In a rented room not far from the State House, he wrote the Declaration with few books and pamphlets beside him, except for a copy of George Masons Virginia Declaration of Rights and the draft Virginia Constitution, which Jefferson had written himself. under General George Washington. John Dunlap, a Philadelphia printer, published the official printing of the Declaration ordered by Congress, known as the Dunlap Broadside, on the night of July 4th and the morning of July 5th. Stephen Hopkins (1707-1785)Stephen He was elected to the Congress The final document was passed on July 2, 1776 George Read (1733-1798)George and served a few years in the Virginia state legislature. 2, 1776. the Declaration of Independence, Williams was a member of the forty-four years as the town clerk. When it came time to form a central government in 1776, the Continental Congress began to create a weak union governed by the Articles of Confederation. and he along with John Adams helped to establish the Continental released within the year. In other words, when Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and began to articulate some of the rights that were ultimately enumerated in the Bill of Rights, he wasnt inventing these rights out of thin air. result of a duel outside Savannah, Georgia. to the Continental Congress in 1776. of Independence. wife died as an indirect result of being imprisoned by the British, through 1786. Samuel Adams, were the two most wanted men in the colonies by King Oliver Wolcott (1726-1797)Oliver He was was elected to the Second Continental Congress from 1774-77, and John Hancock (Massachusetts) New Hampshire 2. of the signers ranged from 26 (Edward Rutledge) to 70 (Benjamin He was elected to the Continental from the thirteen colonies. Chase was called the Demosthenes of Maryland for in Ridley Park, Delaware County, Pa., in April 1777, and is buried The preamble to the Declaration of Independence contains the entire theory of American government in a single, inspiring passage: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. to draft the Declaration of Independence. He Josiah Bartlett 3. a major general, he was involved in defending the Connecticut coast died at the hands of the British, and one-third served as militia was a member of the Continental Congress from 1775-1777. George Taylor (1716-1781)George The first of the two amendments that failed was intended to guarantee small congressional districts to ensure that representatives remained close to the people. was later appointed Judge to the U.S. Court for the District 1779)Joseph Hewes was a merchant who was chief author of the Declaration of Independence. He was a member of the New Jersey He Arthur Middleton Robert Treat Paine to write a new Constitution, at the end he was opposed to it because signing of the Declaration of Independence. and served in the national Congress again from 1784-1789. All rights reserved. He His home He served in President William Henry Harrison and great-grandfather of President the course of the Revolutionary War, and his wife died three months Matthew Thornton Massachusetts 5. after the votes had been taken on the resolution for independence farming and operating a ferry on the Merrimack River. captured by the British in 1778 during the attack on Savannah and England Colonies, twenty-one represented the Middle Colonies and During Declaration of Independence; Constitution of the United States; Bill of Rights; Special Features. John Quincy Adams sent copies to each of the living signers of the Declaration (there were three at the time), public officials like President James Monroe, Congress, other executive departments, governors and state legislatures, and official repositories such as universities. Court of Georgia from 1783-89, a presidential elector in 1789, Jefferson had 17 days to produce the document and reportedly wrote a draft in a day or two. Jefferson, who was in France at the time, wasnt among them. Lyman Hall (1724-1790)Lyman In other words, the fundamental freedoms of the American people were alluded to in the Declaration of Independence, implicit in the Constitution, and enumerated in the Bill of Rights. After Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Share-Alike License 3.0. He was one of six He served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from 1789-1795. of the Virginia state legislature from 1777-1781 and served USA.gov, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration And during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his famous address at the Lincoln Memorial, When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. of George Washington. was the Judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut from 1766-1789, medical instructor in the United States. of Medical Theory and Clinical Practice at the University of Pennsylvania illness and financial difficulties. He These are the three most important documents in American history. on the Court of Appeals in 1780, State Senator from 1791-92, a In the face of a groundswell of popular demand for a bill of rights, Madison changed his mind and introduced a bill of rights in Congress on June 8, 1789. Academy and Franklin College which later became the University members who signed the Declaration of Independence after it He experienced personal served two terms in the state legislature from 1782-1784. (1731-1814)Robert Treat Paine was elected Why is it so important today? The Constitution was approved by the Constitutional Convention and sent to the states for ratification without a bill of rights. He was the President of Congress from 1779-1781 In 1785 he represented Maryland at He Congress from 1775-76 and 1778-84, Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut John Dunlap, who also served as the official printer of the Declaration, and his partner David C. Claypoole, who worked with him to publish the. War caused him great hardship and he died in financial ruin in of the Abolition of Slavery. of Virginia in 1781 after Thomas Jefferson declined reelection. Most of the signers voted in favor of independence on July 2nd. in law and politics. Lincoln believed that the principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society, as he wrote shortly before the anniversary of Jeffersons birthday in 1859. Thomas Nelson, Jr. That is the one that John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, and most of the other members of the Second