Continental Congress (July 4, 1776) approved the wording for the Declaration of Independence and it was signed by John Hancock, President, and Charles Thomson, Secretary. By some reports possibly thirty-four delegates also signed. On July 19, Congress ordered it engrossed in script on parchment and on August 2, 1776, the delegates to Congress who remained in Philadelphia signed the parchment copy. The rest of the delegates returned to Philadelphia and completed signing it by January of 1777.
On July 8, 1776, the Declaration was read publicly for the first time outside of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, accompanied by the ringing of the Liberty Bell. On July 9, 1776, a copy of the Declaration was delivered to General George Washington in New York, who had it read to his troops. The citizens of New York then pulled the statue of King George and melted into musket balls. With the a few months, the Declaration was translated and printed in countries around the world:
<IN CONGRESS, 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, - 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 shewn 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 has utterly 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 inestimable to 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 his invasions 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 endeavoured 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 offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass 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 benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring
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 the 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 compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & 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 endeavoured 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 character is 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 political 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. - John Hancock
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Josiah Bartlett (Congregationalist)
William Whipple (Congregationalist)
Matthew Thornton (Presbyterian)
MASSACHUSETTS
John Hancock (Congregationalist)
Samuel Adams (Congregationalist)
John Adams (Congregationalist)
Robert Treat Paine (Congregationalist)
Elbridge Gerry (Episcopalian)
RHODE ISLAND
Stephen Hopkins (Episcopalian)
William Ellery (Congregationalist)
CONNECTICUT
Roger Sherman (Congregationalist)
Samuel Huntington (Congregationalist)
William Williams (Congregationalist)
Oliver Wolcott (Congregationalist)
NEW YORK
William Floyd (Presbyterian)
Philip Livingston (Presbyterian)
Francis Lewis (Episcopalian)
Lewis Morris (Episcopalian)
NEW JERSEY
Richard Stockton (Presbyterian)
John Witherspoon (Presbyterian)
Francis Hopkinson (Episcopalian)
John Hart (Presbyterian)
Abraham Clark (Presbyterian)
PENNSYLVANIA
Robert Morris (Episcopalian)
Benjamin Rush (Presbyterian)
Benjamin Franklin (Episcopalian/Presbyterian/Deist)
John Morton (Episcopalian)
George Clymer (Quaker/Episcopalian)
James Smith (Presbyterian)
George Taylor (Presbyterian)
James Wilson (Episcopalian/Presbyterian)
George Ross (Episcopalian)
DELAWARE
Caesar Rodney (Episcopalian)
George Read (Episcopalian)
Thomas McKean (Presbyterian)
MARYLAND
Samuel Chase (Episcopalian)
William Paca (Episcopalian)
Thomas Stone (Episcopalian)
Charles Carroll of Carrollton (Catholic)
VIRGINIA
George Wythe (Episcopalian)
Richard Henry Lee (Episcopalian)
Thomas Jefferson (Episcopalian)
Benjamin Harrison (Episcopalian)
Thomas Nelson, Jr. (Episcopalian)
Francis Lightfoot Lee (Episcopalian)
Carter Braxton (Episcopalian)
NORTH CAROLINA
William Hooper (Episcopalian)
Joseph Hewes (Quaker/Episcopalian)
John Penn (Episcopalian)
SOUTH CAROLINA
Edward Rutledge (Episcopalian)
Thomas Heyward, Jr. (Episcopalian)
Thomas Lynch, Jr. (Episcopalian)
Arthur Middleton (Episcopalian)
GEORGIA
Button Gwinnett (Episcopalian/Congregationalist)
Lyman Hall (Congregationalist)
George Walton (Episcopalian)> 1776CC005
As the parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence was being signed by the members of the Continental Congress, August 2, 1776, Samuel Adams declared:
<We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come.> 1776CC006
The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence paid a tremendous price, as 5 were arrested by the British as traitors, 12 had their homes looted and burned by the enemy, 17 lost their fortunes, 2 lost sons in the Continental Army and 9 fought and died during the Revolutionary War.
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1776CC005. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, wording approved by Continental Congress. Charles E. Kistler, This Nation Under God (Boston: Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press, 1924), p. 71. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (NJ: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1977), p. 309. "Our Christian Heritage," Letter from Plymouth Rock (Marlborough, NH: The Plymouth Rock Foundation), p. 8. D.P. Diffine, Ph.D., One Nation Under God-How Close a Separation? (Searcy, Arkansas: Harding University, Belden Center for Private Enterprise Education, 6th edition, 1992), p. 6.
1776CC006. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Samuel Adams, August 2, 1776, addressing the members of Congress after they had finished signing the parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence. Charles E. Kistler, This Nation Under God (Boston: Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press, 1924), p. 71. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (NJ: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1977), p. 309. "Our Christian Heritage," Letter from Plymouth Rock (Marlborough, NH: The Plymouth Rock Foundation), p. 8. Dan Valentine, Spirit of America-American Essays (Salt Lake City, UT: Geo. Mc Co., 1972), No. 9, p. 37. Charles W. Eliot, LL.D., ed., American Historical Documents 1000-1904 (New York: P.F. Collier & Son Company, The Harvard Classics, 1910), Vol. 43, pp. 160-165. United States Supreme Court, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 US 457, 458, 465-471, 36 L ed 226, (1892), Justice David Josiah Brewer. 6. "Our Christian Heritage," Letter from Plymouth Rock (Marlborough, NH: The Plymouth Rock Foundation), p. 6. D.P. Diffine, Ph.D., One Nation Under God-How Close a Separation? (Searcy, Arkansas: Harding University, Belden Center for Private Enterprise Education, 6th edition, 1992), p. 6. Stephen McDowell and Mark Beliles, "The Providential Perspective" (Charlottesville, VA: The Providence Foundation, P.O. Box 6759, Charlottesville, Va. 22906, January 1994), Vol. 9, No. 1, p. 2.