The Declaration of Independence is not just a document in which a people proclaim their independence from their home country; to say that would be to diminish its ultimate importance. It is a list of grievances between old friends; it is compendium of wrongs, real and perceived, done by one to another; it is a cry that oppressive economic measures must end, and can only end, as the drafters and signers say, with this declaration. And while Thomas Jefferson was the ultimate “author” of this document, the declaration was a mélange of thoughts, ideas, and words.

One of these “fathers” of the declaration was Thomas Paine, a British-born revolutionary who, once in the colonies, took sides against his native land and chafed for independence from England. In his 1776 work, “Common Sense” (Philadelphia: Printed and Sold by W. and T. Bradford, 1776), Paine called for a “declaration of independence” from England, a move that had not yet taken hold, even in the Continental Congress, where there was still a feeling of possible reconciliation with the “Mother Country.” But Paine knew better; he wrote that it was impossible for the colonies to live in freedom and live under the dictates of the British crown at the same time. Paine’s 1776 work was a part of his “American Crisis” series of pamphlets that he published to address the problems facing the American colonies. Historian Kevin Springman wrote in 1997 that Paine used pseudonyms in some of his later writings as a way to keep himself front and center of the political debate in America. “In 1951 A. Owen Aldridge identified a number of pieces, including an article written by Paine in York, Pennsylvania, on June 10, 1778, and published in The Pennsylvania Gazette on June 13, 1778, signed ‘Common Sense,’ which had not been included in the published canon of Paine’s writings. Similarly, it appears that Paine contributed a letter and associated commentary in the April 25, 1778, ‘Postscript’ edition of The Pennsylvania Packet, published in Lancaster, which has also been overlooked. Addressed to ‘R. L.’ and signed ‘T. P.,’ there is ample evidence to suggest that T. P. is Thomas Paine. The identity of R. L. is somewhat problematic.” [2]

Whatever the true nature of Paine’s contribution to the declaration, or even to the American cause in its totality, he is heralded by historians as one of the first men to explain just what “liberty” is. John Adams, in his diary of the Continental Congress, wrote, “[Delegate Benjamin] Harrison gave us for a sentiment, ‘A constitutional death to the Lords [John Stuart, Third Earl of] Bute, [William Murray, First Earl of] Mansfield, and [Frederick] North.’ Paine gave us, ‘May the collision of British steel and American steel produce that spark of liberty which shall illumine the latest posterity.’” [3]

With “Common Sense,” Paine had begun a sort of “national conversation” on whether or not to break all ties to England. Until that time, those advocating full independence were a distinct minority; the “Loyalists,” who wished a reconciliation with London, dubbed them as “radicals.” Paine eagerly donned the mask of this radicalism; after all, he asked, what was “radical” about calling for fundamental civil and economy rights? Paine wrote in “Common Sense”:

Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, “come, come, we shall be friends again, for all this.” But examine the passions and feelings of mankind, bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me, whether you can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon your posterity. Your future connexion [sic] with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have[?] But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy [of] the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant. [4]

The Text of Declaration of Independence

[Just 1,338 words in length, this momentous document was adopted by the delegates in the Continental Congress on 2 July 1776, and announced to the people two days later. Delegates continued to sign it into the following month, and perhaps even longer than that.]

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 harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

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

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

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

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

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

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

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

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

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Signed by ORDER and in BEHALF of the CONGRESS,

JOHN HANCOCK, PRESIDENT.

Attest,

CHARLES THOMSON, SECRETARY.

But while Thomas Paine was the initiator behind the movement towards independence, others were involved as well. The Continental Congress added to the controversy when, on 10 May 1776, it called on each colony to establish a government independent of the royal governments that had controlled each individual colony since their inception. The Continental Congress stated “[t]hat it be recommended to the respective assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs have been hitherto established, to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general.” [5]

On the basis of this resolution, on 7 June 1776 delegate Richard Henry Lee rose in the Continental Congress and offered his own resolution, calling for full independence for the colonies. Lee stated, “[t]hat there 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. That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances. That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.” [6] Delegate John Adams saw this as a turning point, as he wrote to his wife, Abigail, on 17 May 1776:

