Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence, 1776 - “Rough Draft,” pg. 1

"Rough Draft" by Thomas Jefferson

OTHER IMAGES

Declaration of Independence as the Liberty Bell, 1920 printing
Declaration of Independence, 1823 printing
Declaration of Independence, 1776 - engrossed copy
The Declaration of Independence, 1818
Declaration House
Independence Hall

QUICK FACTS
  • The Second Continental Congress appoints a committee to draft a declaration of independence. (11-Jun-1776)
  • The Committee of Five — comprising John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman — agree that Jefferson should author the draft, presumably following a discussion of general points that ought be included.
  • According to Adams, he asks Jefferson to write the draft because: Reason first, you are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second, I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third, you can write ten times better than I can. (Letter to Timothy Pickering 6-Aug-1822)
  • Though it seems like Jefferson has over two weeks to write his draft — given the few number of delegates from Virginia currently in Philadelphia, and considering that Congress meets six days a week, and that Jefferson is active on at least one other committee — he probably has available to him only nights and Sundays for working on it.
  • Adams and Franklin suggest a few changes to Jefferson’s rough draft and The Committee of Five present a corrected fair copy (now lost) to Congress 17 days later. (28-Jun-1776)
  • Congress votes for, and approves, a resolution of independence (2-Jul-1776). Adams writes: The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. (Letter to Abigail Adams 3-Jul-1776)
  • Following the vote to separate from Britain, Congress debates the fair copy of the Declaration, which will announce it. (2-Jul to 4-Jul-1776)
  • The Declaration of Independence, as corrected by Congress, is approved unanimously. (4-Jul-1776)
  • By order of General Washington, the Declaration is read to his assembled troops in New York (9-Jul-1776).
  • The well-known parchment version of the Declaration is ready for signing by members of Congress in August.
  • Referred to as the engrossed copy and probably written out by Timothy Matlock (an assistant to the secretary of the Continental Congress), the Declaration is signed by John Hancock and others on 2-Aug-1776. However, since delegates are not always present, many sign the document over successive weeks.
  • With independence declared, Congress is now formally able to request aid from France, one country to another.
  • Signers names are kept secret for fear of enemy reprisals. Not until 18-Jan-1777 (after the successful battles of Trenton and Princeton did the Continental Congress approve another printing, with signatures, to be sent to each of the states.
CONTEXT

As reference — from memory, or forgotten influence — Thomas Jefferson incorporated or echoed portions of the following documents into his rough draft:

PLACES TO VISIT
LINKS
  • Fair Copy of The Declaration of Independence
BOOKS

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to 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.

     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. 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.

     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.

— John Hancock

  • New Hampshire —
    • Josiah Bartlett
    • William Whipple
    • Matthew Thornton
  • Massachusetts —
    • John Hancock
    • Samuel Adams
    • John Adams
    • Robert Treat Paine
    • Elbridge Gerry
  • Rhode Island —
    • Stephen Hopkins
    • William Ellery
  • Connecticut —
    • Roger Sherman
    • Samuel Huntington
    • William Williams
    • Oliver Wolcott
  • New York —
    • William Floyd
    • Philip Livingston
    • Francis Lewis
    • Lewis Morris
  • New Jersey —
    • Richard Stockton
    • John Witherspoon
    • Francis Hopkinson
    • John Hart
    • Abraham Clark
  • Pennsylvania —
    • Robert Morris
    • Benjamin Rush
    • Benjamin Franklin
    • John Morton
    • George Clymer
    • James Smith
    • George Taylor
    • James Wilson
    • George Ross
  • Delaware —
    • Caesar Rodney
    • George Read
    • Thomas McKean
  • Maryland —
    • Samuel Chase
    • William Paca
    • Thomas Stone
    • Charles Carroll of Carrollton
  • Virginia —
    • George Wythe
    • Richard Henry Lee
    • Thomas Jefferson
    • Benjamin Harrison
    • Thomas Nelson, Jr.
    • Francis Lightfoot Lee
    • Carter Braxton
  • North Carolina —
    • William Hooper
    • Joseph Hewes
    • John Penn
  • South Carolina —
    • Edward Rutledge
    • Thomas Heyward, Jr.
    • Thomas Lynch, Jr.
    • Arthur Middleton
  • Georgia —
    • Button Gwinnett
    • Lyman Hall
    • George Walton

... Washington had made every mistake in the book in the New York campaign. He had misread the enemy’s intentions; he had divided his forces in the face of superior numbers; he had provided no cavalry; he had hesitated almost fatally to get his army out of Manhattan once he grasped the folly of keeping it there; he had allowed Greene to persuade him against his better judgment to keep men in Fort Washington; he had allowed a wealth of precious tents, flour, ordnance, and ammunition at Forts Washington and Lee to fall into enemy hands.

— Myron Magnet
The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735 - 1817 (2014)