This famous painting of the presentation of the Declaration of Independence to Congress by American John Trumbull hangs in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
Few dates in world history can truly be called historic. For Americans and the world, one such date is July 4, 1776, the date the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence and American independence from Great Britain was declared.
The human experience on earth has been fraught with struggle, turmoil, war, and division. Some civilizations have fared better than others, but the overall picture of world history is one of the few oppressing the many. Most humans have lived under some form of oppression, whether it be by kings, queens, emperors, or tyrants. Examples of human societies living in freedom were sparse prior to 1776.
The fifty-six brave men who signed the Declaration of Independence and the colonial legislatures that sent them took America and the world on a new course, one where the liberty and dignity of the individual were declared as rights granted by God and, therefore, could not be taken away.
As the most famous passage of the Declaration declares: “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.”
The path to American independence started well before July 4, 1776. This story needs to be told and understood.
The Path to Revolution
Americans living under British rule in the eighteenth century had one of the highest standards of living in the world at the time. Although ruled by a king across the Atlantic Ocean, Americans considered themselves British and were under the protection of the British Crown.
The situation for the subjects of the thirteen British colonies in North America began to change after the French and Indian War ended in 1763. To pay for the war, the British began to levy taxes on the colonists. Colonists, who enjoyed a large degree of autonomy over their own affairs before this, had no say in the matter. They had no representation before their English monarch. This gave rise to the phrase “no taxation without representation” throughout the colonies.
Taxes, such as one on all paper products known as the Stamp Act, and a series of other taxes called the Townshend Acts that placed taxes on imports to the colonies on products such as china, glass, paint, and tea brought protests from many colonists. The pushback against these taxes grew and the remedy of choice for many colonists was to boycott British goods.
Increased unrest by colonists brought a greater presence of British soldiers, specifically around Boston. In 1770, five colonists were killed when British soldiers opened fire on unarmed men in an incident called the Boston Massacre.
In 1773, the British passed the Tea Tax, a law that gave favorable tax treatment to the British-owned East India Company, the result of which gave that company a virtual monopoly on tea in the colonies. On December 16, 1773, a group of about 60 colonists dressed as Mohawk Indians and organized by Samuel Adams and his group, the Sons of Liberty, dumped 342 chests of tea valued at about $18,000 into Boston Harbor. History remembers this event as the Boston Tea Party.
This brought a swift response from the British. In 1774, the British passed the Coercive Acts, or what the colonists called the Intolerable Acts. Essentially, it placed Massachusetts under martial law. The Intolerable Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping until restitution was made for the lost tea, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops. The quartering of troops took place mainly in unoccupied buildings, but Britain made the colonists pay for the expenses of their soldiers.
The First Continental Congress
The escalating tension with the British slowly brought unity between the thirteen colonies. In September 1774, fifty-five delegates representing every colony except Georgia met at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia (now Independence Hall) to discuss what steps to take in response to increased hostility. Some of American history’s most influential figures of the time were part of the First Continental Congress. This included George Washington, John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Jay, John Dickinson, John Hancock, and Patrick Henry.
At this stage, there was not a strong movement toward declaring independence from Britain. However, there needed to be some response to increased British authoritarianism. The areas in and around Boston had become the flashpoint for conflict. Suffolk County, Massachusetts, ordered citizens to ignore the Intolerable Acts, boycott British goods, and raise a militia. The First Continental Congress endorsed these actions. Congress went on to pass Articles of Association that called for a complete halt to the importation of British goods by December 1, 1774, if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed.
Finally, Congress passed a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, a document written by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania and sent directly to King George III. The document states, “The foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council.” Congress received no reply. In fact, the British declared their American colonies in open rebellion.
Congress adjourned on October 26, 1774, with an agreement to give Britain adequate time to respond. A Second Continental Congress was to be called if the situation did not improve.
The Shot Heard Round the World
While leaders of the colonies sought peaceful means to resolve their differences with the British, blood was shed in Massachusetts. By April 1775, King George III continued to order more soldiers to Boston. On the morning of April 19, 1775, British soldiers set out to seize caches of weapons held in the town of Concord, about twenty miles outside Boston. Warned the night before of the British movement by Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott, among other riders, a group of militiamen gathered at the nearby town of Lexington to oppose the British.
Nobody knows for sure who fired the first shot, but a shot was fired at Lexington. It would be called “the shot heard round the world” for its impact on history. When the smoke cleared, eight American Patriots lay dead. The British soldiers marched to Concord the same day, where a larger group of American militiamen met them. This time, the British took substantial casualties, with British soldiers retreating to Boston. The American Revolution began.
