Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

Sources

Richard Henry Lee’s Resolution. On Friday, 7 June 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented Congress with a resolution from Virginia’s Convention “that these United colonies are & of right ought to be free & 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 & ought to be totally dissolved....” Lee’s resolution called on Congress to begin taking measures to secure foreign assistance and to form a confederation to bind the colonies more closely together. The Congress, busy with other matters, put off discussion until the following day, which it spent debating independence. On the one side, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, John Dickinson of Delaware, Robert Livingston of New York, and the Rutledges of South Carolina, argued that the time was not right for independence. While New England and Virginia were united in support, the Middle colonies, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware “were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to British connection.” The delegates from these areas thought it better to wait until all the colonies were ready, and then act with unanimity, rather than force the issue. On the other side, Lee was joined by John Adams, Virginian George Wythe, and others in arguing that a declaration of independence would not “make ourselves what we are not,” but would only “declare a fact which already exists.” The contending sides could not agree. Congress decided to postpone action on Lee’s resolution until 1 July, but also decided to appoint committees to consider the Virginia proposals on declaring independence, on foreign alliances, and on confederation.

Committee on Independence. Congress named five men to the committee on independence. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was chosen for two reasons: Virginia had sponsored the resolution, so a Virginian had to be on the committee. Richard Henry Lee should have been the representative, but he wanted to return to his state to create its new government. Jefferson was relatively new to Congress, having served in 1775, and though he never uttered a word in debate, he was known for his insightful contributions on committees and for his writing. In July 1774 he had written “A Summary View of the Rights of British America,” a set of instructions to Virginia’s delegates to Congress, and in 1775 he had drafted Congress’s response to Lord Frederick North’s offer of conciliation, and Congress’s Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking up Arms.

Jefferson is Chosen. Despite Jefferson’s reputation as a writer, he expected John Adams to draw up the declaration. Adams was the foremost public leader for independence. But Adams, who was busy on the committees for foreign treaties and the Board of War, refused Jefferson’s request to draft a declaration. “Why, will you not?,” Jefferson said with surprise, “You ought to do it.” “I will not,” Adams said. “Why?” Jefferson asked. “Reasons enough,” said Adams. “What can be your reasons[?]” “Reason first,” Adams said, “Your 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.” “Well, if you are decided,” Jefferson said, “I will do as well as I can.”

Congress Debates. In drafting his work, Jefferson kept in mind all of the arguments made in support of independence over the previous years. At the end of June he presented his draft to Franklin and Adams, who made minor suggestions, and on Friday, 28 June, the committee reported its declaration to Congress. On Monday, 1 July, the delegates took up Lee’s resolution, voting nine states to two in favor of independence. South Carolina and Pennsylvania both opposed the move, Delaware was divided, and New York’s delegates could not vote for independence, though they supported it, because their instructions from the assembly required that they work toward reconciliation. John Rutledge of South Carolina moved that the Congress put off a final vote until the next day, as he believed by then his colleagues would support independence in the interest of unanimity. Overnight, a new delegate arrived from Delaware, and the reluctant members of the Pennsylvania delegation stayed away, making the vote twelve in favor, New York abstaining. On 2 July 1776, Congress declared independence.

The Second of July. On 3 July, as Congress debated the Declaration of Independence, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail. He reflected on the train of events since 1761, when he heard James Otis make his argument against writs of assistance, and marvelled at the suddenness and “Greatness of this Revolution.” He worried about the future, about the war England would fight against the colonies, but he was certain that right would prevail. “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America,” he wrote. “I am apt to believe that it 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.”

The Fourth of July. Adams had the right celebration, but the wrong date, according to popular American thought. Declaring independence was a revolutionary event but the reasons for the Declaration made it even more so. On 4 July Congress concluded its debate over the Declaration of Independence, and unanimously adopted it, with New York’s delegates abstaining until after 9 July, when their state’s provincial convention rescinded their instructions to work only for reconciliation. The Declaration of Independence, adopted on 4 July as “The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America,” begins with a preamble declaring its purpose to the world why Americans took such revolutionary measures. The Declaration also states a set of self-evident truths: all men are created equal; all men are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To help secure these rights, men establish governments, but when a government begins destroying, rather than protecting rights, the people have a right to alter or abolish the government, and to create a new one which will better protect their “safety and happiness.” These were the basic premises of the declaration. Next, to prove that the British government had trampled on the rights of Americans, the Declaration listed the wrongs done them by the British government. But unlike previous colonial declarations, this one aimed directly at the King. Americans had been arguing for years that Parliament could not govern their political societies, and in 1775 Congress had insisted that Americans owed no allegiance to Parliament. Now, Congress had to shift its focus from Parliament to the King, as some Americans still might believe that they could create a system, such as the one proposed by Franklin in 1754 and Joseph Galloway in 1774, with colonies tied together by a common allegiance to the British Crown. So the list of grievances in the Declaration place the blame directly on the King, charging him with tyranny and cruelty “scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages” and declaring that “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.” The Declaration closes with a statement of disappointment in the British people, whom the Americans implored to disavow the King’s tyrannic conduct, but as they had proved deaf to every entreaty, the Americans now would “hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.” Concluding, the Declaration declared “that these United colonies are & of right ought to be free & independent states,” and “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, & our sacred honour.” Congress made some notable alterations in Jefferson’s draft, omitting about one-fourth of the text, simplifying some clauses and removing others. One of the most notable omissions was Jefferson’s charge that George III had encouraged the slave trade, that he had “waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,” in carrying them across the Atlantic into slavery in America. Jefferson concluded this charge with another, that the King had also encouraged the slaves to rebel against their masters, “thus prying off former crimes committed against the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.” Congress dropped this whole section, according to Jefferson, because South Carolina and Georgia wanted to continue importing slaves, and because “our Northern brethren” had few slaves themselves, but were “pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”

Signing the Declaration. Jefferson remembered that all of the delegates who were present, except John Dickinson, signed the Declaration on 4 July, but he may have been mistaken. No such copy exists. On 5 July, a broadside copy of the Declaration of Independence was published in Philadelphia, signed by John Hancock, the president of Congress, and Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress. The next day it was printed for the first time in a newspaper, and on 8 July was publicly read to a large gathering in Philadelphia. The crowd responded by tearing down the royal arms and with bonfires and ringing bells. The same enthusiasm met the event in other colonies as copies of the Declaration were read publicly, announcing the fact of independence. On 19 July Congress voted to have the delegates sign an engrossed copy, possible now that New York had allowed its delegates to vote for independence. By 2 August, the parchment Declaration of Independence was formally signed by fifty-six delegates to Congress.

Sources

Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, volume 1, 1760–1776 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1950);

Lyman H. Butterfield, ed., The Adams Papers: Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, volume 2, 1771–1781 (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1961);

Merrill Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970);

Garry Wills, Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (New York: Random House, 1978).