SafekipediaUnited States Declaration of Independence
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The Declaration of Independence is the founding document of the United States. It was adopted on July 4, 1776, by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia at a building later called Independence Hall. This important paper explains why the Thirteen Colonies decided they were no longer part of British colonial rule and why they wanted to be independent sovereign states.
The American Revolutionary War had already begun when the colonies chose to declare their independence. A group of leaders called the Committee of Five, including Thomas Jefferson, were asked to write the Declaration. Jefferson drafted the document, and after some changes, it was officially approved by all the colonies. The Declaration listed many problems the colonies had with the Kingdom of Great Britain and stated important ideas about rights, such as Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The Declaration became one of the most well-known and important papers in history. It inspired many people around the world to think about freedom and human rights. Even famous leaders like Abraham Lincoln used its ideas in their speeches, making it a key part of American history.
Background
By the time the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, the Thirteen Colonies and the Kingdom of Great Britain had been at war for over a year. Relations between the colonies and Britain had been getting worse since 1763. In 1767, Parliament made rules to get more money from the colonies, like the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts. The colonists didn't like these rules because they weren't represented in Parliament and believed these taxes were unfair.
The colonists felt they had rights that no government could take away, even Parliament. This led to protests, like the Pine Tree Riot in 1772 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773. By 1774, some American leaders thought the colonies should only follow the king, not Parliament. In response to the Boston Tea Party, Britain passed the Coercive Acts in 1774, which many colonists saw as unfair and a threat to their freedom. This led to the First Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia to plan a response.
As tensions grew, the Second Continental Congress met in May 1775. Fighting had already started in the American Revolutionary War. Some leaders wanted independence, but none had said it out loud yet. Support for independence grew, especially after writer Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense was published in January 1776. It made a strong case for leaving Britain and was read by many, even soldiers. By July 1776, enough colonies had agreed that the time had come to declare independence.
Draft and adoption
Main article: Physical history of the United States Declaration of Independence
In June 1776, leaders of the American colonies chose a group of five men to create a document explaining why they wanted to be free from Britain. This group included important figures like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was asked to write the first version of the document.
Jefferson wrote the draft in about two weeks, working alone in his home in Philadelphia. After sharing it with his group, they made small changes and gave it to the Congress. For the next few days, Congress reviewed and changed the document. They made it shorter and removed some parts that might upset certain colonies.
Finally, on July 4, 1776, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. This document announced that the American colonies would become their own country, separate from Britain. It was an important moment that led to the creation of the United States.
Annotated text of the engrossed declaration
The Declaration of Independence is often thought of as having five parts: an introduction, a preamble, a list of problems with King George III, a denunciation of the British people, and a conclusion.
The version of the signed document that people saw at the time was signed by Mary Katherine Goddard. She was the postmaster of Baltimore and was asked by the Continental Congress to print the signed Declaration. Normally, she signed things as "M.K. Goddard," but this time she used her full name.
| Introduction Asserts as a matter of natural law the ability of a people to assume political independence; acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable, and therefore explicable, and ought to be explained. | 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." |
| Preamble Outlines a general philosophy of government that justifies revolution when government harms natural rights. | "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." |
| Indictment A bill of grievances documenting the king's "repeated injuries and usurpations" of the Americans' rights and liberties. | "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 meantime 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 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." |
| Failed warnings Describes the colonists' attempts to inform and warn the British people of the king's injustice, and the British people's failure to act. Even so, it affirms the colonists' ties to the British as "brethren." | "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." |
| Denunciation This section essentially finishes the case for independence. The conditions that justified revolution have been shown. | "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." |
| Conclusion The signers assert that there exist conditions under which people must change their government, that the British have produced such conditions and, by necessity, the colonies must throw off political ties with the British Crown and become independent states. The conclusion contains, at its core, the Lee Resolution that had been passed on 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." |
| Signatures The first and most famous signature on the engrossed copy was that of John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress. Two future presidents (Thomas Jefferson and John Adams) and a father and great-grandfather of two other presidents (Benjamin Harrison V) were among the signatories. Edward Rutledge (age 26) was the youngest signer, and Benjamin Franklin (age 70) was the oldest signer. The fifty-six signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows (from north to south): |
Reverse
On the back of the original Declaration of Independence, there is writing that says "Original Declaration of Independence, dated 4th July 1776". This helped people know what the document was when it was rolled up and stored. This information was shared in a short video in 2019 and later posted on social media in 2025 by the United States National Archives.
Influences and legal status
Historians have studied the ideas that shaped the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson said it expressed common feelings shared by many who supported the American Revolution, rather than new thoughts.
Jefferson used ideas from two important papers written in June 1776: his own draft for the Constitution of Virginia and George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights. He was also inspired by older documents, like the 1689 English Declaration of Rights, which helped end the rule of an unfair king. Some scholars think other papers, like the Scottish Declaration of Arbroath from 1320 or the Dutch Act of Abjuration from 1581, may have had a small influence, but this is debated.
