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 […]
Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (1960)
Editor’s Note: Adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 14, 1960, this declaration was largely considered a watershed in the movement towards the end of colonialism. Eighty nine member states voted to approve the declaration; none opposed it, though there were nine abstentions, including the U.S. Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries […]
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, […]
