THE DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE
Although the section of the
Lee Resolution dealing
with independence was not adopted until July 2, Congress appointed on June 10 a
committee of five to draft a statement of independence for the colonies. The
committee included Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R.
Livingston, and Roger Sherman, with the actual writing delegated to Jefferson.
Jefferson drafted the statement between June 11 and 28, submitted drafts to Adams and Franklin who made some changes, and then presented the draft to the Congress following the July 2nd adoption of the independence section of the Lee Resolution. The congressional revision process took all of July 3rd and most of July 4th. Finally, in the afternoon of July 4th, the Declaration was adopted.
Under the supervision of the Jefferson committee, the approved Declaration was printed on July 5th and a copy was attached to the "rough journal of the Continental Congress for July 4th." These printed copies, bearing only the names of John Hancock, President, and Charles Thomson, secretary, were distributed to state assemblies, conventions, committees of safety, and commanding officers of the Continental troops.
On July 19th, Congress ordered that the Declaration be engrossed on parchment with a new title, "the unanimous declaration of the thirteen united states of America," and "that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress." Engrossing is the process of copying an official document in a large hand. The engrosser of the Declaration was probably Timothy Matlock, an assistant to Charles Thomson, secretary to the Congress.
On August 2nd John Hancock, the President of the Congress, signed the engrossed copy with a bold signature. The other delegates, following custom, signed beginning at the right with the signatures arranged by states from northernmost New Hampshire to southernmost Georgia. Although all delegates were not present on August 2nd, 56 delegates eventually signed the document. Late signers were Elbridge Gerry, Oliver Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean, and Matthew Thornton, who was unable to place his signature with the other New Hampshire delegates due to a lack of space. Some delegates, including Robert R. Livingston of New York, a member of the drafting committee, never signed the Declaration.
For more information on the signers and a timeline of the Declaration’s development, visit Join the Signers at the The National Archives’ new Charters of Freedom site.
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 shown, 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
endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose
obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to
encourage their migration 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
legislature.
He has
affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has
combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their acts of
pretended legislation:
For
quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For
protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they
should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting
off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing
taxes on us without our Consent:
For
depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For
transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For
abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as
to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same
absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking
away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally
the Forms of our Governments:
For
suspending our own Legislature, 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 endeavored 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.
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 an 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.