a decade had passed, even Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams believed it.^[69] While it is possible that Congress signed a document on July 4 that has since been lost, historians do not think that this is likely.^[70]

The myth may have originated with the Journals of Congress, the official public record of the Continental Congress. When the proceedings for 1776 were first published in 1777, the entry for July 4, 1776, stated that the Declaration was "engrossed and signed" on that date, after which followed a list of signers.^[71] In 1796, signer Thomas McKean disputed the claim that the Declaration had been signed on July 4, pointing out that some of the signers had not yet been elected to Congress on that day.^[72] Jefferson and Adams remained unconvinced, however, and cited the published Journal as evidence that they had signed on July 4. McKean's version of the story gained support when the Secret Journals of Congress were published in 1821, but uncertainty remained.^[73] In 1884, historian Mellen Chamberlain demonstrated that the entry in the published Journal was erroneous, and that the famous signed version of the Declaration had been created after July 4.^[74] Historian John Hazelton confirmed in 1906 that many of the signers had not been present in Congress on July 4, and that the signers had never actually been together as a group.^[75]

The actual signing of the Declaration took place after the New York delegation had been given permission to support independence, which allowed the Declaration to be proclaimed as the unanimous decision of the thirteen states. On July 19, 1776, Congress ordered a copy of the Declaration to be engrossed (carefully handwritten) on parchment for the delegates to sign. The engrossed copy, which was probably produced by Thomson's clerk Timothy Matlack, was given the new title of "The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America".^[76] Most of the delegates who signed did so on August 2, 1776, although some eventual signers were not present and added their names later.

List of signers

Fifty-six delegates eventually signed the Declaration:

Signer details

Of the approximately fifty delegates who are thought to have been present in Congress during the voting on independence in early July 1776,^[77] eight never signed the Declaration: John Alsop, George Clinton, John Dickinson, Charles Humphreys, Robert R. Livingston, John Rogers, Thomas Willing, and Henry Wisner.^[78] Clinton, Livingston, and Wisner were attending to duties away from Congress when the signing took place. Willing and Humphreys, who voted against the resolution of independence, were replaced in the Pennsylvania delegation before the August 2 signing. Rogers had voted for the resolution of independence but was no longer a delegate on August 2. Alsop, who favored reconciliation with Great Britain, resigned rather than add his name to the document.^[79] Dickinson refused to sign, believing the Declaration premature, but remained in Congress. Although George Read had voted against the resolution of independence, he signed the Declaration.

The most famous signature on the engrossed copy is that of John Hancock, who, as President of Congress, presumably signed first.^[80] Hancock's large, flamboyant signature became iconic, and "John Hancock" emerged in the United States an informal synonym for "signature".^[81] Two future presidents, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, were among the signatories. Edward Rutledge (age 26) was the youngest signer, and Benjamin Franklin (age 70) was the oldest signer.

John Hancock's now-iconic signature on the Declaration is nearly 5 inches (13 cm) long.^[82]

Some delegates, such as Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, were away on business when the Declaration was debated, but were back in Congress for the signing on August 2. Other delegates were present when the Declaration was adopted, but were away on August 2 and added their names later, including Elbridge Gerry, Lewis Morris, Oliver Wolcott, and Thomas McKean. Richard Henry Lee and George Wythe were in Virginia during July and August, but returned to Congress and signed the Declaration probably in September and October, respectively.^[83]

As new delegates joined the Congress, they were also allowed to sign. Seven men signed the Declaration who did not become delegates until after July 4: Matthew Thornton, William Williams, Benjamin Rush, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, and George Ross.^[84] Because of a lack of space, Thornton was unable to place his signature on the top right of the signing area with the other New Hampshire delegates, and had to place his signature at the end of the document, on the lower right.^[85]

The first published version of the Declaration, the Dunlap broadside, was printed before Congress had signed the Declaration. The public did not learn who had signed the engrossed copy until January 18, 1777, when the Congress ordered that an "authenticated copy", including the names of the signers, be sent to each of the thirteen states.^[86] This copy, the Goddard Broadside, was the first to list the signers.^[87]

Various legends about the signing of the Declaration emerged years later, when the document had become an important national symbol. In one famous story, John Hancock supposedly said that Congress, having signed the Declaration, must now "all hang together", and Benjamin Franklin replied: "Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." The quote did not appear in print until more than fifty years after Franklin's death.^[88]

Publication and effect

The Dunlap broadside was the first published version of the Declaration.

After Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration on July 4, a handwritten copy was sent a few blocks away to the printing shop of John Dunlap. Through the night between 150 and 200 copies were made, now known as "Dunlap broadsides". Before long, the Declaration was read to audiences and reprinted in newspapers across the thirteen states. The first official public reading of the document was by John Nixon in the yard of Independence Hall on July 8; public readings also took place on that day in Trenton, New Jersey, and Easton, Pennsylvania.

President of Congress John Hancock sent a copy of the Dunlap broadside to General George Washington, instructing him to have it proclaimed "at the Head of the Army in the way you shall think it most proper".^[89] Washington had the Declaration read to his troops in New York City on July 9, with the British forces not far away. Washington and Congress hoped the Declaration would inspire the soldiers, and encourage others to join the army.^[90] After hearing the Declaration, crowds in many cities tore down and destroyed signs or statues representing royalty. An equestrian statue of King George in New York City was pulled down and the lead used to make musket balls.^[91]

History of the documents

Although the document signed by Congress and enshrined in the National Archives is usually regarded as the Declaration of Independence, historian Julian P. Boyd, editor of Jefferson's papers, argued that the Declaration of Independence, like Magna Carta, is not a single document. The version signed by Congress is, according to Boyd, "only the most notable of several copies legitimately entitled to be designated as official texts".^[92] By Boyd's count there were five "official" versions of the Declaration, in addition to unofficial drafts and copies.

Drafts and Fair Copy

Jefferson preserved a four-page draft that late in life he called the "original Rough draught".^[93] Known to historians as the Rough Draft, early students of the Declaration believed that this was a draft written alone by Jefferson and then presented to the Committee of Five. Scholars now believe that the Rough Draft was not actually an "original Rough draught", but was instead a revised version completed by Jefferson after consultation with the Committee.^[94] How many drafts Jefferson wrote prior to this one, and how much of the text was contributed by other committee members, is unknown. In 1947, Boyd discovered a fragment in Jefferson's handwriting that predates the Rough Draft. Known as the Composition Draft, this fragment is the earliest known version of the Declaration.^[95]

The earliest known draft of the Declaration is the Composition Draft, a fragment in Jefferson's handwriting.

Jefferson showed the Rough Draft to Adams and Franklin, and perhaps other committee members,^[96] who made a few more changes. Franklin, for example, may have been responsible for changing Jefferson's original phrase "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" to "We hold these truths to be self-evident".^[97] Jefferson incorporated these changes into a copy that was submitted to Congress in the name of the Committee. Jefferson kept the Rough Draft and made additional notes on it as Congress revised the text. He also made several copies of the Rough Draft without the changes made by Congress, which he sent to friends, including Richard Henry Lee and George Wythe, after July 4. At some point in the process, Adams also wrote out a copy.^[98]

The copy that was submitted to Congress by the Committee on June 28 is known as the Fair Copy. Presumably, the Fair Copy was marked up by secretary Charles Thomson while Congress debated and revised the text.^[99] This document was the one that Congress approved on July 4, making it the first "official" copy of the Declaration. The Fair Copy was sent to be printed under the title "A Declaration by the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled". The Fair Copy has been lost, and was perhaps destroyed in the printing process.^[100] If a document was signed on July 4, it would have been the Fair Copy, and would likely have been signed only by John Hancock, president of Congress, and secretary Charles Thomson.^[101]

Broadsides

The Goddard Broadside, the first printed version of the Declaration of Independence to include the names of the signatories.

