This Week in History

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence (aoc.gov)

This year marks the 236th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The above painting, by Revolutionary War veteran John Trumbull, is commonly confused to be the signing of the Declaration. It actually shows an event that took place weeks earlier: the presentation of the first draft.

On June 2, Virginian Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution in favor of independence from Great Britain. It was a huge step, fourteen months after the war began at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. But was the Continental Congress ready to formally declare their break from the mother country? They tabled Lee's resolution and instead, appointed the Committee of Five: Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. Partly because of his writing ability, the work of creating a draft went to Jefferson (it is still up for debate whether it was Adams, another committee member, or the Congress that had Jefferson author a declaration of independence). He produced a draft in about two weeks; much of the editing fell to Adams and Franklin.

The above image is Trumbull's glorified portrayal for what happened on June 28, 1776: Jefferson and the committee presented their draft to the Continental Congress. They tabled it, however. John Hancock and the other delegates wanted a unanimous vote on Lee's resolution. After Caesar Rodney rode overnight through a thunderstorm to break a tie (as seen on the back of the 1999 Delaware quarter), on July 2, the Continental Congress adopted Lee's resolution. Then, they went to work on the Declaration. Jefferson called the edits "depredations."

The edited document was copied, likely by Timothy Matlack (that name should sound familiar if you've seen National Treasure) and the rest is history.

But what does it all mean? In short, fifty-six men committed treason. Note that in the Trumbull painting there are no American flags on the wall. You can see the red and white flag of England and the Union Jack for Great Britain. The men believed in a cause greater than themselves and by affixing their signatures to the Declaration, they risked their lives for the freedoms they found valuable. As Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or surely we will all hang separately." The Declaration expressed the very cause that the colonies had been fighting for since April 1775--the king and Parliament abused the power of taxation, dissolved colonial representative bodies, forced colonists to quarter British troops, interfered with trade, and refused to hear previous petitions: "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."

Thus, the delegates to that solemn assembly in Philadelphia deemed it necessary to declare themselves as representatives of "Free and Independent States"--the United States of America. It was on August 2 that the delegates began to sign the great Declaration.