Great Britain has at last driven America to the last step, a complete separation from her; a total absolute independence, not only of her Parliament, but of her crown, for such is the amount of the resolve of the 15th. Confederation among ourselves, or alliances with foreign nations are not necessary to a perfect separation from Britain. That is effected by extinguishing all authority under the crown, Parliament, and nation, as the resolution for instituting governments has done, to all intents and purposes. Confederation will be necessary for our internal concord, and alliances may be so for our external defence. I have reasons to believe that no colony, which shall assume a government under the people, will give it up. There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thousand leagues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it, for which men will fight. [7]

Two days of debate followed; the delegates voted to put off further debate until 1 July. Before that could happen, however, a change to the Virginia delegation occurred that would change history again: US Senator Albert Beveridge, Republican of Indiana, a historian in his own right, wrote in 1926, “The Virginia spokesman was suddenly called home by the serious illness of his wife, and, in his place, a quiet, retiring young man, thirty-three years old, was chosen. He had made careful notes of the great de bates over Lee’s resolution for Independence. His name was Thomas Jefferson.” [8]

Jefferson was a classical thinker whose penned works prior to the Declaration of Independence made him one of the America colonies’ greatest minds. In 1774, he had written “A Summary View of the Rights of British America,” which, like the declaration he penned two years later, was more a list of grievances against the Crown than an actual call for independence. In that 1774 document, Jefferson had explained:

[T]hat it be an instruction to the said deputies, when assembled in general congress with the deputies from the other states of British America, to propose to the said congress that an humble and dutiful address be presented to his majesty, begging leave to lay before him, as chief magistrate of the British empire, the united complaints of his majesty’s subjects in America; complaints which are excited by many unwarrantable encroachments and usurpations, attempted to be made by the legislature of one part of the empire, upon those rights which God and the laws have given equally and independently to all. To represent to his majesty that these his states have often individually made humble application to his imperial throne to obtain, through its intervention, some redress of their injured rights, to none of which was ever even an answer condescended; humbly to hope that this their joint address, penned in the language of truth, and divested of those expressions of servility which would persuade his majesty that we are asking favours, and not rights, shall obtain from his majesty a more respectful acceptance. [9]

Thus, Jefferson based the declaration on this previous document. John Adams agreed that the declaration, especially as Jefferson had written it, was not an original document at all. Adams wrote to Timothy Pickering in 1822, “As you justly observe, there is not an idea in it but what had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before. The substance of it is contained in the declaration of rights, and the violation of those rights, in the Journals of Congress, in 1774. Indeed, the essence of it is contained in a pamphlet, voted, and printed by the town of Boston, before the first Congress met, composed by James Otis, as I suppose, in one of his lucid intervals, and pruned and published by Samuel Adams.” [10] In 1825, Jefferson wrote to Henry Lee of his own views of the reason behind the declaration’s wording: “When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence.” [11]

The declaration was initially given to a committee composed of some of the leading luminaries in the Continental Congress; on 11 June, the delegates appointed Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston as members of this committee. The group, dubbed “The Committee of Five,” delegated Jefferson to draft much of the language of the declaration. Jefferson’s notes show the differing historical ideas and documents that he utilized to compose the language that he wanted in what he would submit. Jefferson then gave copies of his notes to the members of the committee: first, he went to Adams, then to Benjamin Franklin, and, finally, to the committee as a whole. Each one of these members made various changes to Jefferson’s initial draft, sending him back for a rewrite. Finally, on 28 June 1776, “The Committee of Five” sent the final composition to the delegates of the entire Continental Congress for an up-or-down vote. This came 2 July; however, the delegates had additional changes in mind for the final document—39 in all. When Jefferson had incorporated all of these corrections into what he had submitted, the Continental Congress voted to approve it. The delegates then ordered that the declaration be sent to an official printer, and, on the 4 July, that printer, John Dunlap, sent the first official printings to the members of the Continental Congress. It was not until the next day, 5 July, that John Hancock, the president of the Continental Congress, ordered that copies sent from Dunlap be dispatched to all corners of the colonies: to political leaders, to military leaders, and to the people. On 9 July, General George Washington, the head of the Continental Army, told his commanding officers that the declaration should be read to the American troops stationed in New York. Other copies from Dunlap made their way across the colonies, and, in one case, wound up in the archives in London, where it was not discovered until the 21st century. All of these original copies, all originating from that order given by John Hancock, are known as “Dunlap Broadsides.”

