New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1954. The Story of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence, formally adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, announced the United States independence from Britain and. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: Origins, Philosophy, and Theology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996. The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1945. The Declaration of Independence: The Evolution of the Text as Shown in Facsimiles of Various Drafts by its Author, Thomas Jefferson. ![]() The Founders of Ohio: Brief Sketches of the Forty-eight Pioneers Who, Under Command of General Rufus Putnam, Landed at the Mouth of the Muskingum River on the Seventh of April, 1788, and Commenced the First White Settlement in the Northwest Territory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. The Declaration of Independence: A Global History. After more than a decade of petitioning the English government, the colonies decided to declare their independence. By issuing the proclamation, England denied this opportunity to many of its colonists. George Washingtons Mount Vernon The Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776.One reason that English colonists had supported and fought in the French and Indian War (1756- 1763) was to gain access to land in the Ohio Country. All English territory between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River was now reserved to American Indians. ![]() Any settlers currently west of the mountains were to move back to the East. England issued the Proclamation of 1763, which forbid English colonists from living west of the Appalachian Mountains. After the French and Indian War, England acquired most of France's North American territory through the Treaty of Paris (1763). Many of the colonists believed that England did not understand or truly care about many of the needs of the colonists. The colonists wanted to be able to elect representatives to the English Parliament. A major complaint centered on England's refusal to allow the colonists greater participation in government. The second part of the Declaration was a description of the numerous ways that England had denied these rights to its colonists. Listed first were a number of rights that the Congress felt that English colonists deserved. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress formally approved and issued the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson. John Adams, for one, was not pleased.John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence is a 12-by 18-foot oil-on-canvas in the United States Capitol Rotunda that depicts the presentation of the draft of the Declaration of Independence to Congress. The battle for the United States had begun: “The Declaration became a weapon of partisan warfare, and Jefferson’s fame as its creator gradually increased,” writes McDonald. Committing an act of treason against the British Crown, the signers put down their names with courage and conviction: the document ends “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Its effectiveness came not from individual will, but from the “self-evidence of its arguments.”īut by the 1790s, the battle for independence had been won. Jefferson himself claimed that credit must go to Locke, Montesquieu, the Scottish Enlightenment, and the long struggle for English civil liberties.ĭuring the Revolution, the Declaration was considered a statement of consensus collectively issued by the “unanimous” thirteen states. Between 17, McDonald argues, the political usefulness of the Declaration “hinged on Americans’ initial ignorance and then gradual recognition of Jefferson’s authorship.” McDonald answers his own question with this insightful exploration into the changing meanings of authorship and authority, and the changing political scene. So how did Jefferson, “initially anonymous as the penman of the Declaration, gain renown as its author?” Robert M.S. Fifty-six members of Congress signed it (one of them as late as November). Jefferson, recognized for his ability with words, wrote the first draft then it was edited by the others, and then edited again by the whole Congress. The document was drafted by a committee made up of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. We now credit Thomas Jefferson with the Declaration’s authorship, but that was not the case on that momentous day, nor for a significant time afterwards. The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
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