Many believe English thinker John Locke was a big influence on Jefferson. Others suggest different ideas or writers may have played a role too. Some historians see the Declaration as a legal paper accusing King George III of breaking the colonists’ rights, rather than just a discussion of ideas. Still others think it was written to show other countries that the United States was now its own nation, not part of Britain. While the Declaration isn’t a law itself, it helps explain the history behind America’s government and laws.
Signing
Main article: Signing of the United States Declaration of Independence
The Declaration became official when Congress recorded its vote adopting the document on July 4, 1776. It was signed by John Hancock, the President of the Congress, on that day. The other delegates added their names later, mostly on August 2, 1776.
Many of the signers were important leaders, including future presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. John Hancock's large, bold signature became very famous, and in the United States, the phrase "John Hancock" is used to mean "signature." The special inkstand used when they signed the Declaration was also used when the United States Constitution was signed in 1787.
Publication and reaction
After the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, a handwritten copy was taken to a printing shop. That night, about 200 copies were printed and shared. The first public readings happened on July 8 in Philadelphia, Trenton, New Jersey, and Easton, Pennsylvania. Newspapers began printing the Declaration soon after, and it was also translated into German.
General George Washington had the Declaration read to his soldiers in New York City on July 9. People in many cities showed their support by removing symbols of British rule. For example, a statue of King George in New York City was taken down. The Declaration was shared with British troops and officials, and it was sent to countries like France, Russia, and Portugal. Some leaders in America and Europe wrote responses, discussing ideas like freedom and equality. Over time, many people who owned slaves began to free them, and several northern states ended slavery after the war.
History of the documents
Main article: Physical history of the United States Declaration of Independence
The official copy of the Declaration of Independence was printed on July 4, 1776, under the supervision of Thomas Jefferson. This copy was sent to the states and the Army and was printed in many newspapers. A different version, called the "engrossed copy," was made later for the delegates to sign. This is the version most people see today.
The signed copy of the Declaration is called the engrossed or parchment copy. It was probably written by a clerk named Timothy Matlack. In 1921, it was moved to the Library of Congress. After World War II, it was kept safe in a special building in Kentucky before returning to display at the National Archives.
Historian Julian P. Boyd suggested that the Declaration is not just one document but includes printed copies made by Congress. The first printed copy was made the night of July 4 by John Dunlap in Philadelphia. In 1777, Congress asked Mary Katherine Goddard to print a new copy that listed the signers. Many early handwritten copies and drafts of the Declaration have also been preserved.
In 2017, a second signed copy was found in England. This copy has the signatures listed in a different way than the one in the United States. Over time, the ink on the original document faded due to bad lighting.
Legacy
The Declaration of Independence was not very important right after it was written. People mostly cared about the act of declaring independence, not the words themselves. Early celebrations and histories of the Revolution didn’t focus much on the document.
Later on, the Declaration became very important. Leaders in the French Revolution admired it, and it influenced many other countries. For example, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen borrowed ideas from it. The Declaration also inspired many other independence movements around the world.
Interest in the Declaration grew in the 1790s. Political parties began to use it for their own purposes. After the War of 1812, it became a symbol of American nationalism and history. Paintings, prints, and books about the signers became popular.
The Declaration’s famous words about equality and rights became important for many movements. Abolitionists, women’s rights advocates, and civil rights leaders all used its ideas to argue for equality. Even today, the Declaration remains a powerful symbol of freedom and rights for all people.
John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence (1817–1826)
Main article: Declaration of Independence (Trumbull)
John Trumbull's painting Declaration of Independence has played a significant role in popular ideas about the Declaration. The painting is very large and was commissioned by the United States Congress in 1817. It has hung in the United States Capitol Rotunda since 1826. The painting shows the Committee of Five presenting their draft to Congress, not the actual signing.
Slavery and the Declaration
Further information: Slavery in the colonial United States
The Declaration’s statement that “all men are created equal” clashed with the existence of slavery in the United States. Many of the founders knew this was a problem, but slavery continued. The Declaration became an important symbol for the abolitionist movement later on. Leaders like Frederick Douglass and John Brown used its ideas to argue against slavery.
Lincoln and the Declaration
Abraham Lincoln saw the Declaration as a guide for interpreting the Constitution. He believed that the principles of equality in the Declaration should guide the nation, even though the Constitution didn’t mention equality directly. Lincoln’s view became very influential, helping to shape how people understand the Declaration today.
Women’s suffrage and the Declaration
In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention used the Declaration as a model for their Declaration of Sentiments, demanding equality for women. They changed the famous line to say, “All men and women are created equal.”
Civil Rights Movement and the Declaration
In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. used the Declaration in his “I Have a Dream” speech, calling for equality for all people. The Declaration’s ideas continued to inspire the Civil Rights Movement.
LGBTQ+ rights movement and the Declaration
In 1978, Harvey Milk used the Declaration in a speech, arguing that its promise of equality applies to everyone, regardless of who they love.
20th century and later
The Declaration was one of the first texts to become an ebook in 1971. A memorial to the 56 signers was dedicated in 1984 in Washington, D.C. The new One World Trade Center building is 1776 feet tall, symbolizing the year the Declaration was signed.
Popular culture
The adoption of the Declaration has been shown in many films, musicals, and songs. It has also appeared in video games and books, showing its lasting impact on American culture.
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