The declaration came at a time that America, or what would become America, was at war, with a foreign enemy. But it was also at war with itself, although it hardly knew it. The war was over slavery, and whether or not it would be banned in the new country. Jefferson, a slave owner himself—anywhere from one-third to one-half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves or indentured servants who were black—eagerly sought to write a ban of the practice into the declaration, but he was stymied by the southern delegates to the Continental Congress, as well as to deference of the northern colonies to the need for slave labor to make the colonial economy run. Historian Henry Leffmann wrote in 1923, “It is well known that Jefferson inserted into the written Declaration a clause condemning slavery, which was stricken out. He says that this was due principally to the efforts of South Carolina and Georgia, but adds ‘our Northern brethren, also, I believe, felt a little tender under these circumstances, for tho’ these people have very few slaves themselves, they have been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.” [12]

Unable to reform the laws on slavery—the rights of women were never even broached at the Continental Congress—Jefferson drafted a document that called for human rights and for rights under God, but in effect had no support for them. Instead, he fashioned a protest letter mixed with a discussion of the rights of man. Historian Sydney George Fisher wrote in 1907, “The Declaration of Independence consists roughly of two parts. The first part may be described as composed of the two or three opening paragraphs which set forth with much eloquence the right of revolution and the doctrine of political equality and other rights of men, as they were called, which have become the foundation principles of our American life. The second and much longer part is the rest of the document devoted to the twenty-eight charges against the King . . . But when we know in some detail the facts and circumstances which underlie the Twenty-eight Charges they are fully as interesting as the general reasoning about the rights of man and they contain a condensed history of the revolutionary movement up to the year 1776.” [13]

Jefferson took copious notes of how he drafted the declaration; he also wrote of the deliberations in the Continental Congress on the final language of his document. In his official papers is a multipage collection of notes, in which he gives the reader a first-hand view of what happened once his declaration was submitted to the delegates:

Congress proceeded the same day to consider the Declaration of Independence, which had been reported and lain on the table the Friday preceding, and on Monday referred to a committee of the whole. The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offence. The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under those censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others. The debates, having taken up the greater parts of the 2d, 3d, and 4th days of July, were, on the evening of the last, closed; the Declaration was reported by the committee, agreed to by the House, and signed by every member present, except Mr. Dickinson. [14]

Facts About the Declaration of Independence

Although Robert Livingston served on the committee that ultimately drafted the Declaration, he did not believe that declaring a complete break from England was a wise course, and he never signed the document.

The oldest signer was Benjamin Franklin, who, having been born in 1706, was 70 when he applied his name to the declaration. Franklin would live another 14 years, serving as a member of the commission which helped to draft a treaty of peace with England, and as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1788.

The two delegates to the Continental Congress who were the youngest signers were both from South Carolina: they were Thomas Lynch, Jr. and Edward Rutledge. Both men had been born in 1749 and were only 26 years old when they applied their signatures to this momentous document and ensured their places in history.

Nine of the 56 men who signed the declaration did not live to see the end of the American Revolution in 1783.

Two of the signers—John Adams and Thomas Jefferson—would go on to serve the new nation as president of the United States.

The declaration was not signed on 4 July 1776; instead, signers began applying their names starting in August 1776, until all states had agreed to the document and had their representatives in the Continental Congress sign it. These last signers include Elbridge Gerry, Thomas McKean, Lewis Morris, Matthew Thornton, and Oliver Wolcott. McKean, of Delaware, was serving in his colony’s militia, and did not sign until long after the others; sources list dates as wide as 1777 to 1781 when he finally put his name to the document.

Although the document was allegedly written in the hand of Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Continental Congress, it was actually prepared by Thomson’s assistant, Timothy Matlack on Pennsylvania, who engrossed the document onto fine parchment. An “engrosser” is a handwriting expert who prepares official documents for signing.

The document containing the signatures measures 24¼ inches by 29¾ inches.

Delaware delegate Caesar Rodney, despite suffering debilitating pain from asthma, and from the recent removal of a malignant tumor from his face, rode from Annapolis to Philadelphia to sign the declaration, both for himself and for his state, riding through severe rain and thunderstorms. Although a delegate to the Continental Congress, Rodney was also the head of his colony’s militia. In 1999, as part of its quarter coin program, Delaware put an image of Rodney on a horse, to represent the state and honor him and his incredible deed.

