1. It wasn’t signed on July 4 – and why are we celebrating it then anyway?
This is one that most students would fail to answer correctly and, if we are honest with ourselves, a good number of adults too.
What actually took place on July 4 was that the Continental Congress officially adopted the written document, but by then that body of men had already declared themselves and their colonies independent.
Two days earlier, on July 2, they had voted to declare their independence from England, a resolution put forward by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia and approved by 12 of the 13 colonies (New York did not vote).
It’s likely they all thought July 2 would be the day to be remembered – John Adams himself wrote that July 2 ought to be marked by fireworks and celebrations.
Not only was July 4 just the official adoption of the document, but it wasn’t even signed then. Although we conflate the vote for independence and the signing of the document into the same day, in reality they took place a month apart. John Hancock didn’t sign his John Hancock until Aug. 2.
2. There’s more than one copy of the thing
OK, so there’s only one “original,” which is on display at the National Archives, but the same day it was adopted on July 4, 1776, Congress made multiple copies of the document.
They sent the Declaration of Independence to a local print shop owned by a John Dunlap. Over the course of a busy night, Dunlap made an unknown number of copies, which were sent throughout the colonies as notice of the momentous occasion.
Today, we know at least 26 of these original copies remain: 21 are owned by American institutions, two by British ones and three by private individuals.
Most recently, an original copy was found behind an old painting in a picture frame that a Pennsylvania man purchased at a flea market for $4. That was in 1989 – I haven’t stopped looking behind old paintings since.
3. It’s a well-travelled piece of paper
Once it was signed, the document probably followed the Continental Congress in its travels for the remainder of the war.
“It was terrible,” David Ward, senior historian at the National Portrait Gallery, told CNN’s Chris Moody back in a 2015 interview.
“It was put in a burlap bag. They rolled it up all the time, which you're not supposed to do. It was exposed to light, it was exposed to smoke.” You can almost hear the historian’s voice rise an octave or two as he starts hyperventilating (http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/01/politics/being-moody-handprint-declaration-of-independence/).
It was probably during these roughshod travels that someone smudged their handprint on it, a mark that is still discernible today.
For the next 30 years the document was passed around like a love note in a middle school classroom.
It stayed for a time in New York, Philadelphia and then the newly-built Washington D.C. When the British attacked once more in 1814, the Declaration was whisked away, spending a night in an abandoned gristmill until finding safety in Leesburg, Virginia for a few weeks until it was returned again to the capitol.
For the next 30 years or so, the Declaration was housed in four different buildings in D.C. In 1841 it was moved to what is now the National Portrait Gallery building.
It remained there until 1876. The year of our nation’s centennial, the Declaration once more found itself in Philadelphia, on display as part of the festivities. It returned to D.C. where it was displayed in a cabinet in the State Department library for 17 more years.
It was removed from display in 1894 due to its rapid deterioration. Over a century of handling had done quite a bit of damage – damage that had been made worse by the copies that were made from the original.
You see, in the 18th and 19th centuries the primary way something was copied was by a copy press. Press copies were made by placing a damp sheet of thin paper on a manuscript and pressing between heavy iron plates until a portion of the ink was transferred. The ink was then re-imposed on a copper plate, which was then etched so that copies could be run off the plate on a press.
I wonder if Senior Historian David Ward heard about this? He’d probably have an aneurysm.
Sometime between 1894 and 1920 the Declaration was placed in a safe along with the Constitution. Finally in 1921 it was transferred to the Library of Congress.
When World War II broke out, in the manner of the War of 1812, the Declaration once again fled Washington. Packed in acid-free paper, placed in a bronze box, wrapped in lead and secured in steel the final result was a 100-pound protective barrier that made its safe way to Fort Knox where it sat out the rest of the war.
Back safe in the Library of Congress in 1944, the Declaration remained there for less than a decade before finally being moved in 1952 to its forever home: the National Archives.
4. It’s a document that probably wouldn’t fly today
On July 4, 1951, a young journalist with the Wisconsin-based “Capitol Times” took to the streets to get people to sign his petition. Of the 112 people he approached only one was willing to sign the document. Twenty of those who refused to sign called the journalist a communist, others claimed they feared retribution if they signed it.
The young reporter, a man named John Patrick Hunter, was surprised. After all, his petition was entirely taken – verbatim – from the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
We sometimes forget truly how subversive the Declaration was at the time. A group of men came together and agreed that the authority over them had failed in its duty.
Citing grievances that only spanned a few decades, these men as a body declared independence for themselves and all who lived in the colonies. For the next six years they only had a single flimsy document to support their outrageous claim as they fought for the very rights enumerated in the same document.
The founding fathers were imbued with a peculiar mixture of astonishing gall and unwavering will. Not something any current politician seems to have in proper balance.
For further reading see the links below.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-history
https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2005/nr05-83.html
http://host.madison.com/ct/opinion/column/sam-martino-first-amendment-contest-honors-longtime-cap-times-reporter/article_567a1a1f-c9b1-5b6c-82fd-6c49986e17b9.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/01/politics/being-moody-handprint-declaration-of-independence/
Antone Pierucci is a Sacramento-based public historian and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.
This Week in History: The Declaration of Independence
- ANTONE PIERUCCI
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