The Declaration was first published as a broadside printed the night of July 4 by John Dunlap of Philadelphia. John Hancock's eventually famous signature was not on this document; his name appeared in type under "Signed by Order and in Behalf of the Congress", with Thomson listed as a witness. It is unknown exactly how many Dunlap broadsides were originally printed, but the number is estimated at about 200, of which 25 are known to survive. One broadside was pasted into Congress's journal, making it what Boyd called the "second official version" of the Declaration.^[102] Boyd considered the engrossed copy to be the third official version, and the Goddard Broadside to be the fourth.

Engrossed copy

The copy of the Declaration that was signed by Congress is known as the engrossed or parchment copy. Throughout the Revolutionary War, the engrossed copy was moved with the Continental Congress,^[103] which relocated several times to avoid the British army. In 1789, after creation of a new government under the United States Constitution, the engrossed Declaration was transferred to the custody of the secretary of state.^[103] The document was evacuated to Virginia when the British attacked Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812.^[103]

National Bureau of Standards preserving the engrossed version of the Declaration of Independence in 1951.

After the War of 1812, the symbolic stature of the Declaration steadily increased even as the engrossed copy was noticeably fading. In 1820, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned printer William J. Stone to create an engraving essentially identical to the engrossed copy.^[103] Boyd called this copy the "fifth official version" of the Declaration. Stone's engraving was made using a wet-ink transfer process, where the surface of the document was moistened, and some of the original ink transferred to the surface of a copper plate, which was then etched so that copies could be run off the plate on a press. When Stone finished his engraving in 1823, Congress ordered 200 copies to be printed on parchment.^[103] Because of poor conservation of the engrossed copy through the 19th century, Stone's engraving, rather than the original, has become the basis of most modern reproductions.^[104]

From 1841 to 1876, the engrossed copy was publicly exhibited at the Patent Office building in Washington, D.C. Exposed to sunlight and variable temperature and humidity, the document faded badly. In 1876, it was sent to Independence Hall in Philadelphia for exhibit during the Centennial Exposition, which was held in honor of the Declaration's 100th anniversary, and then returned to Washington the next year.^[103] In 1892, preparations were made for the engrossed copy to be exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, but the poor condition of the document led to the cancellation of those plans and the removal of the document from public exhibition.^[103] The document was sealed between two plates of glass and placed in storage. For nearly thirty years, it was exhibited only on rare occasions at the discretion of the secretary of state.^[105]

The Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom in the National Archives building.

In 1921, custody of the Declaration, along with the United States Constitution, was transferred from the State Department to the Library of Congress. Funds were appropriated to preserve the documents in a public exhibit that opened in 1924. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the documents were moved for safekeeping to the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox in Kentucky, where they were kept until 1944.^[106]

For many years, officials at the National Archives believed that they, rather than the Library of Congress, should have custody of the Declaration and the Constitution. The transfer finally took place in 1952, and the documents, along with the Bill of Rights, are now on permanent display at the National Archives in the "Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom". Although encased in helium, by the early 1980s the documents were threatened by further deterioration. In 2001, using the latest in preservation technology, conservators treated the documents and re-encased them in encasements made of titanium and aluminum, filled with inert argon gas.^[107] They were put on display again with the opening of the remodeled National Archives Rotunda in 2003.

Publication outside North America

The Declaration of Independence was first published in full outside North America by the Belfast Newsletter on the 23rd of August, 1776.^[108] A copy of the document was being transported to London via ship when bad weather forced the vessel to port at Derry. The document was then carried on horseback to Belfast for the continuation of its voyage to England, whereupon a copy was made for the Belfast newspaper.^[109][110]

Legacy

From the Founding through 1850

Historian Pauline Maier wrote of the legacy of the Declaration of Independence from 1800 on, “The Declaration was at first forgotten almost entirely, then recalled and celebrated by Jeffersonian Republicans, and later elevated into something akin to holy writ, which made it a prize worth capturing on behalf of one cause after another.” Its meaning changed from a justification for revolution in 1776 to a “moral standard by which day-to-day policies and practices of the nation could be judged.”^[111]

In the first fifteen years after its adoption, including the debates over the ratification of the Constitution, the Declaration was rarely mentioned in the period’s political writings. It was not until the 1790s, as the Federalists and Jeffersonian Republics began the bitter debates of the First Party System, that Republicans praised a Declaration created by Jefferson alone while Federalists argued that it was a collective creation based on the instructions from the Continental Congress.^[112]