Signer Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a delegate from Maryland, was the only Catholic to sign the declaration. He signed not only his name, but “Charles Carroll of Carrollton,” so that if punishment came to any of the signers, it would not go to someone with a similar name.

Signer Stephen Hopkins, a delegate from Rhode Island, was 69 years old—a year younger than Benjamin Franklin—and a Quaker. He felt that the declaration would end the war quickly. As he signed the declaration, he said, “My hand trembles, but my heart does not.”

Two brothers from Virginia—Francis Lightfoot Lee and Richard Henry Lee—signed.

Another delegate from Virginia, George Wythe, had been a teacher to James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson when they were young. In 1806, Wythe was murdered by his nephew.

John Trumbull’s famous painting of the signing of the declaration is a composite; many of those portrayed in the painting were not in the same room at the same time. It is only contemporary image that we have of the declaration’s signing, and hangs today in the Rotunda of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

24 of the 56 signers had formal legal training and/or education in the law.

11 of the 56 signers were important colonial merchants who owned large estates and/or plantations.

In his original draft of the declaration, Thomas Jefferson included a paragraph that condemned King George III for “allowing” slavery in the colonies even though Jefferson himself was a slave owner, as were about one-third to one-half of all of the signers.

Twelve of the signers saw their homes ransacked or destroyed by the British during the course of the war, including John De Hart of New Jersey, and Thomas Nelson, Jr. of Virginia.

An unknown handprint appears on the bottom left corner of the Declaration of Independence; attempts to identify it, without harming the original document or the parchment, have proved fruitless.

Reaction to the declaration was varied. The Connecticut Journal of New Haven published the entire declaration on the second page of its edition of 17 July without editorial comment; however, on its first page, was a story from New York that heralded, “On Wednesday the Congress’s [sic] Declaration of the Independence of the United States of America, was read at the Head of each Brigade o the Continental Army posted in and near this City, and every where received with the utmost Demonstrations of Joy. The same Evening the Equestrian Statue of George III, erected in the Year 1770, was thrown from its Pedestal and broken in Pieces; and we hea [sic] the Lead wherewith this monument was made, is to be run [turned] into Bullets.” [15] The Pennsylvania Packet of Philadelphia, headlining a story from Boston, reported, “Thursday last, pursuant to an order of the Honorable Council, was proclaimed from the Balcony of the State-House in this town, the Declaration of the American Congress, absolving the United Colonies from their allegiance to the British Crown, and declaring them Free and Independent States. There were present on the occasion, in the Council Chamber, the Committee of Council, a number of the Honorable House of Representatives, the Magistrates, Ministers, Selectmen, and other Gentlemen of Boston and the neighboring towns . . . ” [16] The Freeman’s Journal of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, editorialized, “Let us break their slavish bands asunder and cast their cords from us: These words of the psalmist; as used and utter’d by the heathen nations against the Almighty and his laws, are replete with the greatest impiety and rebellion; but are most religiously sanctified by being made the motto of as pious, once loyal, and oppress’d a people, as the earth ever bred and sustain’d. It is now (I think) [a] matter of suspence and consideration, whether this country shall become independent of Great-Britain or not; but with humble submission to better judgments; the enquiry is absurd; since actions speak louder than words, ten thousand of which have already been proclaim’d, our most absolute independence of her: so that the thing now to be examin’d, is, whether it be best to remain in that state, or again to become dependent. Let us give this subject a fair hearing.” [17] The New York Journal reported that “[t]he State of Rhode Island, and Providence Plantation, have Voted and Resolved, That if any person within the State shall, under pretense of preaching, or praying, or in any other way and manner whatever, acknowledge, or declare George the 3d king [sic] of Great Britain, to be their rightful Lord and Sovereign, or shall pray for the success of his arms, or that he may vanquish or overcome all his enemies, shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor—and upon conviction thereof shall forfeit and pay to that State, the sum of One Hundred Pounds, lawful money, and pay costs of prosecution.” [18]

