INDEPENDENCE, DECLARATION OF, INDIANOLA
INDEPENDENTS INDIANS, NORTH AMERICAN
INDEX INDICATOR
INDEX LIBRORUM PROHIBITORUM INDICTMENT
INDIA "INDIES, LAWS OF THE,"
INDIA, FRENCH INDIGO
INDIANA INDIUM
INDIANAPOLIS INDIVIDUALISM
INDIAN ARCHITECTURE INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES
INDIAN LAW INDO-CHINA, FRENCH
DIAN MUTINY, THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES
INDIAN OCEAN
INDEPENDENCE, DECLARATION OF, in United States history, the act (or
document) by which the thirteen original states of the Union broke their
colonial allegiance to Great Britain in 1776. The controversy preceding
the war (see AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, WAR OF) gradually shifted from one
primarily upon economic policy to one upon issues of pure politics and
sovereignty, and the acts of Congress, as viewed to-day, seem to have
been carrying it, from the beginning, inevitably into revolution; but
there was apparently no general and conscious drift toward independence
until near the close of 1775. The first colony to give official
countenance to separation as a solution of colonial grievances was North
Carolina, which, on the 12th of April 1776, authorized its delegates in
Congress to join with others in a declaration to that end. The first
colony to instruct its delegates to take the actual initiative was
Virginia, in accordance with whose instructions--voted on the 15th of
May--Richard Henry Lee, on the 7th of June, moved a resolution "that
these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and
independent States." John Adams of Massachusetts seconded the motion.
The conservatives could only plead the unpreparedness of public opinion,
and the radicals conceded delay on condition that a committee be
meanwhile at work on a declaration "to the effect of the said ...
resolution," to serve as a preamble thereto when adopted. This committee
consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger
Sherman and Robert R. Livingston. To Jefferson the committee entrusted
the actual preparation of the paper. On the 2nd of July, by a vote of 12
states--10 voting unanimously, New York not voting, and Pennsylvania and
Delaware casting divided ballots (3 votes in the negative)--Congress
adopted the resolution of independence; and on the 4th, Jefferson's
"Declaration." The 4th has always been the day celebrated;[1] the
decisive act of the 2nd being quite forgotten in the memory of the day
on which that act was published to the world. It should also be noted
that as Congress had already, on the 6th of December 1775, formally
disavowed allegiance to parliament, the Declaration recites its array of
grievances against the crown, and breaks allegiance to the crown.
Moreover, on the 10th of May 1776, Congress had recommended to the
people of the colonies that they form such new governments as their
representatives should deem desirable; and in the accompanying statement
of causes, formulated on the 15th of May, had declared it to be
"absolutely irreconcilable to reason and good conscience for the people
of these colonies now to take the oaths and affirmations necessary for
the support of any government under the crown of Great Britain," whose
authority ought to be "totally suppressed" and taken over by the
people--a determination which, as John Adams said, inevitably involved a
struggle for absolute independence, involving as it did the
extinguishment of all authority, whether of crown, parliament or nation.
Though the Declaration reads as "In Congress, July 4, 1776. The
unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America," New
York's adhesion was in fact not voted until the 9th, nor announced to
Congress until the 15th--the Declaration being unanimous, however, when
it was ordered, on the 19th, to be engrossed and signed under the above
title.[2] Contrary to the inference naturally to be drawn from the form
of the document, no signatures were attached on the 4th. As adopted by
Congress, the Declaration differs only in details from the draft
prepared by Jefferson; censures of the British _people_ and a noble
denunciation of slavery were omitted, appeals to Providence were
inserted, and verbal improvements made in the interest of terseness and
measured statement. The document is full of Jefferson's fervent spirit
and personality, and its ideals were those to which his life was
consecrated. It is the best known and the noblest of American state
papers. Though open to controversy on some issues of historical fact,
not flawless in logic, necessarily partisan in tone and purpose, it is a
justificatory preamble, a party manifesto and appeal, reasoned enough to
carry conviction, fervent enough to inspire enthusiasm. It mingles--as
in all the controversy of the time, but with a literary skill and
political address elsewhere unrivalled--stale disputation with
philosophy. The rights of man lend dignity to the rights of Englishmen,
and the broad outlook of a world-wide appeal, and the elevation of noble
principles, relieve minute criticisms of an administrative system.
