📜The Declaration of Independence

July 4, 1776 — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Declaration of Independence is the founding document of the United States. Adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, it formally announced the separation of the thirteen American colonies from Great Britain and set out a theory of government based on natural rights and the consent of the governed. Its most famous sentence — "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" — remains the moral center of the American republic.

The Road to Independence

Relations between the colonies and Britain had been deteriorating for more than a decade by the summer of 1776. Parliament's attempts to tax the colonies after the French and Indian War — the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767, the Tea Act of 1773 — were met with boycotts, riots, and the destruction of British tea in Boston Harbor. Britain responded with the Coercive Acts of 1774. Armed conflict broke out at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. By the spring of 1776, the fighting had already gone on for over a year, and many colonial leaders believed that reconciliation was no longer possible.

The Committee of Five

On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed a five-man committee — Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston — to draft a formal declaration. Adams later recalled that the committee chose Jefferson to write the first draft because of his "happy talent of composition and singular felicity of expression." Jefferson wrote the draft largely alone over 17 days in a rented second-floor room on Market Street in Philadelphia. The committee made small edits; Congress then debated the draft for three days before adopting it with further changes — notably striking a passage condemning the slave trade.

Structure of the Document

The Declaration has four parts. The introduction explains why a formal statement is necessary. The preamble lays out a theory of government: all men are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. When a government becomes destructive of those ends, the people have the right to alter or abolish it.

The body is a 27-count indictment of King George III, listing specific grievances from quartering troops to suspending legislatures. The conclusion formally dissolves political connection with Britain and pledges the signers' "Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

Signing and Signers

Congress adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776, but most of the 56 delegates did not sign the formal parchment copy until August 2. The first to sign was John Hancock, president of the Congress, whose signature was so large and prominent that "John Hancock" became American slang for a signature. The youngest signer was Edward Rutledge of South Carolina at 26; the oldest was Benjamin Franklin at 70. By signing, they were committing an act of treason punishable by death if Britain won the war.

Lasting Impact

The Declaration did not immediately make America independent — that took eight years of war and formal British recognition in the Treaty of Paris (1783). But its ideas have reverberated ever since. Abolitionists cited it in the campaign to end slavery. The Seneca Falls Declaration of 1848 adapted its language for women's rights. Abraham Lincoln regarded the Declaration, not the Constitution, as the true founding statement of American purpose — a view he made explicit in the Gettysburg Address.

Quick Facts

• Two of the signers — John Adams and Thomas Jefferson — later became the second and third presidents. Both died on July 4, 1826, exactly fifty years after the adoption of the Declaration.
• The original parchment is displayed at the National Archives alongside the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
• The phrase "pursuit of happiness" was substituted by Jefferson for "property" in John Locke's earlier formulation of natural rights.
• July 4 — Independence Day — has been a federal holiday since 1870 and a paid federal holiday since 1938.