• In Congress, July 4, 1776. A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, In General Congress Assembled

Curator's note:
  • Deep into the night of July 4, 1776, a Philadelphia printer was hard at work. While the city slept, 29-year-old Irish immigrant John Dunlap meticulously arranged the type for a momentous document the Continental Congress had approved just hours earlier. By morning, Dunlap produced perhaps 200 copies; only 26 are known to survive today. More than the handwritten parchment at the National Archives, signed gradually over the ensuing months, these “Dunlap Broadsides” are the true originals of the Declaration of Independence. Copies rushed out from Philadelphia—some sent abroad, some posted in taverns and courthouse squares. Crowds and troops rallied for public readings as independence from the British empire was, literally, declared. The Declaration announced the patriots’ radical choice for self-determination. Thomas Jefferson’s justification began with a stirring appeal to a truth he called self-evident: all men are created equal. It went on to enumerate every way King George III and Parliament had not treated the colonists as equals: unconstitutional taxes, constraints on immigration and trade, military occupation, and attempts to subordinate unruly colonists through slave rebellion, Hessian mercenaries, and Native American proxies. Visually, Dunlap placed this long list of grievances at center stage. A bullet-point history of the crisis over Britain’s empire, it pointed the patriots toward republican government and a society without kings. As the artifacts in this gallery demonstrate, the war waged in pursuit of these principles would rattle every corner of American life.
Alternative:
  • Declaration by the representatives of the United States of America, in general congress assembled.
Creator:
  • United States
Uniform title:
  • Declaration of Independence
Date created:
Format:
Language:
  • English
Publisher:
  • Philadelphia : Printed by John Dunlap, [4-5 July 1776]
Contributor:
  • United States. Continental Congress
Extent:
  • 1 paper sheet ; 47 x 38 cm (broadside).
Subject:
  • Broadsides
Printer:
  • Dunlap, John, 1747-1812
Description:
  • The first printing of the Declaration of Independence.
  • "Signed by order and in behalf of the Congress, John Hancock, president. Attest. Charles Thomson, secretary."
  • Two states noted by Frederick Goff, differing in the placement of the imprint. In the earlier state, the P of Philadelphia is located directly beneath the comma following Thomson's name. In the later state the P is located directly beneath the n of Thomson's name. Goff notes also a proof copy (imperfect), held by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, exhibiting differences in punctuation and in the insertion in line 13 of the word 'a' before the word 'new.' Cf. Goff, F.R. The John Dunlop broadside: the first printing of the Declaration of Independence, 1976.
References:
  • ESTC W14406
  • Evans 15155.
  • Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 3391.
  • Walsh, M.J. "Contemporary Broadside editions of the Declaration of Independence." Harvard Library Bulletin 3 (1949): 31-43, 1.
View in catalog: