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=             United_States_Declaration_of_Independence              =
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                            Introduction
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The Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of
the thirteen  States of America in the original printing, is the
founding document of the United States. On July 4, 1776, it was
adopted unanimously by the Second Continental Congress, who were
convened at Pennsylvania State House, later renamed Independence Hall,
in the colonial city of Philadelphia. These delegates became known as
the nation's Founding Fathers. The Declaration explains why the
Thirteen Colonies regarded themselves as independent sovereign states
no longer subject to British colonial rule, and has become one of the
most circulated, reprinted, and influential documents in history.

The American Revolutionary War commenced in April 1775 with the
Battles of Lexington and Concord. Amid the growing tensions, the
colonies reconvened the Congress on May 10. Their king, George III,
proclaimed them to be in rebellion on August 23. On June 11, 1776,
Congress appointed the Committee of Five (John Adams, Benjamin
Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman)
to draft and present the Declaration. Adams, a leading proponent of
independence, persuaded the committee to charge Jefferson with writing
the document's original draft, which the Congress then edited.
Jefferson largely wrote the Declaration between June 11 and June 28,
1776. The Declaration was a formal explanation of why the Continental
Congress voted to declare American independence from the Kingdom of
Great Britain. Two days prior to the Declaration's adoption, Congress
passed the Lee Resolution, which resolved that the British no longer
had governing authority over the Thirteen Colonies. The Declaration
justified the independence of the colonies, citing 27 colonial
grievances against the king and asserting certain natural and legal
rights, including a right of revolution.

The Declaration was unanimously ratified on July 4 by the Second
Continental Congress, whose delegates represented each of the Thirteen
Colonies. In ratifying and signing it, the delegates knew they were
committing an act of high treason against The Crown, which was
punishable by torture and death. Congress then issued the Declaration
of Independence in several forms. Two days following its ratification,
on July 6, it was published by 'The Pennsylvania Evening Post'. The
first public readings of the Declaration occurred simultaneously on
July 8, 1776, at noon, at three previously designated locations: in
Trenton, New Jersey; Easton, Pennsylvania; and Philadelphia.

The Declaration was published in several forms. The printed Dunlap
broadside was widely distributed following its signing. It is now
preserved at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The signed
copy of the Declaration is now on display at the National Archives in
Washington, D.C., and is generally considered the official document;
this copy, engrossed by Timothy Matlack, was ordered by Congress on
July 19, and signed primarily on August 2, 1776.

The Declaration has proven an influential and globally impactful
statement on human rights. The Declaration was viewed by Abraham
Lincoln as the moral standard to which the United States should
strive, and he considered it a statement of principles through which
the Constitution should be interpreted. In 1863, Lincoln made the
Declaration the centerpiece of his Gettysburg Address, widely
considered among the most famous speeches in American history. The
Declaration's second sentence, "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", is considered one of the
most significant and famed lines in world history. Pulitzer
Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis has written that the Declaration
contains "the most potent and consequential words in American
history".


                             Background
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By the time the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776,
the Thirteen Colonies and Kingdom of Great Britain had been at war for
over a year. Relations had been deteriorating between the colonies and
the mother country since 1763. In 1767, Parliament enacted a series of
measures designed to increase revenue from the colonies, including the
Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts, which it believed were a
legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the
costs of remaining a part of the British Empire.

In the Thirteen Colonies, however, perspectives varied on the British
Empire. The colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, and
colonists argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them.
This tax dispute was part of a larger divergence between British and
American interpretations of the British Constitution and the extent of
Parliament's authority in the colonies. The orthodox British view,
dating from the Glorious Revolution of 1688, was that Parliament was
the supreme authority throughout the empire, and anything that
Parliament did was constitutional. In the colonies, however, the idea
had developed that the British Constitution recognized certain
fundamental rights that no government could violate, including
Parliament. After the Townshend Acts, some essayists questioned
whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies. As
a result of this ideological shift in the colonies, many colonialists
participated in tax protests against the Royal authority such as the
Pine Tree Riot in 1772 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

Anticipating the arrangement of the British Commonwealth, by 1774
American writers such as Samuel Adams, James Wilson, and Thomas
Jefferson argued 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.


Continental Congress convenes
===============================
In 1774, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, known as the Intolerable
Acts in the colonies. This was intended to punish the colonists for
the Gaspee Affair of 1772 and the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Many
colonists considered the Coercive Acts to be in 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 formal response. Congress organized a
boycott of British goods and petitioned the king for repeal of the
acts. These measures were unsuccessful, however, since King George and
His Majesties' prime minister, Lord North, were determined to enforce
parliamentary supremacy over the Thirteen Colonies. In November 1774,
King George, in a letter to North, wrote, "blows must decide whether
they are to be subject to this country or independent".

Most colonists still hoped for reconciliation with Great Britain, even
after fighting began in the American Revolutionary War at Lexington
and Concord in April 1775. The Second Continental Congress convened at
Pennsylvania State House, later renamed Independence Hall, in
Philadelphia in May 1775. Some delegates supported eventual
independence for the colonies, but none had yet declared it publicly,
which was an act of treason punishable by death under the laws of the
British monarchy at the time.

Many colonists believed that Parliament no longer had sovereignty over
them, but they were still loyal to King George, thinking he would
intercede on their behalf. They were disabused of that notion in late
1775, when the king rejected Congress's second petition, issued a
Proclamation of Rebellion, and announced before Parliament on October
26 that he was considering "friendly offers of foreign assistance" to
suppress the rebellion. A pro-American minority in Parliament warned
that the government was driving the colonists toward independence.


Growing support for independence
==================================
Despite this growing popular support for independence, the Second
Continental Congress initially lacked the clear authority to declare
it. Delegates had been elected to Congress by 13 different
governments, which included extralegal conventions, ad hoc committees,
and elected assemblies, and they 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. Several colonies, in fact, expressly prohibited their
delegates from taking any steps toward separation from Great Britain,
while other delegations had instructions that were ambiguous on the
issue; consequently, 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 it, 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" was waged to
bring this about.

In January 1776, Thomas Paine's pamphlet 'Common Sense', which
described the uphill battle against the British for independence as a
challenging but achievable and necessary objective, was published in
Philadelphia.  'Common Sense' made a persuasive, impassioned case for
independence, which had not been given serious consideration in the
colonies. Paine linked independence with Protestant beliefs, as a
means to present a distinctly American political identity, and he
initiated open debate on a topic few had dared to discuss.

As 'Common Sense' was circulated throughout the Thirteen Colonies,
public support for independence from Great Britain steadily increased.
After reading it, Washington ordered that it be read by his
Continental Army troops, who were demoralized following recent
military defeats. A week later, Washington led the crossing of the
Delaware in one of the Revolutionary War's most complex and daring
military campaigns, resulting in a much-needed military victory in the
Battle of Trenton against a Hessian military garrison at Trenton.
'Common Sense' was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at
taverns and meeting places. In proportion to the population of the
colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and
circulation of any book published in American history. As of 2006, it
remains the all-time best-selling American title and is still in print
today.

In December 1776, Paine followed up with 'The American Crisis,' in
which he wrote the famed phrase:



While some colonists still hoped for reconciliation, public support
for independence strengthened considerably in early 1776. 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". Support for declaring
independence grew even more when it was confirmed that King George had
hired German mercenaries to use against his American subjects.


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 identifies more than ninety such declarations
that were issued throughout the Thirteen Colonies from April to July
1776. These "declarations" took a variety of forms. 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. Others were legislative acts that officially ended
British rule in individual colonies, such as the Rhode Island
legislature renouncing its allegiance to Great Britain on May 4--the
first colony to do so. 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." Most of these declarations are
now obscure, having been overshadowed by the resolution for
independence, approved by Congress on July 2, and the declaration of
independence, approved and printed on July 4 and signed in August. The
modern scholarly consensus is that the best-known and earliest of the
local declarations is most likely inauthentic, the Mecklenburg
Declaration of Independence, allegedly adopted in May 1775 (a full
year before other local declarations).

Some colonies held back from endorsing independence. Resistance was
centered in the middle colonies of New York, New Jersey, Maryland,
Pennsylvania, and Delaware. 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. 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. In response, Congress passed a resolution on
May 10 which had been promoted by John Adams and Richard Henry Lee,
calling on colonies without a "government sufficient to the exigencies
of their affairs" to adopt new governments. 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.


May 15 preamble
=================
As was the custom, Congress appointed a committee to draft a preamble
to explain the purpose of the resolution. John Adams wrote the
preamble, which stated that because King George had rejected
reconciliation and was 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". Adams'
preamble was meant to encourage the overthrow of the governments of
Pennsylvania and Maryland, which were still under proprietary
governance. 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. Adams regarded his May 15
preamble effectively as an American declaration of independence,
although a formal declaration would still have to be made.


Lee Resolution
================
On the same day that Congress passed Adams' preamble, the Virginia
Convention set the stage for a formal Congressional declaration of
independence. On May 15, the Convention instructed 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". In accordance with those instructions, Richard Henry
Lee of Virginia presented a three-part resolution to Congress on June
7. The motion was seconded by John Adams, calling 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."

Lee's resolution met with resistance in the ensuing debate. Opponents
of the resolution conceded that reconciliation was unlikely with Great
Britain, while arguing that declaring independence was premature, and
that securing foreign aid should take priority. Advocates of the
resolution countered that foreign governments would not intervene in
an internal British struggle, and so a formal declaration of
independence was needed before foreign aid was possible. All Congress
needed to do, they insisted, was to "declare a fact which already
exists". Delegates from Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland,
and New York were still not yet authorized to vote for independence,
however, and some of them threatened to leave Congress if the
resolution were adopted. Congress, therefore, voted on June 10 to
postpone further discussion of Lee's resolution for three weeks. Until
then, Congress decided that a committee should prepare a document
announcing and explaining independence in case Lee's resolution was
approved when it was brought up again in July.


Final push
============
Support for a Congressional declaration of independence was
consolidated in the final weeks of June 1776. On June 14, the
Connecticut Assembly instructed its delegates to propose independence
and, the following day, the legislatures of New Hampshire and Delaware
authorized their delegates to declare independence. In Pennsylvania,
political struggles ended with the dissolution of the colonial
assembly, and a new Conference of Committees under Thomas McKean
authorized Pennsylvania's delegates to declare independence on June
18. The Provincial Congress of New Jersey had been governing the
province since January 1776; they resolved on June 15 that Royal
Governor William Franklin was "an enemy to the liberties of this
country" and had him arrested. On June 21, they chose new delegates to
Congress and empowered them to join in a declaration of independence.

As of the end of June, only two of the thirteen colonies had yet to
authorize independence, Maryland and New York. Maryland's delegates
previously walked out when the Continental Congress adopted Adams' May
15 preamble, and had sent to the Annapolis Convention for
instructions. On May 20, the Annapolis Convention rejected Adams'
preamble, instructing its delegates to remain against independence.
But Samuel Chase went to Maryland and, thanks to local resolutions in
favor of independence, was able to get the Annapolis Convention to
change its mind on June 28. Only the New York delegates were unable to
get revised instructions. When Congress had been considering the
resolution of independence on June 8, the New York Provincial Congress
told the delegates to wait. But on June 30, the Provincial Congress
evacuated New York as British forces approached, and would not convene
again until July 10. This meant that New York's delegates would not be
authorized to declare independence until after Congress had made its
decision.


                         Draft and adoption
======================================================================
Political maneuvering was setting the stage for an official
declaration of independence even while a document was being written to
explain the decision. On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed the
Committee of Five to draft a declaration, including John Adams of
Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of
Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of
Connecticut.

The committee took no minutes, so there is some uncertainty about how
the drafting process proceeded; contradictory accounts were written
many years later by Jefferson and Adams, too many years to be regarded
as entirely reliable, although their accounts are frequently cited.
What is certain is that the committee discussed the general outline
which the document should follow and decided that Jefferson would
write the first draft. The committee in general, and Jefferson in
particular, thought that Adams should write the document, but Adams
persuaded them to choose Jefferson and promised to consult with him
personally.

Jefferson largely wrote the Declaration of Independence in isolation
between June 11, 1776, and June 28, 1776, from the second floor of a
three-story home he was renting at 700 Market Street in Philadelphia,
now called the Declaration House and within walking distance of
Independence Hall. Considering Congress's busy schedule, Jefferson
probably had limited time for writing over these 17 days, and he
likely wrote his first draft quickly.

Examination of the text of the early Declaration drafts reflects the
influence that John Locke and Thomas Paine, author of 'Common Sense'
had on Jefferson. He then consulted the other members of the Committee
of Five who offered minor 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."

Congress ordered that the draft "lie on the table" and then
methodically edited Jefferson's primary document for the next two
days, shortening it by a fourth, removing unnecessary wording, and
improving sentence structure. They removed Jefferson's assertion that
King George III had forced slavery onto the colonies, in order to
moderate the document and appease those in South Carolina and Georgia,
both states which had significant involvement in the slave trade.

Jefferson later wrote in his autobiography that Northern states were
also supportive towards the clauses removal, "for though their people
had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable
carriers of them to others." Jefferson wrote that Congress had
"mangled" his draft version, but the Declaration that was finally
produced was "the majestic document that inspired both contemporaries
and posterity", in the words of his biographer John Ferling.

Congress tabled the draft of the declaration on Monday, July 1 and
resolved itself into a committee of the whole, with Benjamin Harrison
of Virginia presiding, and they resumed debate on Lee's resolution of
independence. 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. John Adams gave a speech in reply to Dickinson,
restating the case for an immediate declaration.

A vote was taken after a long day of speeches, each colony casting a
single vote, as always. The delegation for each colony numbered from
two to seven members, and each delegation voted among themselves to
determine the colony's vote. Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted
against declaring independence. The New York delegation abstained,
lacking permission to vote for independence. 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 Congress itself. Edward Rutledge of
South Carolina was opposed to Lee's resolution but desirous of
unanimity, and he moved that the vote be postponed until the following
day.

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 were allowed to do
so a week later by the New York Provincial Congress. The resolution of
independence was adopted with twelve affirmative votes and one
abstention, and the colonies formally severed political ties with
Great Britain. John Adams wrote to his wife on the following day and
predicted that July 2 would become a great American holiday. He
thought that the vote for independence would be commemorated; he did
not foresee that Americans would instead celebrate Independence Day on
the date when the announcement of that act was finalized.

I am apt to believe that [Independence Day] will be celebrated, by
succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to
be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion
to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with
shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one
End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever
more.As quoted in


Congress next turned its attention to the committee's draft of the
declaration. They made significant changes in wording during several
days of debate including the removal of nearly a fourth of the text.
The final wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved on
July 4, 1776, and sent to the printer for publication.

There is a distinct change in wording from this original broadside
printing of the Declaration and the final official engrossed copy. The
word "unanimous" was inserted as a result of a Congressional
resolution passed on July 19, 1776: "Resolved, That the Declaration
passed on the 4th, be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title
and stile of 'The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States
of America,' and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every
member of Congress." Historian George Athan Billias says:
"Independence amounted to a new status of interdependence: the United
States was now a sovereign nation entitled to the privileges and
responsibilities that came with that status. America thus became a
member of the international community, which meant becoming a maker of
treaties and alliances, a military ally in diplomacy, and a partner in
foreign trade on a more equal basis."


            Annotated text of the engrossed declaration
======================================================================
The declaration is not divided into formal sections; but it is often
discussed as consisting of five parts: 'introduction', 'preamble',
'indictment' of King George III, 'denunciation' of the British people,
and 'conclusion'.

| valign=top | **Introduction**
Asserts as a matter of natural law the ability of a people to assume
political independence; 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."
| valign=top | **Preamble**
Outlines a general philosophy of government that justifies revolution
when government harms natural rights.   "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."
| valign=top | **Indictment**
A bill of grievances documenting the king's "repeated injuries and
usurpations" of the Americans' rights and liberties.    "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 of 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 meantime 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 harass 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 benefit 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."
| valign=top | **Failed warnings**
Describes the colonists' attempts to inform and warn the British
people of the king's injustice, and the British people's failure to
act. Even so, it affirms the colonists' ties to the British as
"brethren."     "Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British
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."
| valign=top | **Denunciation**
This section essentially finishes the case for independence. The
conditions that justified revolution have been shown.   "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."
| valign=top | **Conclusion**
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 contains, at its core, the Lee Resolution 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."
| valign=top | **Signatures**
The first and most famous signature on the engrossed copy was that of
John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress. Two future
presidents (Thomas Jefferson and John Adams) and a father and
great-grandfather of two other presidents (Benjamin Harrison V) were
among the signatories. Edward Rutledge (age 26) was the youngest
signer, and Benjamin Franklin (age 70) was the oldest signer. The
fifty-six signers of the Declaration represented the new states as
follows (from north to south):

The version of the signed document that people saw at the time was
also signed by Mary Katherine Goddard. She was the postmaster of
Baltimore and was tasked by the Continental Congress with printing the
signed Declaration. Her normal signature, in her capacity as the owner
of the Maryland Journal, was "M.K. Goddard," but she signed the
Declaration of Independence with her full name.


                    Influences and legal status
======================================================================
Historians have often sought to identify the sources that most
influenced the words and political philosophy 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.

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. Mason's opening was:

Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent,
and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a
state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their
posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means
of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining
happiness and safety.

Mason was, in turn, directly influenced by the 1689 English
Declaration of Rights, which formally ended the reign of King James
II. 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. 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 models are now
accepted by few scholars. Maier found no evidence that the Dutch Act
of Abjuration served as a model for the Declaration, and considers the
argument "unpersuasive". Armitage discounts the influence of the
Scottish and Dutch acts, and writes that neither was called
"declarations of independence" until fairly recently. Stephen E. Lucas
argued in favor of the influence of the Dutch act.

Jefferson wrote that a number of authors exerted a general influence
on the words of the Declaration. English political theorist John Locke
is usually cited as one of the primary influences, a man whom
Jefferson called one of "the three greatest men that have ever lived".

In 1922, historian Carl L. Becker wrote, "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." The extent of Locke's
influence on the American Revolution has been questioned by some
subsequent scholars, however. Historian Ray Forrest Harvey argued in
1937 for the dominant influence of Swiss jurist Jean Jacques
Burlamaqui, declaring that Jefferson and Locke were at "two opposite
poles" in their political philosophy, as evidenced by Jefferson's use
in the Declaration of Independence of the phrase "pursuit of
happiness" instead of "property". Other scholars emphasized the
influence of republicanism rather than Locke's classical liberalism.

Historian Garry Wills argued that Jefferson was influenced by the
Scottish Enlightenment, particularly Francis Hutcheson, rather than
Locke, an interpretation that has been strongly criticized.

Legal historian John Phillip Reid has written that the emphasis on the
political philosophy of the Declaration has been misplaced. The
Declaration is not a philosophical tract about natural rights, argues
Reid, but is instead a legal document--an indictment against King
George for violating the constitutional rights of the colonists. As
such, it follows the process of the 1550 'Magdeburg Confession', which
legitimized resistance against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in a
multi-step legal formula now known as the doctrine of the lesser
magistrate.

Historian David Armitage has argued that the Declaration was strongly
influenced by de Vattel's 'The Law of Nations', the dominant
international law treatise of the period, and a book that Benjamin
Franklin said was "continually in the hands of the members of our
Congress". Armitage writes, "Vattel made independence fundamental to
his definition of statehood"; therefore, the primary purpose of the
Declaration was "to express the international legal sovereignty of the
United States". If the United States were to have any hope of being
recognized by the European powers, the American revolutionaries first
had to make it clear that they were no longer dependent on Great
Britain. The Declaration of Independence does not have the force of
law domestically, but nevertheless it may help to provide historical
and legal clarity about the Constitution and other laws.


                              Signing
======================================================================
The Declaration became official when Congress recorded its vote
adopting the document on July 4; it was transposed on paper and signed
by John Hancock, President of the Congress, on that day. Signatures of
the other delegates were not needed to further authenticate it. The
signatures of fifty-six delegates are affixed to the Declaration,
though the exact date when each person signed became debatable.
Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams all wrote that the Declaration was
signed by Congress on July 4. But in 1796, signer Thomas McKean
disputed that, because some signers were not then present, including
several who were not even elected to Congress until after that date.
Historians have generally accepted McKean's version of events. History
particularly shows most delegates signed on August 2, 1776, and those
who were not then present added their names later.

In an 1811 letter to Adams, Benjamin Rush recounted the signing on
August 2 in stark fashion, describing it as a scene of "pensive and
awful silence". Rush said the delegates were called up, one after
another, and then filed forward somberly to subscribe what each
thought was their ensuing death warrant. He related that the "gloom of
the morning" was briefly interrupted when the rotund Benjamin Harrison
of Virginia said to a diminutive Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, at
the signing table, "I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr.
Gerry, when we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size
and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes and be with the
Angels, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air
an hour or two before you are dead." According to Rush, Harrison's
remark "procured a transient smile, but it was soon succeeded by the
Solemnity with which the whole business was conducted."

The signatories include then future presidents John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson, though the most legendary signature is John Hancock's. His
large, flamboyant signature became iconic, and the term 'John Hancock'
emerged in the United States as a metaphor of "signature". A commonly
circulated but apocryphal account claims that, after Hancock signed,
the delegate from Massachusetts commented, "The British ministry can
read that name without spectacles." Another report indicates that
Hancock proudly declared, "There! I guess King George will be able to
read that!"

A legend emerged years later about the signing of the Declaration,
after the document had become an important national symbol. John
Hancock is supposed to have 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." That quotation first appeared in print in
an 1837 London humor magazine.

The Syng inkstand used at the signing was also used at the signing of
the United States Constitution in 1787.


                      Publication and reaction
======================================================================
After the Second Continental Congress unanimously 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. Throughout the
night, Dunlap printed about 200 broadsides for distribution. The
source copy used for this printing has been lost and may have been a
copy in Thomas Jefferson's hand. The first formal public readings of
the document took place simultaneously on July 8, at noon in three
locations: Philadelphia, where it was read by John Nixon in the yard
of present-day Independence Hall, Trenton, New Jersey, and Easton,
Pennsylvania. The first newspaper to publish the Declaration was 'The
Pennsylvania Evening Post', which published it on July 6. A German
translation of the Declaration was published in Philadelphia by July
9. It was subsequently widely read and published throughout the
Thirteen Colonies.

President of Congress John Hancock sent a 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". Washington had the
Declaration read to his troops in New York City on July 9, with
thousands of British troops on ships in the harbor. Washington and
Congress hoped that the Declaration would inspire the soldiers, and
encourage others to join the army. After hearing the Declaration,
crowds in many cities tore down and destroyed signs or statues
representing royal authority. An equestrian statue of King George in
New York City was pulled down and the lead used to make musket balls.

One of the first readings of the Declaration by the British is
believed to have taken place at the Rose and Crown Tavern on Staten
Island, New York in the presence of General Howe. British officials in
North America sent copies of the Declaration to Great Britain. It was
published in British newspapers beginning in mid-August, it had
reached Florence and Warsaw by mid-September, and a German translation
appeared in Switzerland by October. The first copy of the Declaration
sent to France got lost, and the second copy arrived only in November
1776. News of the Declaration managed to reach Russia on August 13 via
a dispatch from the Russian 'chargé d'affaires' in London, Nikita
Panin. It reached Portuguese America by Brazilian medical student
"Vendek" José Joaquim Maia e Barbalho, who had met with Thomas
Jefferson in Nîmes.

The Spanish-American authorities banned the circulation of the
Declaration, but it was widely transmitted and translated: by
Venezuelan Manuel García de Sena, by Colombian Miguel de Pombo, by
Ecuadorian Vicente Rocafuerte, and by New Englanders Richard Cleveland
and William Shaler, who distributed the Declaration and the United
States Constitution among Creoles in Chile and Indians in Mexico in
1821. The North Ministry did not give an official answer to the
Declaration, but instead secretly commissioned pamphleteer John Lind
to publish a response entitled 'Answer to the Declaration of the
American Congress'. British Tories denounced the signers of the
Declaration for not applying the same principles of "life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness" to African Americans. Thomas Hutchinson,
the former royal governor of Massachusetts, also published a rebuttal.
These pamphlets challenged various aspects of the Declaration.
Hutchinson argued that the American Revolution was the work of a few
conspirators who wanted independence from the outset, and who had
finally achieved it by inducing otherwise loyal colonists to rebel.
Lind's pamphlet had an anonymous attack on the concept of natural
rights written by Jeremy Bentham, an argument that he repeated during
the French Revolution. Both pamphlets questioned how the American
slaveholders in Congress could proclaim that "all men are created
equal" without freeing their own slaves.

