Declaration
of Independence, full and formal declaration
adopted July 4, 1776, by representatives of the Thirteen
Colonies in North America announcing the separation of those
colonies from Great Britain and making them into the United
States.
The Road
to Its Adoption
Official acts that colonists
considered infringements upon their rights had previously led
to the Stamp Act Congress (1765) and to the First Continental
Congress (1774), but these were predominantly conservative
assemblies that sought redress from the crown and
reconciliation, not independence. The overtures of the First
Continental Congress in 1774 came to nothing, discontent grew,
and as the armed skirmishes at Lexington and Concord (Apr. 19,
1775) developed into the American Revolution, many members of
the Second Continental
Congress of Philadelphia followed the leadership of John
Hancock, John Adams, and Samuel Adams in demanding
independence.
The delegates from Virginia
and North Carolina were in fact specifically instructed on
independence and on June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee called for
a resolution of independence. On June 11, John Adams, Benjamin
Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger
Sherman were instructed to draft such a declaration; the
actual writing was entrusted to Jefferson. The first draft was
revised by Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson before it was sent
to Congress, where it was again changed. That final draft was
adopted July 4, 1776, and Independence Day has been the chief
American patriotic holiday ever since. It is interesting to
note, however, that the July 4 document is merely a fuller
statement justifying the resolution of independence adopted by
Congress July 2, 1776.
The
Declaration and Its Importance
The Declaration of
Independence is the most important of all American historical
documents. It is essentially a partisan document, a
justification of the American Revolution presented to the
world; but its unique combination of general principles and an
abstract theory of government with a detailed enumeration of
specific grievances and injustices has given it enduring power
as one of the great political documents of the West. After
stating its purpose, the opening paragraphs (given here in the
form used in the engrossed copy) assert the fundamental
American ideal of government, based on the theory of natural
rights, which had been held by, among others, John Locke,
Emerich de Vattel, and Jean Jacques Rousseau.
“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.”
Then follows an indictment of
George III for willfully infringing those rights in order to
establish an “absolute Tyranny” over the colonies. The
document states that colonial patience had achieved nothing
and therefore the colonists found themselves forced to declare
their independence. The stirring closing paragraph is the
formal pronouncement of independence and is borrowed from the
resolution of July 2.
“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.”
Signers
of the Declaration
Not all the men who helped
draw up or voted for the Declaration signed it (Robert R.
Livingston, for example, did not) nor were all the signers
present at its adoption. All the signatures except six (Wythe,
R. H. Lee, Wolcott, Gerry, McKean, and Thornton) were affixed
on Aug. 2, 1776. The first is that of John Hancock, president
of the Continental Congress. The remaining 55 (see individual
articles on each) are those of Josiah Bartlett, William
Whipple, Matthew Thornton, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert
Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery,
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver
Wolcott, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis,
Lewis Morris, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis
Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Robert Morris, Benjamin
Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James
Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, Caesar
Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean, Samuel Chase, William Paca,
Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, George Wythe,
Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas
Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, William
Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, Edward Rutledge, Thomas
Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Button
Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, and George Walton.
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The
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press.
Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights
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