The Declaration of Independence – July 4, 1776
Editor’s Note: In American Scripture, eminent scholar Pauline Maier characterizes the July 4, 1776 Declaration originally as “a workaday document” that came to be “in the grubby world of 18th century politics.” Maybe so, but it has long since come to be seen as “a statement of values that more than any other expresses not why we […]
Declaration of Independence — Reported Draft, Submitted by Committee of Five to Second Continental Congress (1776)
Editor’s note: This draft of our Declaration of Independence is the one submitted by the Committee of Five — John Adams of Massachusetts and Roger Sherman of Connecticut; Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York; and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia — to the Second Continental Congress, which then made significant changes. A […]
New York Mechanics Declaration of Independence (May 29, 1776)
Editor’s Note: This local declaration of independence — which preceded the July 4, 1776 document was issued in May 1776, signed by manual laborers in the Mechanick-Hall, New York — requested that New York’s contingent in the Second Continental Congress formally vote for independence. This eloquent local declaration calls for a pan-colonial declaration of independence. New […]
Vermont Declaration of Independence — January 15, 1777
Editor’s Note: Five months before it became known as Vermont — a roughish translation of the French for ‘green mountain’ — the territory was at its origins ‘New Connecticut.’ In January 1777, delegates gathered in Westminster to declare formally their independence both from the British crown and from the New York colony (Congress didn’t recognize it as a […]
Preamble to Virginia Constitution – a Declaration of Grievances (June 29, 1776)
Editor’s Note: Ever wonder where Jefferson came up with the grievances enumerated in his first draft of the Declaration? You need look no further than the Preamble he composed for the Virginia Constitution. While Jefferson was not present at the proceedings of Virginia’s constitutional constitution, such was his passion for constitution making that he sent the convention delegates a constitution […]
Jefferson’s First Draft of the Declaration of Independence (1776)
Editor’s note: While Jefferson audaciously, and incorrectly, had etched on his tombstone the he was “author of the Declaration of Independence,” the best he can lay claim to is that he was the composer of the first draft. Would Americans of his day have been as galvanized and presented as united a front, if Jefferson’s draft had […]
A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)
Editor’s Note: The Summary View, Jefferson’s first manifesto, which served as great grist for Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of July 4, 1776, contains one of the most radical declarations of rights ever made. In the document Jefferson declares that we all have the right to expatriate — and that when we do, we have the right to establish society anew. […]
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (1775)
Editor’s note: Thomas Jefferson took his first stab at bona fide ‘Declaration creation’ with this document. Issued on July 6, 1775 by the Second Continental Congress, this declaration presaged in some ways the Declaration that the same Congress would proclaim on July 4, 1776. Credit for this declaration’s more temperate final version is given to John Dickenson, […]