William Whipple, a signer of the Declaration of Independence who had
fought in the war, freed his slave Prince Whipple because of his
revolutionary ideals. In the postwar decades, other slaveholders also
freed their slaves; from 1790 to 1810, the percentage of free blacks
in the Upper South increased to 8.3 percent from less than one percent
of the black population. Northern states began abolishing slavery
shortly after the war for Independence began, and all had abolished
slavery by 1804.

Later in late November 1776, a group of 547 Loyalists, largely from
New York, signed a Declaration of Dependence in New York City at
Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan pledging their loyalty to the Crown.


                      History of the documents
======================================================================
The official copy of the Declaration of Independence was the one
printed on July 4, 1776, under Jefferson's supervision. It was sent to
the states and to the Army and was widely reprinted in newspapers. The
slightly different "engrossed copy" (shown at the top of this article)
was made later for members to sign. The engrossed version is the one
widely distributed in the 21st century. Note that the opening lines
differ between the two versions.

The copy of the Declaration that was signed by Congress is known as
the engrossed or parchment copy. It was probably engrossed (that is,
carefully handwritten) by clerk Timothy Matlack. A facsimile made in
1823 has become the basis of most modern reproductions rather than the
original because of poor conservation of the engrossed copy through
the 19th century. In 1921, custody of the engrossed copy of the
Declaration was transferred from the State Department to the Library
of Congress, along with the United States Constitution.

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. In 1952, the
engrossed Declaration was transferred to the National Archives and is
now on permanent display at the National Archives in the "Rotunda for
the Charters of Freedom".

The document signed by Congress and enshrined in the National Archives
is usually regarded as 'the' Declaration of Independence, but
historian Julian P. Boyd argued that the Declaration, like Magna
Carta, is not a single document. Boyd considered the printed
broadsides ordered by Congress to be official texts, as well. The
Declaration was first published as a broadside that was printed the
night of July 4 by John Dunlap of Philadelphia. Dunlap printed about
200 broadsides, of which 26 are known to survive. The 26th copy was
discovered in The National Archives in England in 2009.

In 1777, Congress commissioned Mary Katherine Goddard to print a new
broadside that listed the signers of the Declaration, unlike the
Dunlap broadside. Nine copies of the Goddard broadside are known to
still exist. A variety of broadsides printed by the states are also
extant, including seven copies of the Solomon Southwick broadside, one
of which was acquired by Washington University in St. Louis in 2015.

Several early handwritten copies and drafts of the Declaration have
also been preserved. Jefferson kept a four-page draft that late in
life he called the "original Rough draught". Historians now understand
that Jefferson's Rough draft was one in a series of drafts used by the
Committee of Five before being submitted to Congress for deliberation.
According to Boyd, the first, "original" handwritten draft of the
Declaration of Independence that predated Jefferson's Rough draft, was
lost or destroyed during the drafting process. It is not known how
many drafts Jefferson wrote prior to this one, and how much of the
text was contributed by other committee members.

In 1947, Boyd discovered a fragment of an earlier draft in Jefferson's
handwriting that predates Jefferson's Rough draft. In 2018, the Thomas
Paine National Historical Association published findings on an
additional early handwritten draft of the Declaration, referred to as
the "Sherman Copy", that John Adams copied from the lost original
draft for Committee of Five members Roger Sherman and Benjamin
Franklin's initial review. An inscription on the document noting "A
beginning perhaps...", the early state of the text, and the manner in
which this document was hastily taken, appears to chronologically
place this draft earlier than both the fair Adams copy held in the
Massachusetts Historical Society collection and the Jefferson "rough
draft". After the text was finalized by Congress as a whole, Jefferson
and Adams sent copies of the rough draft to friends, with variations
noted from the original drafts.

During the writing process, Jefferson showed the rough draft to Adams
and Franklin, and perhaps to other members of the drafting committee,
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". Jefferson incorporated these changes into a copy that
was submitted to Congress in the name of the committee. The copy that
was submitted to Congress on June 28 has been lost and was perhaps
destroyed in the printing process, or destroyed during the debates in
accordance with Congress's secrecy rule.

On April 21, 2017, it was announced that a second engrossed copy had
been discovered in the archives at West Sussex County Council in
Chichester, England. Named by its finders the "Sussex Declaration", it
differs from the National Archives copy (which the finders refer to as
the "Matlack Declaration") in that the signatures on it are not
grouped by States. How it came to be in England is not yet known, but
the finders believe that the randomness of the signatures points to an
origin with signatory James Wilson, who had argued strongly that the
Declaration was made not by the States but by the whole people.

Years of exposure to damaging lighting resulted in the original
Declaration of Independence document having much of its ink fade by
1876.

At the request of President Donald Trump, a copy of the Declaration of
Independence was hung in the Oval Office in March 2025.


                               Legacy
======================================================================
The Declaration was given little attention in the years immediately
following the American Revolution, having served its original purpose
in announcing the independence of the United States. Early
celebrations of Independence Day largely ignored the Declaration, as
did early histories of the Revolution. The 'act' of declaring
independence was considered important, whereas the 'text' announcing
that act attracted little attention. The Declaration was rarely
mentioned during the debates about the United States Constitution, and
its language was not incorporated into that document. George Mason's
draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights was more influential, and
its language was echoed in state constitutions and state bills of
rights more often than Jefferson's words. "In none of these
documents", wrote Pauline Maier, "is there any evidence whatsoever
that the Declaration of Independence lived in men's minds as a classic
statement of American political principles."


Global influence
==================
Many leaders of the French Revolution admired the Declaration of
Independence but were also interested in the new American state
constitutions. The inspiration and content of the French Declaration
of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) emerged largely from
the ideals of the American Revolution. Lafayette prepared its key
drafts, working closely in Paris with his friend Thomas Jefferson. It
also borrowed language from George Mason's Virginia Declaration of
Rights. The declaration also influenced the Russian Empire, and it had
a particular impact on the Decembrist revolt and other Russian
thinkers.

