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 the 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 political connections 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.
The final draft of that paragraph substituted some of the language of Richard Henry Lee’s original resolution proposing independence, but at the same time retained some of the elegance of Jefferson’s prose. Most important, with the exception of the addition of the words “with the firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,” Jefferson’s concluding sentence remained unaltered. Americans had frequently referred to their “Lives” and their “Fortunes” in describing their commitment to resisting British tyranny, but Jefferson’s addition of “our sacred Honor,” creating a triad of commitment, gave to the final sentence of the Declaration, as Pauline Maier has observed, “a dignity and a mellifluousness as pleasing to the mind as it is to the ear.”9
How did Jefferson respond to his colleagues’ changes? Somewhat surprisingly, given his generally cool public demeanor, Jefferson proved a remarkably thin-skinned author. He complained to all who would listen about the “mutilations” from which his original draft suffered. And he was sufficiently upset that he wrote out in hand multiple copies of his original draft and sent them to friends in Virginia asking them “whether it is better or worse for the Critics.” Richard Henry Lee, a recipient of one of Jefferson’s copies, responded to his friend saying that he wished “that the Manuscript had not been mangled as it is.” But Lee’s response may have been prompted simply by a desire to be polite to his Virginia colleague. The final product—Congress’s Declaration of Independence, not Jefferson’s—was in fact superior—more concise, more constrained, and, perhaps, even more elegant than the original.10
The Congress Declares Independence
On the morning of July 4, arising at around six o’clock, Thomas Jefferson noted that the temperature outside of his residence at Seventh and Market Streets was 68 degrees. It would be a comfortable day, with the temperature not rising above 76 degrees. In spite of the important business awaiting him, Jefferson spent at least some of that morning shopping, buying a new thermometer and seven pairs of women’s gloves, which he would later send to Monticello for his wife and, perhaps, his daughters.11
The Congress began its business at nine a.m., and according to Jefferson’s own notes of the session that day, the members continued meeting until sometime that evening, at which time the Declaration was “agreed to by the house, and signed by every member present except Mr. Dickinson.” How tempting it is to accept the word of the principal author of the Declaration on this matter. It conjures up in our minds the image of one of the most famous paintings in all of American history, by the American painter John Trumbull depicting the dramatic signing of the Declaration on that fateful day. To the extent that Americans have a mental picture of the founding of their nation, it most likely has been formed by Trumbull, who in 1818, forty-two years after the event, completed a composite portrait depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Trumbull had served alongside General Washington during the Revolution, and he subsequently made it his life’s work to “preserve and diffuse the memory of the noblest series of actions which have ever presented themselves in the history of man.” He began the painting in 1785 in Paris, where Thomas Jefferson helped him recollect the arrangement in the Assembly Room. The finished product depicts a much grander and more lavishly appointed space than the one in which the delegates actually deliberated. Most of the images of the delegates themselves were drawn from other portraits and sketches made long after the event, with the result that many of the delegates look much older than they were at the time. And, ironically, one of the men featured in Trumbull’s depiction of the signing was none other than John Dickinson, whom Jefferson himself singled out as the lone dissenter on that day.12
Alas, Jefferson’s account, which, like Trumbull’s rendering, was composed some years after the event he described took place, is no more accurate than the painting. The amount of scholarly effort devoted to determining the exact time and sequence of events surrounding the adoption of the Declaration has been both exhaustive and exhausting. The results of that research yield a picture that is far less dramatic than the scene depicted by Trumbull. Indeed, the events immediately following the adoption of the Declaration seem a bit anticlimactic.13
Contrary to Jefferson’s recollection, most of the evidence available to us suggests that the delegates had nearly completed their discussion of the Declaration by the end of the day on July 3, and that, at most, only a few hours were needed on July 4 to complete the business. And once the delegates had approved the Declaration, rather than bursting out of the Pennsylvania State House and trumpeting the results of their labors, they instead spent the remainder of the day dealing with a wide range of mostly mundane issues, including a decision to transport quantities of flint from Rhode Island to New York, the appointment of commissioners for Indian affairs for the mid-Atlantic colonies, the appointment of an additional private secretary for John Hancock and a decision to pay “3 dollars and 54–90ths” to the express rider who had brought dispatches from Trenton, New Jersey, to the Congress. Given the volume of business before the Congress that day, the best guess is that the Declaration was approved around eleven that morning.14