Jefferson's political theory was that of Locke, whose words the
Declaration echoes. Uncritical critics have repeated John Adams's
assertion that its arguments were hackneyed: so they undoubtedly
were--in Congress, and probably little less so without,--but that is
certainly pre-eminent among its great merits. As Madison said, "The
object was to assert, not to discover truths." Others have echoed Rufus
Choate's phrase, that the Declaration is made up of "glittering and
sounding generalities of natural right." In truth, its long array of
"facts ... submitted to a candid world" had its basis in the whole
development of the relations between England and the colonies; every
charge had point in a definite reference to historical events, and
appealed primarily to men's reason; but the history is to-day forgotten,
while the fanciful basis of the "compact" theory does not appeal to a
later age. It should be judged, however, by its purpose and success in
its own time. The "compact" theory was always primarily a theory of
political ethics, a revolutionary theory, and from the early middle ages
to the French Revolution it worked with revolutionary power. It held up
an ideal. Its ideal of "equality" was not realized in America in
1776--nor in England in 1688--but no man knew this better than
Jefferson. Locke disclaimed for him in 1690[3] the shallower
misunderstandings still daily put upon his words. Both Locke and
Jefferson wrote simply of political equality, political freedom. Even
within this limitation, the idealistic formulas of both were at variance
with the actual conditions of their time. The variance would have been
greater had their phrases been applied as humanitarian formulas to
industrial and social conditions. The Lockian theory fitted beautifully
the question of colonial dependence, and was applied to that by America
with inexorable logic; it fitted the question of individual political
rights, and was applied to them in 1776, but not in 1690; it did not
apply to non-political conditions of individual liberty, a fact realized
by many at the time--and it is true that such an application would have
been more inconsistent in America in 1776 as regards the negroes than in
England in 1690 as regarded freemen. Beyond this, there is no pertinence
in the stricture that the Declaration is made up of glittering
generalities of natural right. Its influence upon American legal and
constitutional development has been profound. Locke, says Leslie
Stephen, popularized "a convenient formula for enforcing the
responsibility of governors"--but his theories were those of an
individual philosopher--while by the Declaration a state, for the first
time in history, founded its life on democratic idealism, pronouncing
governments to exist for securing the happiness of the people, and to
derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. It was a
democratic instrument, and the revolution a democratic movement; in
South Carolina and the Middle Colonies particularly, the cause of
independence was bound up with popular movements against aristocratic
elements. Congress was fond of appealing to "the purest maxims of
representation"; it sedulously measured public opinion; took no great
step without an explanatory address to the country; cast its influence
with the people in local struggles as far as it could; appealed to them
directly over the heads of conservative assemblies; and in general
stirred up democracy. The Declaration gave the people recognition
equivalent to promises, which, as fast as new governments were
instituted, were converted by written constitutions into rights, which
have since then steadily extended.
The original parchment of the Declaration, preserved in the Department
of State (from 1841 to 1877 in the Patent Office, once a part of the
Department of State), was injured--the injury was almost wholly to the
signatures--in 1823 by the preparation of a facsimile copper-plate, and
since 1894, when it was already partly illegible, it has been jealously
guarded from light and air. The signers were as follows: John Hancock
(1737-1792), of Massachusetts, president; Button Gwinnett (c.