The abolitionist movement combined their own interpretation of the Declaration of Independence with their religious views. Historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown wrote:

The abolitionist movement was primarily religious in its origins, its leadership, its language, and its methods of reaching the people. While the ideas of a secular Enlightenment played a major role, too, abolitionists tended to interpret the Declaration of Independence as a theological as well as a political document. They stressed the spiritual as much as the civil damage done to the slave and the nation. Antislavery sentiment, of course, found its political expression in the Free Soil, and later the Republican, parties.^[113]

Abolitionist leaders Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison both adopted the “twin rocks” of “the Bible and the Declaration of Independence” as the basis for their philosophies. Garrison wrote, “as long as there remains a single copy of the Declaration of Independence, or of the Bible, in our land, we will not despair.”^[114] Garrison and most other abolitionists like Lewis Tappan saw their role outside the electoral process with “the broader moral education of the citizenry to be the movement’s most urgent political task.”^[115]

Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War era

In the political arena, Abraham Lincoln, beginning in 1854 as he spoke out against slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska Act,^[116] provided a reinterpretation of the Declaration that stressed that the unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” were not limited to the white race.^[117] In his October 1854 Peoria speech, Lincoln said:

Nearly eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a 'sacred right of self-government. ... Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. ...Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. ... If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union: but we shall have saved it, as to make, and keep it, forever worthy of the saving.^[118]

Lincoln accused southerners and Democrats of showing a willingness to "reject, and scout, and spit upon" the Founders and creating their own reinterpretation of the Declaration in order to exclude blacks.^[119]

As the Civil War approached, some Southerners did frequently invoke the right of revolution to justify secession, comparing their grievances to those suffered by the colonists under British rule. Northerners rejected this line of thought. The New York Times wrote that while the Declaration of Independence was based on “Natural Rights against Established Institutions”, the Confederate cause was a counterrevolution “reversing the wheels of progress ... to hurl everything backward into deepest darkness ... despotism and oppression.”^[120]

Southern leaders such as Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the leading publisher James B. D. DeBow likewise denied that they were revolutionaries. Davis called it “an abuse of language” to equate secession and revolution; the South had left the Union in order “to save ourselves from a revolution. The Republicans and abolitionists were seen as the real revolutionaries because of their intent to attack the institution of slavery.^[121]

In his 1863 Gettysburg Address, Lincoln, referring to the Declaration of Independence, noted: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Historian Douglas L. Wilson wrote:

But with the victory at Gettysburg, coming almost exactly on the Fourth of July, Lincoln saw something like the blind hand of fate and determined to look for an opportunity to reinvoke the spirit and emotional response of Jefferson’s own inspiring words.

Having crafted and condensed his message and adapted it to an occasion ideally suited to a receptive hearing, Lincoln had maximized his chances for success. Once it gained wide readership, the Gettysburg Address would gradually become ingrained in the national consciousness. Nether an argument nor an analysis nor a new credo, it was instead a moving tribute incorporated into an alluring affirmation of the nation’s ideals. “This was the perfect medium for changing the way most Americans thought about the nation’s founding act,” Garry Wills has written. “Lincoln does not argue law or history, as Daniel Webster did. He makes history.”^[122]

Subsequent legacy

The Declaration has also been influential outside of the United States.^[123]

In fiction, the adoption of the Declaration of Independence was dramatized in the 1969 Tony Award-winning musical play 1776, and the 1972 movie of the same name, as well as in the 2008 television miniseries John Adams. The engrossed copy of the Declaration is central to the 2004 Hollywood film National Treasure, in which the main character steals the document because he believes it has secret clues to a treasure hidden by some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. The Declaration figures prominently in The Probability Broach, wherein the point of divergence rests in the addition of a single word to the document, causing it to state that governments "derive their just power from the unanimous consent of the governed."