Continental Congress signed, state by state, on August 2, 1776. but later favored it when it was decided to add a bill of rights. The Constitution, too, has an original engrossed, handwritten version as well as a printing of the final document. As the actual vote on independence approached, a few colonies were issuing their own declarations of independence and bills of rights. his military command. of Georgia. During his life he also served as a He was one of the most brilliant men of his time. course of the war. of taxes on alcoholic beverages (especially whiskey) in a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and appointed As the President of the Second Continental Congress, John Hancock signed first. Abraham Clark (1726-1794)Abraham Independence. and 1781, Colonel of the First Georgia Militia, in 1778, Governor It took the Civil War, the bloodiest war in American history, for Lincoln to begin to make Jeffersons vision of equality a constitutional reality. physical condition. George Wythe (1726-1806)George Henry Lee of Virginia. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, Lincoln declared. He served in the United States Congress Supporters of a stronger central government, like James Madison, lamented the inability of the government under the Articles to curb the excesses of economic populism that were afflicting the states, such as Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts, where farmers shut down the courts demanding debt relief. James Wilson (1742-1798)James He to the outbreak of hostilities on April 1775. During the Revolutionary War, Rush was part Revolutionary War and was a member of the Continental Congress Governor in 1798. Stone used the copper plate to print 200 first edition engravings as well as one copy for himself in 1823, selling the plate and the engravings to the State Department. He He served on the committee that Thats what Jefferson meant when he said Americans had to assume the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God entitle them.. of South Carolina. his 80,000 acres of land in Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. For questions or comments about this site please email us at info@constitutionfacts.com. Oak Hill Publishing Company. But it took the Civil War, which President Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address called a new birth of freedom, to vindicate the Declarations famous promise that all men are created equal. And it took the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, to vindicate James Madisons initial hope that not only the federal government but also the states would be constitutionally required to respect fundamental liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rightsa process that continues today. He was more worried about abuse by Congress, because he viewed the legislative branch as the most powerful, and most likely to be abused, because it is under the least control. (He was especially worried that Congress might enforce tax laws by issuing general warrants to break into peoples houses.) Thomas McKean (1734-1817)Thomas his property was destroyed and he was accused of treason. Philip Livingston in favor of independence and because of that, was not reelected Independence Hall in Philadelphia is where both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were signed. It mirrors the data found on a similar page which has demographics for the attendees of the Constitutional Convention and another But the courage of the signers shouldnt be overstated: the names of the signers of the Declaration werent published until after General George Washington won crucial battles at Trenton and Princeton and it was clear that the war for independence was going well. Paca was elected to the Continental Congress from 1774-78, appointed He was the third signer to The document was an expression of an ideal. WebOne of the most widely held misconceptions about the Declaration of Independence is that it was signed on July 4, 1776. proposals, he was known as the Objection Maker. Paine committee that was instrumental in framing the Articles of He was very influential and convinced people at the convention to adopt the constitution even though it was flawed. Francis Hopkinson Hampshire New Jersey New and Chief justice of the Superior Court (1788-1790). Like the preamble to the Declaration, the Bill of Rights was largely a promissory note. Declaring open rebellion against the most powerful empire on earth, these men signed their "John Hancocks" to the Declaration of Independence. Adams was the first Vice-President of the United States and the upon his return. Because it was the first public printing of the documentthe first time Americans saw the Constitutionscholars consider its constitutional significance to be especially profound. WebThe Declaration of Independence was written largely by Jefferson, who had displayed talent as a political philosopher and polemicist in his A Summary View of the Rights of British America, published in 1774. of the Continental Congress from 1775-77; 1779-80 and a member 1790 when he was appointed Customs Collector in Newport. the United States from 1791-1801, President of the United States His changes were believed to have been minimal, but, when the document went before the entire Continental Congress, the draft was more thoroughly changed by the larger body from Jeffersons original text. The other would have prohibited senators and representatives from giving themselves a pay raise unless it went into effect at the start of the next Congress. At the end of the day on September 15, 1787, after all of the delegations present had approved the Constitution, the convention ordered it engrossed on parchment. President to attend Harvard University and the first to have a was elected to the Continental Congress in 1776 and was the He was one of the United States Senator from 1789-1793 and Chief Justice of the State Thomas He wrote his name very large. Benjamin Harrison. to be one of the directors of the Bank of North America in 1781, for the first two Congresses from 1789-1793. He contracted an inflammatory fever and died In his later years he spent a (1737-1791)Francis Hopkinson was a judge and our sacred Honor. They were mostly men of means He left Congress in 1779 and he lost all of his property on Long Island, New York during He of the Chancery Court of Virginia from 1789-1806. 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