The Declaration of Independence, headed The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America on the document directed to be engrossed by Congress on July 19, 1776, 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 the Pennsylvania State House, later renamed Independence Hall, in 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, delegates of the several colonies reconvened the Continental Congress on May 10 at Philadelphia. The British monarch, King George III, proclaimed them to be in rebellion on August 23, 1775.
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 28, 1776. The Declaration presented the political, moral, and legal justifications for 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 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. 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: Trenton, New Jersey; Easton, Pennsylvania; and Philadelphia.
The Declaration was published in several forms. The printed Dunlap broadside was widely distributed following the Declaration's signing, and two original copies are now preserved in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The signed copy of the Declaration is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and is generally considered the official document; this copy, engrossed (hand written) 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. It 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 these words are "the most potent and consequential words in American history".
The Declaration of Independence, headed The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America on the document directed to be engrossed by Congress on July 19, 1776, 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 the Pennsylvania State House, later renamed Independence Hall, in 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, delegates of the several colonies reconvened the Continental Congress on May 10 at Philadelphia. The British monarch, King George III, proclaimed them to be in rebellion on August 23, 1775.
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 28, 1776. The Declaration presented the political, moral, and legal justifications for 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 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. 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: Trenton, New Jersey; Easton, Pennsylvania; and Philadelphia.
The Declaration was published in several forms. The printed Dunlap broadside was widely distributed following the Declaration's signing, and two original copies are now preserved in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The signed copy of the Declaration is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and is generally considered the official document; this copy, engrossed (hand written) 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. It 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 these words are "the most potent and consequential words in American history".
Background
Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America.
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 Majesty's 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:
These are the times that try men's souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
— Thomas Paine, The American Crisis
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
This Day the Congress has passed the most important Resolution, that ever was taken in America.
— John Adams, May 15, 1776
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.