According to historian David Armitage, the Declaration of Independence
did prove to be internationally influential, but not as a statement of
human rights. Armitage argues that the Declaration was the first in a
new genre of declarations of independence which announced the creation
of new states. Other French leaders were directly influenced by the
text of the Declaration of Independence itself. The 'Manifesto of the
Province of Flanders' (1790) was the first foreign derivation of the
Declaration; others include the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence
(1811), the Liberian Declaration of Independence (1847), the
declarations of secession by the Confederate States of America
(1860-61), and the Vietnamese Proclamation of Independence (1945).
These declarations echoed the United States Declaration of
Independence in announcing the independence of a new state, without
necessarily endorsing the political philosophy of the original.

Other countries have used the Declaration as inspiration or have
directly copied sections from it. These include the Haitian
declaration of January 1, 1804, during the Haitian Revolution, the
United Provinces of New Granada in 1811, the Argentine Declaration of
Independence in 1816, the Chilean Declaration of Independence in 1818,
Costa Rica in 1821, El Salvador in 1821, Guatemala in 1821, Honduras
in 1821, Mexico in 1821, Nicaragua in 1821, Peru in 1821, Bolivian War
of Independence in 1825, Uruguay in 1825, Ecuador in 1830, Colombia in
1831, Paraguay in 1842, Dominican Republic in 1844, Texas Declaration
of Independence in March 1836, California Republic in November 1836,
Hungarian Declaration of Independence in 1849, Declaration of the
Independence of New Zealand in 1835, and the Czechoslovak declaration
of independence from 1918 drafted in Washington, D.C., with Gutzon
Borglum among the drafters. The Rhodesian declaration of independence
is based on the American one, as well, ratified in November 1965,
although it notably omits the phrases "all men are created equal" and
"the consent of the governed". In a similar vein, the South Carolinian
declaration of secession from December 1860 also mentions the U.S.
Declaration of Independence, though it too omits references to "all
men are created equal" and "consent of the governed".


Revival of interest
=====================
Interest in the Declaration was revived in the 1790s with the
emergence of the United States's first political parties. Throughout
the 1780s, few Americans knew or cared who wrote the Declaration. But
in the next decade, Jeffersonian Republicans sought political
advantage over their rival Federalists by promoting both the
importance of the Declaration and Jefferson as its author. Federalists
responded by casting doubt on Jefferson's authorship or originality,
and by emphasizing that independence was declared by the whole
Congress, with Jefferson as just one member of the drafting committee.
Federalists insisted that Congress's act of declaring independence, in
which Federalist John Adams had played a major role, was more
important than the document announcing it. But this view faded away,
like the Federalist Party itself, and, before long, the act of
declaring independence became synonymous with the document.

A less partisan appreciation for the Declaration emerged in the years
following the War of 1812, thanks to a growing American nationalism
and a renewed interest in the history of the Revolution. In 1817,
Congress commissioned John Trumbull's famous painting of the signers,
which was exhibited to large crowds before being installed in the
Capitol. The earliest commemorative printings of the Declaration also
appeared at this time, offering many Americans their first view of the
signed document. Collective biographies of the signers were first
published in the 1820s, giving birth to what Garry Wills called the
"cult of the signers". In the years that followed, many stories about
the writing and signing of the document were published for the first
time.

When interest in the Declaration was revived, the sections that were
most important in 1776 were no longer relevant: the announcement of
the independence of the United States and the grievances against King
George. But the second paragraph was applicable long after the war had
ended, with its talk of self-evident truths and unalienable rights.
The identity of natural law since the 18th century has seen increasing
ascendancy towards political and moral norms versus the law of nature,
God, or human nature as seen in the past. The Constitution and the
Bill of Rights lacked sweeping statements about rights and equality,
and advocates of groups with grievances turned to the Declaration for
support. Starting in the 1820s, variations of the Declaration were
issued to proclaim the rights of workers, farmers, women, and others.
In 1848, for example, the Seneca Falls Convention of women's rights
advocates declared that "all men and women are created equal".


John Trumbull's ''Declaration of Independence'' (1817–1826)
=============================================================
John Trumbull's painting 'Declaration of Independence' has played a
significant role in popular conceptions of the Declaration of
Independence. The painting is 12 by in size and was commissioned by
the United States Congress in 1817; it has hung in the United States
Capitol Rotunda since 1826. It is sometimes described as the signing
of the Declaration of Independence, but it actually shows the
Committee of Five presenting their draft of the Declaration to the
Second Continental Congress on June 28, 1776, and not the signing of
the document, which took place later.

Trumbull painted the figures from life whenever possible, but some had
died and images could not be located; hence, the painting does not
include all the signers of the Declaration. One figure had
participated in the drafting but did not sign the final document;
another refused to sign. In fact, the membership of the Second
Continental Congress changed as time passed, and the figures in the
painting were never in the same room at the same time. It is, however,
an accurate depiction of the room in Independence Hall, the
centerpiece of the Independence National Historical Park in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Trumbull's painting has been depicted multiple times on U.S. currency
and postage stamps. Its first use was on the reverse side of the $100
National Bank Note issued in 1863. A few years later, the steel
engraving used in printing the bank notes was used to produce a
24-cent stamp, issued as part of the 1869 Pictorial Issue. An
engraving of the signing scene has been featured on the reverse side
of the United States two-dollar bill since 1976.


Slavery and the Declaration
=============================
The apparent contradiction between the claim that "all men are created
equal" and the existence of slavery in the United States attracted
comment when the Declaration was first published. Many of the founders
understood the incompatibility of the statement of natural equality
with the institution of slavery, but continued to enjoy the "Rights of
Man". Jefferson had included a paragraph in his initial rough Draft of
the Declaration of Independence vigorously condemning the evil of the
slave trade, and condemning King George III for forcing it onto the
colonies, but this was deleted from the final version.



Jefferson himself was a prominent Virginia slaveowner, owning six
hundred enslaved Africans on his Monticello plantation. Referring to
this contradiction, English abolitionist Thomas Day wrote in a 1776
letter, "If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an
American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one
hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted
slaves." The African-American writer Lemuel Haynes expressed similar
viewpoints in his essay "Liberty Further Extended", where he wrote
that "Liberty is Equally as pre[c]ious to a Black man, as it is to a
white one".