See also

• Declaration of Independence
• History of the United States
• Articles of Confederation
• United States Constitution
• United States Bill of Rights

Notes

References

• Armitage, David. The Declaration Of Independence: A Global History. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-674-02282-9.
• Becker, Carl. The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas. 1922. Available online from The Online Library of Liberty and Google Book Search. Revised edition New York: Vintage Books, 1970. ISBN 0394700600.
• Boyd, Julian P. The Declaration of Independence: The Evolution of the Text. Originally published 1945. Revised edition edited by Gerard W. Gawalt. University Press of New England, 1999. ISBN 0844409804.
• Boyd, Julian P., ed. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, volume 1. Princeton University Press, 1950.
• Boyd, Julian P. "The Declaration of Independence: The Mystery of the Lost Original". Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 100, number 4 (October 1976) , 438–467.
• Burnett, Edward Cody. The Continental Congress. New York: Norton, 1941.
• Carwadine, Richard. Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power. (2003) ISBN 1-4000-4456-1
• Christie, Ian R. and Benjamin W. Labaree. Empire or Independence, 1760–1776: A British-American Dialogue on the Coming of the American Revolution. New York: Norton, 1976.
• Dumbauld, Edward. The Declaration of Independence And What It Means Today. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950.
• Ferling, John E. A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0195159241.
• Friedenwald, Herbert. The Declaration of Independence: An Interpretation and an Analysis. New York: Macmillan, 1904. Accessed via the Internet Archive.
• Gustafson, Milton. "Travels of the Charters of Freedom". Prologue Magazine Winter 2002, Vol. 34, No. 4.
• Hamowy, Ronald. "Jefferson and the Scottish Enlightenment: A Critique of Garry Wills's Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence". William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 36 (October 1979), 503–23.
• Hazelton, John H. The Declaration of Independence: Its History. Originally published 1906. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970. ISBN 0306719878. 1906 edition available on Google Book Search
• Jensen, Merrill. The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763–1776. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.
• Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf, 1997. ISBN 0679454926.
• Malone, Dumas. Jefferson the Virginian. Volume 1 of Jefferson and His Time. Boston: Little Brown, 1948.
• Malone, Dumas. The Story of the Declaration of Independence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. A picture book with text by a leading Jefferson scholar.
• Mayer, Henry. All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery. (1998) ISBN 0-312-18740-8
• McPherson, James. Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution. (1991) ISBN 0-19-505542-X
• Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789. Revised and expanded edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
• Pencak, William. "The Declaration of Independence: Changing Interpretations and a New Hypothesis." Pennsylvania History 57, no. 3 (1990): 225–35.
• Rakove, Jack N. The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress. New York: Knopf, 1979. ISBN 0801828643
• Ritz, Wilfred J. "From the Here of Jefferson's Handwritten Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence to the There of the Printed Dunlap Broadside". Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 116, number 4 (October 1992), 499–512.
• Warren, Charles. "Fourth of July Myths." The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 2, No. 3 (July 1945): 238–272.
• Wills, Garry. Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1978. ISBN 0385089767.
• Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Rewrote America. (1992) ISBN 0671769561
• Wilson, Harold L. Lincoln's Sword:The Presidency and the Power of Words. (2006) ISBN 1-4000-4039-6
• Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War Against Slavery. (1969) LOC No. 68-19228

External links

• Declaration of Independence at the National Archives
• US History - Declaration of Independence
• Duke University - The Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence
• Library of Congress: Declaration of Independence and Related Resources
• Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: The Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution
• University of Virginia: Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection
• PBS/NOVA: The Preservation and History of the Declaration
• Colonial Hall: A Line by Line Historical Analysis of the Grievances
• Online Library of Liberty: Strictures upon the Declaration of the Congress at Philadelphia (London 1776), Thomas Hutchinson's reaction to the Declaration, which he regarded as "false and frivolous"
• "The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence" by Stephen E. Lucas

Audio and video

• Mike Malloy reads The Declaration of Independence
• Short film released in 2002 with Hollywood actors reading the Declaration; produced by Norman Lear with an introduction by Morgan Freeman

Lesson plans

• Object of History: Jefferson Desk
• "An Expression of the American Mind" - Understanding the Declaration of Independence

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