In 1843, ninety-one-year-old Captain Levi Preston gave an interview to a young journalist. Captain Preston was an American militiaman at Concord in 1775. Asked why he was there, Preston said simply, “Young man, what we meant in going for those red coats was this: we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.”
The Second Continental Congress
Congress was called to reconvene on May 10, 1775. Many of the delegates, including new members Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, learned of the events at Lexington and Concord on their way to Philadelphia.
Perhaps the most important decision reached by Congress was to appoint George Washington as commander-in-chief of the newly established Continental Army on June 15, 1775. The new army was tasked with opposing the most formidable military in the world. However, while Congress was preparing for a military struggle against the British, the body was not giving up on a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
To this end, Congress drafted two documents, the Olive Branch Petition and the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms, further attempts at reconciliation. King George III ignored them both.
On June 17, 1775, the biggest battle to date took place at Bunker Hill outside Boston. On October 18, 1775, British ships opened fire on the Massachusetts town of Falmouth, a town with Patriot sympathies, burning as many as 400 structures. The Revolutionary War continued.
Independence
In January 1776, one of American history’s most important pieces of writing was published. The pamphlet Common Sense by a British immigrant named Thomas Paine made the case for American independence. Per capita, it was the most-read piece of writing in American history. Because it was read by so many, fervor within the colonies for independence grew.
With colonists dying and Britain unwilling to engage in any dialog with the American colonies, colonial governments began instructing their delegates in Philadelphia to vote for independence. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced the following resolution – “Resolved: 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.”
On June 11, a vote on the resolution was delayed but a committee of five was appointed to draft a document to present to the world the reasons American independence was necessary. The group included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, and the thirty-three-year-old Virginian Thomas Jefferson.
The committee presented its draft of the document to Congress on June 28. Thomas Jefferson, regarded as the best writer in the group, was its primary author. He took inspiration from the Virginia Declaration of Rights written by George Mason just weeks earlier and the writings of seventeenth-century English philosopher John Locke.
Eighty-six changes were made to the Declaration after Jefferson’s original version, most minor ones. A few notable changes include the removal of the reference to slavery in the list of grievances against King George III after objections from the delegates of Georgia and South Carolina. Also, Benjamin Franklin changed Jefferson’s original words, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable,” to “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”
The original draft of the Declaration of Independence written in Thomas Jefferson’s own hand.
On July 2, 1776, a vote was taken on the Lee resolution for independence. Each state got one vote. Every state voted for independence except New York because its delegates were waiting for clear instructions from their legislature on how to proceed. John Adams believed for the rest of his life that July 2, not July 4, was the actual date American independence should be celebrated.
Editing and debate on the language of the Declaration of Independence took place throughout July 3 and into July 4. Finally, a vote was taken, and the Declaration was adopted.
The president of Congress, John Hancock, and the secretary of Congress, Charles Thomson, were the only two delegates to sign the Declaration of Independence on July 4. This first version was immediately sent to a local Philadelphia printer named John Dunlap so copies could be dispatched throughout the colonies. By July 5, these copies were being sent out. Most historians believe most delegates did not sign the Declaration of Independence until August 2, 1776.
On July 6, the Declaration was published in the Pennsylvania Evening Post, and by July 8, the first public reading of the Declaration took place in Philadelphia’s Independence Square. The Liberty Bell rang from the tower of the Pennsylvania State House to summon Philadelphians to the event.
George Washington was with the Continental Army in New York and had the Declaration of Independence read aloud to his troops on July 9. His order said, in part, the following: “The General hopes this important event will serve as a fresh incentive to every officer and soldier to act with fidelity and courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety of his country depends (under God) solely on the success of our arms.”
Washington knew that without an American victory in the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence would largely be a symbolic document. With that victory, the Declaration became transformational and the foundation of a country that has given more opportunity to more people than any other in history.
Around July 19, Timothy Matlack of Pennsylvania eloquently engrossed the language of the Declaration on parchment paper. This became the true Declaration, the one signed by the delegates, and the version behind glass today at the National Archives. Matlack also added the “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America” language in the title after all the states, including New York, agreed to ratify the language.
John Hancock was again the first to sign the engrossed Declaration on August 2. He signed in large script so “King George can read that without spectacles.” Upon signing, Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” This was no laughing matter at the time. By agreeing to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” every man who signed was committing treason against Britain. The punishment for treason was death.
Thomas Jefferson’s final words
1826 was the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Charles Carroll, the three living signers at the time, were invited to attend a celebration in Washington.
Eighty-three years old and gravely ill, Thomas Jefferson wrote his last letter dated June 24, 1826, to the mayor of Washington, declining the invitation.
Commenting on American Independence, he writes:
May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died within hours of each other on July 4, 1826.