Although Jefferson singled out John Dickinson as the only dissenter regarding the Declaration’s adoption, he most likely confused Dickinson’s eloquent, if unsuccessful, opposition to Richard Henry Lee’s resolution for independence on July 2 with the delegates’ vote on the Declaration. Indeed, although the congressional journal does make it clear that the committee of the whole approved the document, we have no record of a formal vote or even a debate on the Declaration. Nor does examining the list of signers (and nonsigners) give us much of a clue about whether there was any substantial opposition to the Declaration expressed on that day. It appears likely that John Hancock was the only member of the Congress who signed the document on July 4, with Secretary Charles Thomson adding his signature attesting to the validity of Hancock’s signature. One of the reasons for the agonizing delay in voting on independence during the months of May and June was the nearly universal agreement among the delegates (except, perhaps for the always impatient John Adams) that all of the colonies—or at least as many as possible—be brought around to support that epochal decision. And on July 4 the New York delegates were still obliged by the instructions of their legislature to sit on their hands.15
The now-familiar Declaration of Independence begins with the words: “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.” But on July 4, the delegates to the Continental Congress were not in a position to inscribe those words on a final, parchment copy. Like the New York delegates themselves, they would have to sit on their hands and wait for the approval of the New York Provincial Congress. Finally, on July 9, the New York legislature added its assent, freeing New York’s delegates to the Congress to join their colleagues in endorsing the resolution for independence. Congress received official word of New York’s decision on July 15, and on July 19, the delegates ordered “that the Declaration passed on the 4th be fairly engrossed.” In the margins of the journal recording that action, Thomson added: “Engrossed on parchment with the title and stile of ‘The Unanimous Declara
tion of the 13 United States of America,’ and that the same when engrossed be signed by every member of Congress.”16
On August 2, most, but not all of the members of Congress signed the document, with those who happened to be absent on that day trickling in over the course of the next few weeks to add their signatures. The delay, although it may have lessened the drama of the moment, had some salutary effects. Pennsylvania’s Robert Morris, perhaps America’s wealthiest merchant, had deliberately absented himself in order to avoid casting a negative vote on independence on July 2. By August 2 he had come around and affixed his signature to the document, an enormously important act, for he would be primarily responsible for overseeing the financing of America’s revolutionary war effort. Similarly, George Read, the Delaware delegate voting against the resolution for independence on July 2 (thereby necessitating Caesar Rodney’s overnight ride to break the tie in the delegation and move it on the side of independence), had by August 2 also come around and signed the parchment document. The fact that men like Morris and Read had initially opposed independence, but eventually signed the Declaration, speaks volumes about the anguish that many delegates to the Congress, and many throughout America, felt about the decision for independence. “Reluctant revolutionists” they may have been, but, like John Dickinson, who refused to sign, they were not reluctant patriots. Although they had continued to advocate reconciliation rather than revolution on July 4, once the country had decided on revolution (and, in Morris’s case, after he had time to think about the consequences of not endorsing the decision), they worked tirelessly to make sure that that decision would prove to be the correct one.17
Several other delegates, absent from the Congress on July 2 or July 4, added their names to the document once they arrived later that summer. The tardiest of the group, Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire, was not elected to the Congress until the fall of 1776 and did not show up in Philadelphia until November. He was the last signer of the Declaration, on November 4, 1776.18
If the business of the signing of the Declaration proceeded somewhat sluggishly, the Congress was much more aggressive about announcing their actions on July 4 to the world. Immediately after the delegates approved the Declaration on the morning of July 4, they sent a copy of it to John Dunlap, publisher of the Pennsylvania Packet, asking him to print two hundred copies as a single-page broadside to be sent to the various legislatures, conventions and revolutionary committees in order that “it be proclaimed in each of the United States.” As the document was being printed, John Hancock wrote to each of the states asking them to take the steps necessary to have the document “proclaimed in your Colony in such Way & Manner as you shall judge best.” He added that “the important Consequences resulting to the American States from this Declaration of independence . . . will naturally suggest the Propriety of proclaiming it in such a Mode as that the People may be universally informed of it.”19
Although historians have had differing opinions on whether Jefferson had consciously written the Declaration in a style that would facilitate its being read aloud to large public gatherings, its elegance and relative brevity—at only 1,337 words it could just fit on a single printed page—made its distribution and public reading much easier. There is some evidence that an unofficial copy of the document was read near the Pennsylvania State House on the evening of July 4, but the official readings of the Declaration began on July 8, not only in Philadelphia, but also in Easton, Pennsylvania, and in Trenton, New Jersey. The July 8 Philadelphia reading was a dramatic affair indeed. It began with the Committees of Safety and of Inspection—both of them committees that had been in the radical vanguard of Pennsylvania’s internal revolution—marching to the State House Yard. There, John Nixon, a lieutenant colonel commanding a Philadelphia battalion and a member of the radical Philadelphia Committee of Safety, had the honor of being the first person to read aloud the Declaration on an official occasion. His reading was greeted with “general applause and heart-felt satisfaction” by the “very large number of the inhabitants of the City and County” assembled there. John Adams, describing the event to Maryland’s Samuel Chase, reported, “The Battallions paraded on the common, and gave Us the Feu de Joy, notwithstanding the Scarcity of Powder. The Bells rung all Day, and almost all night.”20