1732-1777), Lyman Hall (1725-1790), George Walton (1740-1804), of
Georgia; William Hooper (1742-1790), Joseph Hewes (1730-1779), John Penn
(1741-1788), of North Carolina; Edward Rutledge (1749-1800), Thomas
Heyward, Jr. (1746-1809), Thomas Lynch, Jr. (1749-1779), Arthur
Middleton (1742-1787), of South Carolina; Samuel Chase (1741-1811),
William Paca (1740-1799), Thomas Stone (1743-1787), Charles Carroll
(1737-1832) of Carrollton, of Maryland; George Wythe (1726-1806),
Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Benjamin
Harrison (1740-1791), Thomas Nelson, Jr.(1738-1789), Francis Lightfoot
Lee (1734-1797), Carter Braxton (1736-1797), of Virginia; Robert Morris
(1734-1806), Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790),
John Morton (1724-1777), George Clymer (1739-1813), James Smith (c.
1719-1806), George Taylor (1716-1781), James Wilson (1742-1798), George
Ross (1730-1779), of Pennsylvania; Caesar Rodney (1728-1784), George
Read (1733-1798), Thomas McKean (1734-1817), of Delaware; William Floyd
(1734-1821), Philip Livingston (1716-1778), Francis Lewis (1713-1803),
Lewis Morris (1726-1798), of New York; Richard Stockton (1730-1781),
John Witherspoon (1722-1794), Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791), John Hart
(1708-1780), Abraham Clark (1726-1794), of New Jersey; Josiah Bartlett
(1729-1795), William Whipple (1730-1785), Matthew Thornton (1714-1803),
of New Hampshire; Samuel Adams (1722-1803), John Adams (1735-1826),
Robert Treat Paine (1731-1814), Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814), of
Massachusetts; Stephen Hopkins (1707-1785), William Ellery (1727-1820),
of Rhode Island; Roger Sherman (1721-1793), Samuel Huntington
(1732-1796), William Williams (1731-1811), Oliver Wolcott (1726-1797),
of Connecticut. Not all the men who rendered the greatest services to
independence were in Congress in July 1776; not all who voted for the
Declaration ever signed it; not all who signed it were members when it
was adopted. The greater part of the signatures were certainly attached
on the 2nd of August; but at least six were attached later. With one
exception--that of Thomas McKean, present on the 4th of July but not on
the 2nd of August, and permitted to sign in 1781--all were added before
printed copies with names attached were first authorized by Congress for
public circulation in January 1777.
See H. Friedenwald, _The Declaration of Independence, An
Interpretation and an Analysis_ (New York, 1904); J. H. Hazleton, _The
Declaration of Independence: its History_ (New York, 1906); M.
Chamberlain, _John Adams ... with other Essays and Addresses_ (Boston,
1898), containing, "The Authentication of the Declaration of
Independence" (same in Massachusetts Historical Society,
_Proceedings_, Nov. 1884); M. C. Tyler, _Literary History of the
American Revolution_, vol. i. (New York, 1897), or same material in
_North American Review_, vol. 163, 1896, p. 1; W. F. Dana in _Harvard
Law Review_, vol. 13, 1900, p. 319; G. E. Ellis in J. Winsor,
_Narrative and Critical History of America_, vol. vi. (Boston, 1888);
R. Frothingham, _Rise of the Republic_, ch. ii. (Boston, 1872). There
are various collected editions of biographies of the signers; probably
the best are John Sanderson's _Biography of the Signers of the
Declaration of Independence_ (7 vols., Philadelphia, 1823-1827), and
William Brotherhead's _Book of the Signers_ (Philadelphia, 1860, new
ed., 1875). The Declaration itself is available in the _Revised
Statutes_ of the United States (1878), and many other places. A
facsimile of the original parchment in uninjured condition is inserted
in P. Force's _American Archives_, 5th series, vol. i. at p. 1595
(Washington, 1848). The reader will find it interesting to compare a
study of the French Declaration: G. Jellinek, _The Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of Citizens_ (New York, 1901; German edition,
Leipzig, 1895; French translation preferable because of preface of
Professor Larnande). (F. S. P.)