By July 1776, Great Britain and its 13 colonies on North America’s eastern seaboard had been at war for more than a year; they would remain so until 1783.
Although long revered as an “American scripture”, the Declaration of Independence actually “began its life as a press release”, with a limited, pragmatic purpose, writes the historian Michael D. Hattem. The Second Continental Congress, a committee of delegates from 13 of the colonies convened in Philadelphia, wanted a formal document to justify their rebellion to the world, and to secure foreign military alliances.
At the time, some thought it less important than Congress’ decision on 2 July to vote for independence. John Adams, later the second US president, wrote to his wife that 2 July, not 4 July, should be celebrated as a great anniversary, “solemnised with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more”.
What does the document say?
That the 13 colonies declare themselves free from British colonial rule, to administer themselves as the “united States of America” (a phrase coined earlier that year). The Declaration’s famous preamble asserts: “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.”
It then outlines Americans’ grievances against Britain and King George III. Complaining that the states have informed “our British brethren” of these grievances, to no avail, it proclaims that the 13 states therefore have no choice but to sever “all political connection” with Britain.
How had the two sides come to be at war?
Relations had deteriorated sharply since Britain’s victory over France in the Seven Years’ War in 1763. Defending the American frontier from France and its Native American allies had brought Britain to near-bankruptcy. The colonies, with a fast-growing population of some two million, paid virtually no taxes to the home country, while heavily taxed Britain paid for their defence. King George III and his ministers looked to raise revenues; Parliament passed a series of taxes, including the Stamp Act (1765) and Townshend Acts (1767). They believed Parliament had full authority to do so.
The colonists thought such laws had no legitimacy because they lacked representation in Parliament, and fiercely resisted, launching boycotts and protests. Tensions built, and exploded during the Boston Massacre (1770) and the Boston Tea Party (1773).
In response, Britain imposed the punitive Coercive Acts (1774), closing Boston Harbour and stripping Massachusetts of self-governance. Violence escalated, and in April 1775 war broke out, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord – dubbed by Ralph Waldo Emerson “the shot heard round the world”.
Was independence inevitable?
At the start of the war, most on the American side envisaged it not as a war of independence, but as a temporary defence of what they saw as their legal rights as British citizens. In July 1775, Congress sent the Olive Branch Petition, a direct plea to King George III, which explicitly denied wanting independence. The king refused to look at it, and issued the Proclamation of Rebellion, declaring the colonists traitors and hiring 30,000 German mercenaries to help crush them.
In January 1776 in Philadelphia, the English radical Thomas Paine published “Common Sense”, a pamphlet arguing that America should demand outright independence. It sold in large numbers, and proved very influential. George Washington, the commander of the Continental Army, declared it “unanswerable”. The colonists also realised that they needed help from foreign powers, notably France, and wouldn’t get it if they remained loyal British subjects.
How was the Declaration of Independence written?
After the independence resolution was proposed, in June 1776, Congress appointed the Committee of Five (John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman) to draft the Declaration. It was first written by Jefferson, largely by candlelight, over a period of 17 days. The other four made minor changes; it was then edited by Congress. The revised text was approved on 4 July, and most of the 56 Founding Fathers who signed it did so on 2 August.
What role did the Declaration play at the time?
In Philadelphia, it was printed by John Dunlap (today, 26 of these “Dunlap Broadsides” are believed to exist); and on 6 July, it was reproduced in the Pennsylvania Evening Post. This triggered an extraordinary public response: public readings were accompanied by cheering and cannon fire, as well as the destruction of royal symbols such as the king’s coats of arms; in New York, it was read to troops serving in Washington’s army, who tore down a lead statue of George III on horseback and melted it into musket balls.
The first anniversary celebrations took place in 1777. Massachusetts was the first state to make 4 July an official day of celebration, in 1781.
What is its legacy?
The Declaration of Independence is one of the most important documents in human history. It inspired the French Revolution’s Declaration of the Rights of Man, which Jefferson helped draft. Dozens of independence declarations from Venezuela (1811) to Vietnam (1945) echo or directly copy its language. Abraham Lincoln thought it expressed the true principles of the United States, and referred in his 1863 Gettysburg Address to “a nation conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”. Martin Luther King Jr, in his “I Have a Dream” speech, called it a “promissory note” – and demanded that Americans “cash this cheque”.
Thomas Jefferson: tainted hero
John Adams said of the Declaration of Independence that there was “not an idea in it but what had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before”. Jefferson himself said it did not aim at “originality of principle or sentiment”; rather, it was “an expression of the American mind”.
Although the exact influences remain a subject for scholarly discussion, the most obvious sources for it included Paine’s “Common Sense”, George Mason’s draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and England’s 1689 Bill of Rights. Jefferson also adapted John Locke’s argument that individuals have inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and property” – substituting “the pursuit of happiness” – and Locke’s notion that government is based on a social contract, which, when broken, authorises rebellion.
Jefferson, America’s third president, has long been both a national hero and a contested figure, because he was a scion of Virginia’s planter class who owned more than 610 slaves and fathered children with one of them, Sally Hemings. (“How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” asked Dr Johnson in his pamphlet “Taxation no Tyranny”.) The Declaration also complains of British alliances with “the merciless Indian Savages”.