In the 19th century, the Declaration took on a special significance
for the abolitionist movement. Historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown wrote
that "abolitionists tended to interpret the Declaration of
Independence as a theological as well as a political document".
Abolitionist leaders Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison adopted
the "twin rocks" of "the Bible and the Declaration of Independence" as
the basis for their philosophies. He 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." For radical abolitionists such as
Garrison, the most important part of the Declaration was its assertion
of the right of revolution. Garrison called for the destruction of the
government under the Constitution, and the creation of a new state
dedicated to the principles of the Declaration.

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech asking the
question, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?".

The controversial question of whether to allow additional slave states
into the United States coincided with the growing stature of the
Declaration. The first major public debate about slavery and the
Declaration took place during the Missouri controversy of 1819 to
1821. Anti-slavery Congressmen argued that the language of the
Declaration indicated that the Founding Fathers of the United States
had been opposed to slavery in principle, and so new slave states
should not be added to the country. Pro-slavery Congressmen led by
Senator Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina argued that the Declaration
was not a part of the Constitution and therefore had no relevance to
the question.

With the abolitionist movement gaining momentum, defenders of slavery
such as John Randolph and John C. Calhoun found it necessary to argue
that the Declaration's assertion that "all men are created equal" was
false, or at least that it did not apply to black people. During the
debate over the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1853, for example, Senator John
Pettit of Indiana argued that the statement "all men are created
equal" was not a "self-evident truth" but a "self-evident lie".
Opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, including Salmon P. Chase and
Benjamin Wade, defended the Declaration and what they saw as its
antislavery principles.


John Brown's Declaration of Liberty
=====================================
In preparing for his raid on Harper's Ferry, said by Frederick
Douglass to be the beginning of the end of slavery in the United
States, abolitionist John Brown had many copies printed of a
Provisional Constitution. When the seceding states created the
Confederate States of America 16 months later, they operated for over
a year under a Provisional Constitution. It outlines the three
branches of government in the quasi-country he hoped to set up in the
Appalachian Mountains. It was widely reproduced in the press, and in
full in the Select Senate Committee report on John Brown's
insurrection (the Mason Report).

Brown did not have it printed, and his Declaration of Liberty, dated
July 4, 1859, was found among his papers at the Kennedy Farm. It was
written out on sheets of paper attached to fabric, to allow it to be
rolled, and it was rolled when found. The hand is that of Owen Brown,
who often served as his father's amanuensis.

Imitating the vocabulary, punctuation, and capitalization of the
73-year-old U.S. Declaration, the 2000-word document begins:

{{Blockquote|July 4th 1859

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for an
Oppressed People to Rise, and assert their Natural Rights, as Human
Beings, as Native & mutual Citizens of a free Republic, and break
that odious Yoke of oppression, which is so unjustly laid upon them by
their fellow Countrymen, and to assume among the powers of Earth the
same equal privileges to which the Laws of Nature, & natures God
entitle them; A moderate respect for the opinions of Mankind, requires
that they should declare the causes which incite them to this just
& worthy action.

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; & the persuit of
happiness. That Nature hath freely given to all Men, a full Supply of
Air. Water, & Land; for their sustinance, & mutual happiness,
That No Man has any right to deprive his fellow Man, of these Inherent
rights, except in punishment of Crime. That to secure these rights
governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed. That when any form of Government, becomes
destructive to these ends, It is the right of the People, to alter,
Amend, or Remoddel it, Laying its foundation on Such Principles, &
organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely
to effect the safety, & happiness of the Human Race.
|author=John Brown
|multiline=yes
}}

The document was apparently intended to be read aloud, but so far as
is known Brown never did so, even though he read the Provisional
Constitution aloud the day the raid on Harpers Ferry began. Very much
aware of the history of the American Revolution, he would have read
the Declaration aloud after the revolt had started. The document was
not published until 1894, and by someone who did not realize its
importance and buried it in an appendix of documents. It is missing
from most but not all studies of John Brown.


Lincoln and the Declaration
=============================
The Declaration's relationship to slavery was taken up in 1854 by
Abraham Lincoln, a little-known former Congressman who idolized the
Founding Fathers. Lincoln thought that the Declaration of Independence
expressed the highest principles of the American Revolution, and that
the Founding Fathers had tolerated slavery with the expectation that
it would ultimately wither away. For the United States to legitimize
the expansion of slavery in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, thought Lincoln,
was to repudiate the principles of the Revolution. In his October 1854
Peoria speech, Lincoln said:



The meaning of the Declaration was a recurring topic in the famed
debates between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858. Douglas argued
that the phrase "all men are created equal", which appears in the
Declaration. referred to white men only. The purpose of the
Declaration, he said, had simply been to justify the independence of
the United States, and not to proclaim the equality of any "inferior
or degraded race". Lincoln, however, thought that the language of the
Declaration was deliberately universal, setting a high moral standard
to which the American republic should aspire. "I had thought the
Declaration contemplated the progressive improvement in the condition
of all men everywhere", he said. During the seventh and last joint
debate with Stephen Douglas at Alton, Illinois, on October 15, 1858,
Lincoln said about the declaration:



According to Pauline Maier, Douglas's interpretation was more
historically accurate, but Lincoln's view ultimately prevailed. "In
Lincoln's hands," wrote Maier, "the Declaration of Independence became
first and foremost a living document" with "a set of goals to be
realized over time".



Like Daniel Webster, James Wilson, and Joseph Story before him,
Lincoln argued that the Declaration of Independence was a founding
document of the United States, and that this had important
implications for interpreting the Constitution, which had been
ratified more than a decade after the Declaration. The Constitution
did not use the word "equality", yet Lincoln believed that the concept
that "all men are created equal" remained a part of the nation's
founding principles. He famously expressed this belief, referencing
the year 1776, in the opening sentence of his 1863 Gettysburg Address:
"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."

Lincoln's view of the Declaration became influential, seeing it as a
moral guide to interpreting the Constitution. "For most people now,"
wrote Garry Wills in 1992, "the Declaration means what Lincoln told us
it means, as a way of correcting the Constitution itself without
overthrowing it." Admirers of Lincoln such as Harry V. Jaffa praised
this development. Critics of Lincoln, notably Willmoore Kendall and
Mel Bradford, argued that Lincoln dangerously expanded the scope of
the national government and violated states' rights by reading the
Declaration into the Constitution.


