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.
History of the Document
The best known of all the copies of the Declaration of Independence is the parchment copy, engrossed by Timothy Matlack. This one, signed by 56 Delegates of the Continental Congress on and after August 2, 1776, is displayed today in Exhibition Hall at the National Archives Building. Jefferson’s final draft of the Declaration, known as the “rough draft,” cumulatively bearing the corrections, amendments, and deletions of the drafting committee and of Congress as a whole, as well as Jefferson’s marginal and textual notes, is preserved among the Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress. The revised draft, adopted by the Delegates on July 4, 1776, and signed only by John Hancock and Charles Thomson, President and Secretary of the Continental Congress, is known as the broadside copy. It was sent to the printer and has never been located. Sixteen copies of the printed broadside have survived. In addition to the “rough draft,” as least six other handwritten contemporary copies of the Declaration, one fragmentary, have survived and are in various archival collections. Five were made by Jefferson and one by John Adams.
The history of the parchment copy of the Declaration is fascinating. From 1776 until 1789, along with other important national papers, it was safeguarded by Secretary of Congress Thomson, who carried it with him as Congress, at first to escape British troops and later for other reasons, convened in various cities: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Princeton, Trenton, Annapolis, and New York.
When the Constitution took effect in 1789 and Thomson left office, he relinquished the Declaration to the newly created Department of State, which was under the temporary stewardship of Acting Secretary John Jay. Its offices were in New York’s old City Hall (Federal Hall). The next March, Thomas Jefferson became the first Secretary of State and custodian of the instrument he had created. Later that year, Philadelphia became the seat of the Federal Government and the Declaration returned to its birthplace. There it remained for a decade, until 1800, when the Government moved to the new national Capital of Washington.
Secretary of State John Marshall apparently at first stored the Declaration in his Department’s temporary offices in the old Treasury Building, at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW., and possibly then at Seven Buildings, 19th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. After a few months, likely in 1801, the document was transferred to the War Office Building, at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW., where the Department of State moved its offices. The Declaration remained there until the summer of 1814, during the War of 1812, when British troops invaded the Capital. Shortly before they arrived, Secretary of State James Monroe packed the instrument and other state papers in linen sacks and sent them by wagon to a barn on the Virginia side of the Potomac 2 miles above Chain Bridge for one night, and then to a clergyman’s home in Leesburg, Va. Within a few weeks, after the British threat had subsided, the documents were brought back to Washington and probably temporarily kept in various structures because of the burning of the War Office Building by the British.
In 1820 the Department of State moved the Declaration to its headquarters at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Stored for years in scroll fashion, the document had already been damaged by numerous unrollings, other handling, and frequent moves. In the period 1820–23 the use of a “wet” copying process to produce a facsimile apparently divested the parchment of some of its ink, especially that of the signatures.
Subsequently the Declaration remained relatively undisturbed until 1841, when Secretary of State Daniel Webster, concluding that it should be on public view, ordered that it be mounted, framed, and moved to the newly constructed Patent Office, in the block bounded by Seventh, Ninth, F, and G Streets NW. The Patent Office was then part of the Department of State. Placed beside George Washington’s commission as commander in chief of the Continental Army in a large frame on a wall of the second floor hall opposite a window, for 35 years the Declaration endured exposure to glare, summer heat, and winter cold. The text retained its legibility, but the parchment faded and yellowed, cracked and warped. Many of the signatures had faded, some becoming blurred or almost invisible.