The Pennsylvania Evening Post was apparently the first newspaper to publish the Declaration, on Saturday, July 6. But from that time forward, the news spread quickly, both in print and by word of mouth. Perhaps the most dramatic unveiling of America’s call for independence came in New York City, on July 9, when General George Washington ordered officers of his Continental Army to engage in public readings of the Declaration to their troops, with the British “constantly in view.” Washington believed that such readings would “serve as a free incentive to every officer, and soldier, to act with Fidelity and Courage, . . . knowing that now the peace and safety of his Country depends (under God) solely on the success of our arms. And that he is now in the service of a State, possessed of sufficient power to reward his merit, and advance him to the highest Honors of a free Country.” The ceremonies in New York were not confined to dignified public readings. That same evening a mob in the city toppled an equestrian statue of George III, cutting off the head. According to one observer, “the lead from which this monument was made is to be run into bullets, to assimilate with the brain of our infatuated adversaries.” And, in fact, the patriot army did make good use of the 4,000 pounds of lead in the statue, melting it down to make 42,000 musket bullets.21
However joyous the New York celebration of the symbolic demise of George III may have been, General Washington, looking out onto New York harbor at the ever-increasing number of British warships anchored there, realized that the battle had only begun. By mid-August Washington’s army of only a little over 10,000 militiamen and a virtually nonexistent patriot navy found themselves facing a fleet of seventy British warships and over 32,000 troops. By mid-September the British had occupied all of New York City, with Washington’s army fleeing north of the city. A year later, the British army marched unopposed into Philadelphia, occupying the city and causing members of the Continental Congress to scurry westward, first to a temporary capital in Lancaster and a few weeks later to York, Pennsylvania. America’s citizens, their political leaders and, especially, a beleaguered continental army were realizing just how daunting their commitment of their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor was.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I HAVE SPENT the past forty-five years teaching courses on the coming of the American Revolution, and the past four years writing this book. During this time, my understanding of the dynamic driving America’s audacious leap toward independence has been shaped by the works of hundreds of scholars who have written on aspects of this subject over the course of the past two centuries. I have made a conscientious effort to acknowledge my debt to those scholars in the extensive Notes section of this book.
My longtime Penn History Department colleague Bruce Kuklick is not only a dear friend, but my most perceptive and demanding critic. In his reading of this book, as in his reading of my earlier works, he has offered me exceptionally helpful advice; I may never be able to meet fully his high, critical standards, but I promise to keep trying! Professor Pauline Maier has also once again proven an insightful and generous colleague. I have assigned her book, From Resistance to Revolution, in my course on the American Revolution every year during my career as a teacher at the University of Pennsylvania, and in writing this book, I have relied heavily on her outstanding work on the Declaration of Independence; I am grateful to her for her critical reading of the chapters in this book on that subject. Whenever I have a question about life in eighteenth-century Philadelphia, I immediately shoot off an e-mail to Professor Billy G. Smith of Montana State University. Professor Smith always responds promptly and, after discarding the scatological information included in his response, I am always much wiser as a consequence of the exchange.
This is
the second book in which I have benefitted from the superb editorial skills of Tim Bartlett. Although both Tim and I had to suffer through a summer in 2012 in which our Philadelphia Phillies put on a dismal performance, Tim’s performance as editor—his impressive intellect and his sensitive handling of a sometimes cranky author—was first rate as always. Tim Bartlett’s assistant, Kaitlyn Zafonte, facilitated this project in countless ways, particularly in helping me with the task of choosing the most appropriate illustrations for the book. Although I have never laid eyes on Norman Mac-Afee, in the final stages of the editorial process it seemed like we were living together, each of us working at least twelve hours a day over the course of nearly two months. The phrase “copy editor” does not begin to describe the important role that Norman—an accomplished writer and artist himself—played in shaping the style and substance of this book. I am deeply grateful to him for the combination of historical insight, literary grace and craftsmanship that he brought to this project. I am also indebted to Melissa Veronesi of Basic Books not only for her highly competent support during the final stages of production of the book, but also for her forbearance as I continued to make changes in the text and notes right up to the last minute!
I have taught thousands of undergraduates during my career at Penn, but I have never taught an undergraduate whose passion for the founding period of American history was as great as that of Alicia DeMaio. It has been my great pleasure to teach her in several courses at Penn, as well as directing her undergraduate honors thesis. But now, at the end of her undergraduate career, I have also been able to exploit both her expertise and her love of history by asking her to serve as my fact-checker and “footnote fixer.” Her efficiency in those tasks easily equals her superb skills as a student of history.
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