Women's suffrage and the Declaration
======================================
In July 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention was held in Seneca Falls,
New York, the first women's rights convention. It was organized by
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane
Hunt. They patterned their "Declaration of Sentiments" on the
Declaration of Independence, in which they demanded social and
political equality for women. Their motto was that "All men 'and
women' are created equal", and they demanded the right to vote.
Excerpt from "Declaration of Sentiments":


Civil Rights Movement and the Declaration
===========================================
In 1963, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in
Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have
a Dream" speech. This speech was meant to inspire the nation, to take
up the causes of the Civil Rights Movement. King uses quotations from
the Declaration of Independence to encourage equal treatment of all
persons regardless of race.

Excerpt from King's speech:



In 1966, Black Panther Party founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale
quoted the Declaration's preamble in its entirety in the party's
Ten-Point Program--for the tenth point, "We want land, bread, housing,
education, clothing, justice, peace and people's community control of
modern technology". The Black Panthers were dedicated to community
organizing for self-defense and mutual benefit among working-class
Black people, and the Ten-Point Program was intended to serve as a
concise statement of what the Panthers organization hoped to achieve
for Black people, including full employment, decent housing, freedom
from compulsory military service, and an end to police brutality.


LGBTQ+ rights movement and the Declaration
============================================
In 1978, at the Gay Pride Celebration in San Francisco, activist and
later politician Harvey Milk delivered a speech. Milk alluded to the
Declaration of Independence, emphasizing that the inalienable rights
established by the Declaration apply to all persons and cannot be
hindered because of one's sexual orientation.

Excerpt from Milk's speech:


20th century and later
========================
The Declaration was one of the first texts to be made into an ebook
(1971).

The Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence was
dedicated in 1984 in Constitution Gardens on the National Mall in
Washington, D.C., where the signatures of all the original signers are
carved in stone with their names, places of residence, and
occupations.

The new One World Trade Center building in New York City (2014) is
1776 feet high to symbolize the year that the Declaration of
Independence was signed.


Popular culture
=================
The adoption of the Declaration of Independence was dramatized in the
1938 Academy Award-winning short film 'Declaration of Independence',
the 1969 Tony Award-winning musical '1776', the 1972 film version, and
the 2008 television miniseries 'John Adams'. In 1970, The 5th
Dimension recorded the opening of the Declaration on their album
'Portrait' in the song "Declaration". It was first performed on 'The
Ed Sullivan Show' on December 7, 1969, and it was taken as a song of
protest by some opposed to the Vietnam War.

The original handwritten and signed Declaration of Independence is a
plot device in the 2004 American film 'National Treasure'.

'Fallout 3' involves a quest in which the playable character acquires
the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives. The player
is tasked with bringing the document back to a history lover who wants
to reclaim pieces of America following a nuclear war.

After the 2009 death of radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, Focus Today
aired a clip of Harvey speaking about the lives of all the signers of
the Declaration of Independence.


                              See also
======================================================================
* Influence of the American Revolution on the French Revolution
* Journals of the Continental Congress
* Signers Monument


Bibliography
==============
*
*
* Boyd, Julian P., ed. 'The Papers of Thomas Jefferson', vol. 1.
Princeton University Press, 1950.
* Boyd, Julian P. (October 1976).
[http://journals.psu.edu/pmhb/article/view/43289/43010 "The
Declaration of Independence: The Mystery of the Lost Original"]; .
'Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography' 100, number 4,
438-67.
*
* 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.
* Dupont, Christian Y. and Peter S. Onuf, eds. 'Declaring
Independence: The Origins and Influence of America's Founding
Document'. Revised edition. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of
Virginia Library, 2010. .
*
*
* Gustafson, Milton.
[https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/winter/travels-charters.html
"Travels of the Charters of Freedom"] . 'Prologue Magazine' 34, no 4
(Winter 2002).
* 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. . 1906
edition available on
[https://archive.org/details/declarationinde00unkngoog Google Book
Search]
* 'Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789', Vol. 5 (Library
of Congress, 1904-1937)
* Lucas, Stephen E., "Justifying America: The Declaration of
Independence as a Rhetorical Document", in Thomas W. Benson, ed.,
'American Rhetoric: Context and Criticism', Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1989
*
*
* Malone, Dumas. 'Jefferson the Virginian'. Volume 1 of 'Jefferson and
His Time'. Boston: Little Brown, 1948.
*
* Mayer, Henry. 'All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition
of Slavery'. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. .
* McDonald, Robert M. S. "Thomas Jefferson's Changing Reputation as
Author of the Declaration of Independence: The First Fifty Years".
'Journal of the Early Republic' 19, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 169-95.
* Middlekauff, Robert. 'The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution,
1763-1789'. Revised and expanded edition. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005.
*
* Norton, Mary Beth, et al. (2010). 'A People and a Nation', Eighth
edition, Boston: Wadsworth. .
*
* Ritz, Wilfred J. "The Authentication of the Engrossed Declaration of
Independence on July 4, 1776". 'Law and History Review' 4, no. 1
(Spring 1986): 179-204.
* Ritz, Wilfred J.
[http://dpubs.libraries.psu.edu/DPubS?service=UI&version=1.0&verb=Display&page=toc&handle=psu.pmhb/1172588457
"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,
no. 4 (October 1992): 499-512.
* ['Talk of the Nation'].
[https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety
"Read Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' Speech in Its
Entirety"]. 'Talk of the Nation' (January 16, 2023 (updated)).
[January 18, 2010].. NPR.
*
* United States Department of State (1911).
"[https://archive.org/details/declarationinde01statgoog The
Declaration of Independence, 1776].
* Warren, Charles. "Fourth of July Myths". 'The William and Mary
Quarterly', Third Series, vol. 2, no. 3 (July 1945): 238-72. .
* [Women's Rights National Historical Park New York].
[https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/declaration-of-sentiments.htm
"Declaration of Sentiments Full Text - Text of Stanton's
Declaration"]. National Park Service.
*
* Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. 'Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War Against
Slavery'. Cleveland: Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1969. .


                           External links
======================================================================
*
[https://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plans/declare-causes-declaration-independence
"Declare the Causes: The Declaration of Independence"] lesson plan for
grades 9-12 from National Endowment for the Humanities
* [https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration Declaration of
Independence at the National Archives]
* [https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/DeclarInd.html
Declaration of Independence at the Library of Congress]
* [//uscon.mobi/ind/ Mobile-friendly Declaration of Independence]


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