The formality and skill of the engrossed copy strengthened the persuasiveness of the Declaration by distancing its arguments from any individual. The document not only helped protect the identities of the signers—the names were kept secret until —but it also announced the official standing of the new government by giving sophisticated visual expression to its collective voice. The collection of signatures began on August 2, John Hancock, the president of the Congress, was the first to sign the document.
The prominent placement of his large, ornate signature has come to represent patriotism and defiance in the face of British rule. Other delegates then added their names, signing below the text in accordance with the geographic location of the state they represented. Some delegates signed days later while a few refused to sign at all.
The 56 signers became elevated in public memory more than the other delegates to the Continental Congresses. Their commitment to freedom and the birth of a new nation endowed them with almost mythical agency in the founding of the country. For instance, as Michael J. Hancock writes his post John Hancock and His Signature , a bounty was rumored to have been levied against John Hancock for his bold signature. Meanwhile, Timothy Matlack remains a minor character in the story of American independence despite the physical trace of his hand being clearly visible in every word of the Declaration of Independence.
To be sure, the very concealment of his identity speaks to the artistry of his pen. I wonder, was a handwritten version sent to King George? What was actually presented to him?
And was it also signed? There would be no reconciliation. Even now, if you look at issues of voter suppression, we are still wrestling with its consequences. How did the founding fathers view equality? And how did these diverging interpretations emerge? But after the Revolution succeeded, Americans began reading that famous phrase another way. It now became a statement of individual equality that everyone and every member of a deprived group could claim for himself or herself.
With each passing generation, our notion of who that statement covers has expanded. It is that promise of equality that has always defined our constitutional creed. At different moments, the Virginia colonists had tried to limit the extent of the slave trade, but the British crown had blocked those efforts. But Virginians also knew that their slave system was reproducing itself naturally.
They could eliminate the slave trade without eliminating slavery. That was not true in the West Indies or Brazil. To make any claim of this nature would open them to charges of rank hypocrisy that were best left unstated. If the founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, thought slavery was morally corrupt, how did they reconcile owning slaves themselves, and how was it still built into American law?
Two arguments offer the bare beginnings of an answer to this complicated question. The first is that the desire to exploit labor was a central feature of most colonizing societies in the Americas, especially those that relied on the exportation of valuable commodities like sugar, tobacco, rice and much later cotton.
Cheap labor in large quantities was the critical factor that made these commodities profitable, and planters did not care who provided it — the indigenous population, white indentured servants and eventually African slaves — so long as they were there to be exploited.
To say that this system of exploitation was morally corrupt requires one to identify when moral arguments against slavery began to appear. One also has to recognize that there were two sources of moral opposition to slavery, and they only emerged after One came from radical Protestant sects like the Quakers and Baptists, who came to perceive that the exploitation of slaves was inherently sinful. The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence—written largely by Jefferson—in Philadelphia on July 4 , a date now celebrated as the birth of American independence.
Even after the initial battles in the Revolutionary War broke out, few colonists desired complete independence from Great Britain, and those who did—like John Adams— were considered radical. Things changed over the course of the next year, however, as Britain attempted to crush the rebels with all the force of its great army. In his message to Parliament in October , King George III railed against the rebellious colonies and ordered the enlargement of the royal army and navy.
Livingston of New York—to draft a formal statement justifying the break with Great Britain. That document would become known as the Declaration of Independence. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr.
Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections…. I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress. As Jefferson drafted it, the Declaration of Independence was divided into five sections, including an introduction, a preamble, a body divided into two sections and a conclusion. Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence later on the Fourth of July though most historians now accept that the document was not signed until August 2.
The Declaration of Independence became a significant landmark in the history of democracy. In addition to its importance in the fate of the fledgling American nation, it also exerted a tremendous influence outside the United States, most memorably in France during the French Revolution. Together with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights , the Declaration of Independence can be counted as one of the three essential founding documents of the United States government.
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