The Declaration of Independence: A History
This site from the National Archives and Records Administration outlines the history of the Declaration from 1776 to the present. The lengthy text description discusses in depth the beginnings of the declaration and later tells the story of its travels to various parts of the country.
The site also includes a date and location list for the numerous sites the declaration has visited. The long narrative is well written.
The site also includes a bibliography, numerous declaration facts, and a list of the broadside locations.
This site from the National Archives and Records Administration outlines the history of the Declaration from 1776 to the present. The lengthy text description discusses in depth the beginnings of the declaration and later tells the story of its travels to various parts of the country.
The site also includes a date and location list for the numerous sites the declaration has visited. The long narrative is well written.
The site also includes a bibliography, numerous declaration facts, and a list of the broadside locations.
The Written Style of the Declaration of Independence
This unique page offers an analytical look at the use of the English language in the declaration. This lengthy scholarly piece gives a great look at the power and the meaning of the language used in the declaration. The author sums up his piece by calling the Declaration of Independence "perhaps the most masterfully written state paper of Western civilization." A good read for students and especially English teachers.
This unique page offers an analytical look at the use of the English language in the declaration. This lengthy scholarly piece gives a great look at the power and the meaning of the language used in the declaration. The author sums up his piece by calling the Declaration of Independence "perhaps the most masterfully written state paper of Western civilization." A good read for students and especially English teachers.
The Virginia Declaration of Rights
Mason had earlier written the Virginia Declaration of Rights that strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson.
Mason had earlier written the Virginia Declaration of Rights that strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson.
Drafting Documents
This site from the Library of Congress is small but informative and details the story of the drafting of the document in Philadelphia.
This site from the Library of Congress is small but informative and details the story of the drafting of the document in Philadelphia.
Biographies of America's Founding Fathers
This site offers a good amount of information about the Founding Fathers of the United States. The site also includes pictures and links for more information.
This site offers a good amount of information about the Founding Fathers of the United States. The site also includes pictures and links for more information.
Declaration Song
The 'Declaration Sing-Along,' a short version of 'The Declaration of Independence Song,' is a free download to help students learn and recite the key words of the Declaration of Independence.
The 'Declaration Sing-Along,' a short version of 'The Declaration of Independence Song,' is a free download to help students learn and recite the key words of the Declaration of Independence.
dec·la·ra·tion of in·de·pen·dence
"A formal statement asserting freedom: a proclamation by which a country, group, or people asserts publicly that it has become independent of a governing power"
With the War for Independence over a year old and hope for a peaceful resolution nonexistent, the Continental Congress appointed a Committee of Five—including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin—to draft a document "declar[ing] the causes which impel [the American colonies] to the separation." Thirty-three-year-old Jefferson composed the initial draft, completing it in seventeen days.
The committee submitted its draft to Congress on June 28, 1776, and on July 2, Congress voted for independence.
Two days later, after numerous edits, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence by unanimous vote.
The committee submitted its draft to Congress on June 28, 1776, and on July 2, Congress voted for independence.
Two days later, after numerous edits, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence by unanimous vote.
July 4, 1776
The Unanimous Declaration of the
Thirteen United States of America
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the
causes which impel them to the separation.
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.
—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
(NOW PAY CLOSE ATTENTION HERE:)
—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless
suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he hasutterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimableto them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from
the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance
with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness hisinvasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the
Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations
hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing
Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offces, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offces, and sent hither swarms of Offcers to harrass our
people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and
unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should
commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein
an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally
he Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against
their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves
by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms:
Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose characteris thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.
We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress,
Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,
do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and
declare, 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 politicians connection
between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Georgia
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Maryland
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone,
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
Pennsylvania
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
New York
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
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