Promoting and Protecting the Declaration of Independence

Once you’ve decided you’re no longer part of your home country, you gotta tell people for it to count.

For the American colonists who adopted their Declaration of Independence from England on July 4, 1776, that effort started the same day and continued for several weeks as word spread through the new nation and across the ocean to England.?

Declaring Independence

By the second year of the American Revolution, the colonies’ political leaders had ruled out a reconciliation with England. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution stating the 13 American colonies ought to be independent states. While the Continental Congress debated the resolution, it appointed a committee to draft a declaration outlining the reasons for the colonies’ desired separation from England.?

On June 11, Thomas Jefferson began writing the Declaration of Independence. John Adams and Benjamin Franklin edited his first draft before it was presented to Congress. After additional revisions, the delegates voted on July 2 to declare independence.?

Spreading the Word

On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress ratified the final language of the declaration. While most people think of the members then lining up to sign the document, that’s not how it happened. In its first act after the vote, Congress commissioned printer John Dunlap to begin typesetting and printing broadside sheets of the declaration’s text.?

Dunlap worked overnight to produce about 200 copies of the new declaration. The document, later known as the Dunlap broadsheet, was immediately dispatched by couriers to colonial governors, military leaders, and two representatives of the British crown.?

George Washington received a copy of the Declaration of Independence on July 6 in New York, and ordered the declaration read to his troops on July 9. Citizens who listened to the reading and were fired up by Jefferson’s prose marched downtown and tore down a statue of King George III that stood on Bowling Green in lower Manhattan. The statue fragments were later melted down for musket balls.??

Twenty-six copies of the Dunlap broadsheet survive today. The National Archives has a copy, the Library of Congress has two, another two are owned privately, and the rest are distributed among U.S. colleges, museums, and historical societies. Three copies are with the British National Archives in London.?

The Engrossed Declaration

As word filtered back to the Continental Congress on July 19 that the declaration had been ratified by the 13 colonial legislatures, it ordered the preparation of an engrossed copy—a formal document hand-written on parchment that’s closer to how people usually envision the declaration.?

The engrossed copy, 24 1/4 inches by 29 3/4 inches, was signed on August 2. John Hancock affixed his signature first, followed by state delegate members signing in geographic order with the northernmost state, New Hampshire, going first.??

The British Reaction

While the engrossed copy was being prepared and the text was printed in Colonial newspapers, the Dunlap broadside was crossing the Atlantic. Back on July 8, General William Howe, the British military commander in North America, had sent a copy to the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord George Germain.?

The declaration reached London in early August. Lord Germain had the likely less-than-ideal responsibility of sharing the news with King George III, and the declaration’s text was widely printed in British newspapers (with some editors adding sarcastic comments about the colonists).?

Back in America, General Howe and his brother, Vice Admiral Lord Richard Howe, held an unproductive peace discussion on September 11 with Hancock, Franklin, and Edward Rutledge of New York. After that discussion went nowhere, the Howes issued a proclamation saying the American declaration represented an “extravagant and inadmissible claim.”?

The King’s official response came during remarks before Parliament on October 31. The King reported that misguided and treasonous colonial leaders had renounced their allegiance to the crown. That said, the war was going well, George III expected support from other European nations, and the fighting would continue until the colonists came to their senses and ended the rebellion. Oh, and the King would be asking for more money to finance the war.?

Despite the King’s optimism in late 1776, the war’s momentum eventually shifted and the British forces surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1881.???

But back to the physical declaration.?

The Declaration Travels

After the signing, the engrossed copy of its Declaration of Independence was rolled up or folded and stored with other Congressional records. Over the course of the revolution, the Continental Congress moved several times as fighting came close to their location. In each instance, they brought the declaration with them as the parchment traveled from Philadelphia to Baltimore, back to Philadelphia, and then to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, York, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Princeton, New Jersey.?

After the Revolution, the declaration followed the national capital to New York for five years. It spent 10 years in Philadelphia before being brought to the new capital city, Washington, DC, from 1880-1814. As British forces threatened Washington during the War of 1812, the declaration was spirited away for safekeeping.?

Copying the Declaration

The next milestone in the declaration’s history was an 1823 engraving of the engrossed parchment by William Stone. The Stone engraving was produced widely and is likely the basis for reproductions that decorate schools and public buildings nationwide.?

Public Displays

The parchment copy of the declaration was then displayed in a number of settings that didn’t offer much protection. Perhaps the worst instance was hanging the document in the Patent Office in Washington from 1841 to 1876 under a skylight and across from a window that exposed the declaration to direct sunlight for part of the day.?

While the document was displayed at the 1876 U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, several people wrote that the lettering on the century-old document had faded significantly and several signatures could not be distinguished.?

Early conversation efforts included sandwiching the parchment between sheets of glass with a thin film to protect it, or storing it out of view.?

The declaration was transferred to the Library of Congress, where it was displayed for 31 years in a storage case featuring bronze doors that closed every night, double-paned plate glass, and a thin film to shield the parchment from light.?

During World War II, the declaration was moved via a guarded train to Fort Knox.?

The declaration was moved for the final time in 1952 when it was installed, alongside the engrossed copies of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as part of a newly built Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom.?

Today, the engrossed copy of the declaration contains little of its original ink and bears scars from previous restorations. At some point, someone added ink to John Hancock’s signature. Photos from 1940 show a handprint that did not appear in 1903 images.?

After being stored in helium for almost 50 years, the declaration was remounted in 2001 in aluminum and titanium display boxes filled with argon gas. In its new setting, the parchment enjoys a consistent temperature and humidity, as well as protection from light.?

But while the document’s text has faded, the importance of Jefferson’s words in creating a new nation remains indelible.?