The British did not take the news of the declaration’s announcement well. The Howe brothers—Richard, Viscount Howe, and his brother, General William Howe, the head of British forces in America, penned an open letter to the people, which was distributed via handbill in New York and in other places where the British controlled the ground. Their own “declaration” read: “Although the Congress, whom the misguided Americans suffer to direct their opposition to a re-establishment of the constitutional government of these provinces, have disavowed every purpose of reconciliation, not consonant with their extravagant and inadmissable claim of independency, the King’s Commissioners think fit to declare, that they are equally desirous to confer with his Majesty’s well affected subjects, upon the means of re[s]toring the public tranquility, and establishing a permanent union with every Colony, as a part of the British Empire.” [19] Newspapers in Britain, to a large degree, merely reported the declaration without editorializing. [20]

The declaration was printed in the colonies in newspapers, and was also originally printed in German. Historian Karl Arndt wrote in 1985 that previous research had shown that the first German printing of the declaration had been on 9 July—but that this was in error:

The document, now in the special collections section of the Gettysburg College library, is a broadside measuring 16 inches by 12¾ inches, on ordinary laid paper without watermark, slightly damaged at the center through inept repair but clearly legible. At the bottom center it has the imprint, “Philadelphia: Gedruckt bey Steiner und Cist, in der Zweyten-strasse.” The document was discovered by Werner Tannhof, a bibliographer from the University of Göttingen working for the Seidensticker project, with the help of Nancy Scott, Gettysburg College special collections librarian. At first glance a comparison of this document with Henrich Miller’s well-known printing on July 9th3 shows great similarity, but a closer examination proves that the two printings are from different typesettings from different fonts. [21]

In addition to a German printing, the declaration was printed in Hebrew as well. As a matter of pride, in 1948, when the Jewish state of Israel was formed, it based its founding document in large part on the thoughts and words embodied in the Declaration of Independence. [22]

In 1825, as he neared the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson reminisced about the document he had fashioned that had changed human history. In a letter to Dr. James Mease, Jefferson explained, “It is not for me to estimate the importance of the circumstances concerning which your letter of the 8th makes inquiry. They prove, even in their minuteness, the sacred attachments of our fellow citizens to the event of which the paper of July 4th, 1776, was but the declaration, the genuine effusion of the soul of our country at that time. Small things may, perhaps, like the relics of saints, help to nourish our devotion to this holy bond of our Union, and keep it longer alive and warm in our affections.” [23]

On the 46th anniversary of the signing of the declaration, in 1822, the magazine The Genius of Universal Emancipation wrote, “The 4th of July, 1776, was the memorable period when the people of the United States, wearied with the wrongs and insults heaped upon them, by the British government, resolved to throw off their allegiance to it, and to establish within their borders, the empire of justice, liberty and law. Forty-six years have now passed away since they issued through their representatives in Congress that most important declaration, which has been heard in every nook and corner of the civilized world; has been admired by millions; and by some is hailed as the day star of political regeneration for the whole family of nations existing on the terraqueous globe.” [24]

In August 1826, following the deaths on the same day of Jefferson and Adams, Daniel Webster, one of the greatest orators of the 19th century, spoke at Faneuil Hall in Boston, in which he remarked about the incredible document that is the Declaration of Independence. He said:

It has sometimes been said, as if it were a derogation from the merits of this paper, that it contains nothing new; that it only states grounds of proceedings, and presses topics of argument, which had often been stated and pressed before. But it was not the object of the Declaration to produce anything new. It was not to invent reasons for independence, but to state those which governed the Congress. For great and sufficient causes, it was proposed to declare independence; and the proper business of the paper to be drawn, was to set forth those causes, and justify the authors of the measure, in any event of fortune, to the country and to posterity. The cause of American independence, moreover, was now to be presented to the world, in such manner, if it might so be, as to engage its sympathy, to command its respect, to attract its admiration; and in an assembly of most able and distinguished men, Thomas Jefferson had the high honor of being the selected advocate of this cause. To say that he performed his great work well, would be doing him injustice. To say that he did excellently well, admirably well, would be inadequate and halting praise. Let us rather say, that he so discharged the duty assigned him, that all Americans may well rejoice that the work of drawing the title-deed of their liberties devolved upon him. [25]

See also: John Adams; Thomas Jefferson; Richard Henry Lee; The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence; Thomas Paine