Social studies
Album the
Independatio
n of United
States
By: Mia R.
The Declaration of Independence, formally
titled The unanimous Declaration of the
thirteen united States of America, is the
founding document of the United States. On
July 4, 1776, it was adopted unanimously by
the 56 delegates to the Second Continental
Congress, who had convened at the
Pennsylvania State House, later
renamed Independence Hall, in the colonial
era capital of Philadelphia. The declaration
explains to the world why the Thirteen
Colonies regarded themselves as
independent sovereign states no longer
subject to British colonial rule.
The 56 delegates who signed the
Declaration of Independence came to be
known as the nation's Founding Fathers,
and the Declaration has become one of the
most circulated, reprinted, and influential
documents in world history.
The Second Continental Congress charged
the Committee of Five, including John
Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas
Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger
Sherman, with authoring the Declaration.
Adams, a leading proponent of
independence, persuaded the Committee of
Five to charge Jefferson with writing the
document's original draft, which the Second
Continental Congress then edited. Jefferson
largely wrote the Declaration in isolation
between June 11 and June 28, 1776, from
the second floor of a three-story home he
was renting at 700 Market Street in
Philadelphia.
The Declaration was a formal explanation of
why the Continental Congress voted to
declare American independence from
the Kingdom of Great Britain, a year after
the American Revolutionary War began in
April 1775. Two days prior to the
Declaration's unanimous adoption, the
Second Continental Congress unanimously
passed the Lee Resolution, which
established the consensus of the Congress
that the British had no governing authority
over the Thirteen Colonies.
After ratifying the text on July 4, Congress
issued the Declaration of Independence in
several forms. It was published as the
printed Dunlap broadside that was widely
distributed. The Declaration was first read
to the public simultaneously at noon on July
8, 1776, in three exclusively designated
locations: Easton, Pennsylvania;
Philadelphia; and Trenton, New Jersey.[2]
Jefferson's original draft is currently
preserved at the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C., complete
with changes made by Adams and Benjamin
Franklin, and Jefferson's notes of changes
made by Congress. The best-known version
of the Declaration is the signed copy now
displayed at the National Archives in
Washington, D.C., which is popularly
regarded as the official document; this
copy, engrossed by Timothy Matlack, was
ordered by Congress on July 19 and signed
primarily on August 2, 1776.[3][4]
The Declaration justified the independence
of the United States by listing 27 colonial
grievances against King George III and by
asserting certain natural and legal rights,
including a right of revolution. Its original
purpose was to announce independence,
and references to the text of the declaration
were few in the following years. On
November 19, 1863, following the Battle of
Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle of
the American Civil War, Abraham
Lincoln made the Declaration the
centerpiece of his Gettysburg Address, a
brief but powerful and enduring 271-word
statement dedicating what is
now Gettysburg National Cemetery.[5]
The Declaration of Independence has proven
an influential and globally impactful
statement on human rights, particularly its
second sentence: "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." Stephen Lucas called
the Declaration of Independence "one of the
best-known sentences in the English
language."[6] Historian Joseph Ellis has
written that the document contains "the
most potent and consequential words in
American history".
