Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Declaration of Independence (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress of the 13 British colonies in North America issued a document addressing their grievances with the British Crown and stated to the world why they considered themselves to be a free and independent country. That document and its legacy have had a much bigger impact than its signatories could ever have imagined almost 250 years ago. Learn more about the Declaration of Independence, how it came about and its legacy, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Starting point is 00:00:49 What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Hostilities between the American colonists and their British overlords had been developed. for years. Things finally boiled over on April 19, 1775 when the shot hurt around the world was fired in Concord, Massachusetts. From that point on, the disagreement moved into the realm of

Starting point is 00:01:30 violence and warfare. The Americans had a great start to the war with convincing victories at the siege of Boston and the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga. The initial sentiment amongst the colonists wasn't necessarily to become independent. All of the colonists, no matter how long their families had been there, grew up and considered themselves to be English, their whole lives, and they were they were subject of the crown. What they really wanted was their grievances to be addressed. Had George III actually done this, or if they had offered seats in Parliament to the Americans, none of this probably would have ever happened. And I should note that in 1776, the population of the 13 colonies would have been approximately a third to half that of England

Starting point is 00:02:08 itself. So it wasn't as if this was a small number of people. In January of 1776, Thomas Payne published his book titled Common Sense, which made the case for independence. Payne's book made public what many people already thought and convinced many more of the merits of independence. When Parliament passed the Prohibitory Act, which cut off trade between England and the colonies, and especially when the king hired Prussian mercenaries to fight, it was the final straw for many Americans. As the war had been raging for over a year by the summer of 1776, independence became the big question and the one which hung over the heads of the delegates of the Continental Congress. Most of the delegates to the Continental Congress personally believed in the country,

Starting point is 00:02:49 cause of independence, but they were all appointed by individual colonies in totally different ways, with totally different levels of authorization of what they could approve. So beginning in April of 1776, there began a campaign in the 13 colonies to authorize their representatives to vote for independence. Over the next few months, there were many local and state resolutions of independence. Rhode Island renounced its allegiance to the king on May 4th, the first colony to do so. Approval was swift in both the South and in New England. It had the most resistance in the Mid-Atlantic colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. On May 15th, the Continental Congress passed a preamble that outlined many of the grievances against Britain. It was considered radical, and four of the

Starting point is 00:03:32 Mid-Atlantic colonies voted against it, with Maryland walking out in protest. It wasn't quite a formal statement of independence, but it was the next closest thing to it. It set the stage for the next resolution to be brought before the Continental Congress, which was made by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. Known as the Lee Resolution, or the Resolution of Independence, it explicitly and formally dissolved all political ties between the colonies, now states, and Britain. Voting did not take place right away. There was still work to be done in the individual states which were reluctant to declare independence. But by the end of June, all the state legislature supported independence except for New York. The New York State Assembly had to evacuate New York City due to British

Starting point is 00:04:16 troops advancing, and they were unable to provide approval until they reconvened on July 9th. While all the political arm twisting was going on, on June 11th, a committee of five was created by Congress to begin work on a public declaration that would announce their independence to the world. The five men were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman. After discussing what the document would generally say, the committee agreed to let Thomas Jefferson write the first draft. He had just completed writing the Virginia Declaration of Human Rights just a few weeks earlier, which had been passed on June 12th by the Virginia Assembly. The Declaration of Independence borrowed heavily from the Virginia

Starting point is 00:04:55 Declaration of Rights. As it was freshly written and adopted, everyone agreed with the sentiments in it, and it was a natural starting point. The Declaration of Independence was a statement of political philosophy and the nature of human rights, as well as a list of political grievances. The draft of the document was presented to Congress on June 28, and there were edits and changes then made to it. On July 2nd, the Continental Congress took the big leap and voted on the Lee Resolution for Independence. It was actually quite short, so I'll read it in its entirety here. Quote, resolved that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, and that they are absolved from all allegiances to the British crown, and that all

Starting point is 00:05:36 political connections between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved, that it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign alliances, and that a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective colonies for their consideration and approbation. End quote. The vote was 12 in favor, none against, and one abstaining. New York When the New York Assembly reconvened,

Starting point is 00:06:02 one week later on July 9th, they approved independence. This was a huge step, not only in the history of the United States, but in world history. Never before had a colony done this. The members of the Continental Congress had openly declared treason against the king, and if caught, they would be subject to execution. Or, as Benjamin Franklin put it more eloquently, quote, we must all hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately. John Adams and everyone else thought that July 2nd, the day the vote was taken would be the day that everyone remembered, and that was not to be the case. Final work on the Declaration explaining why they did what they did continued on July 3rd and was completed by the end of the day. Congress then approved the Declaration of Independence in the late

Starting point is 00:06:47 morning of July 4, 1776. Here I should note that the Declaration of Independence is not a legal document. It's not a law. It is simply a statement of principles and an argument for independence. To put it in modern terms, the Declaration of Independence is basically a press release to justify the vote taken by the Continental Congress. Soon after it was passed, it was in the hands of printers in Philadelphia. One printer in particular, John Dunlap, had 200 copies made that night. It was a rush job and there were a few minor printing errors, but it was now in the hands of the public. The Dunlap broadside, as it's known, is not the version that most people are familiar with. This isn't the copy with all the signatures at the bottom. That would come

Starting point is 00:07:29 a bit later. In fact, at this point, no one had signed anything, nor was there any need to do so, as the vote was the only thing that mattered. The Dunlop Broadside was actually pasted into the minutes of the Congress, and there are 26 copies of the Dunlap Broadside currently in existence. On July 19th, Congress passed a resolution that a formal copy of the Declaration of Independence be created. The resolution stated, quote, resolved that the declaration passed on the fourth be fairly engrossed on parchment with the title and style of the unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America and that the same one engrossed be signed by every member of Congress.

Starting point is 00:08:08 The unanimous declaration was not in the original version which was passed on July 4th as New York had voted for it at that time. However, by July 19th, New York had approved independence, so the language was added. The official version was to be written on parchment. parchment is made from an animal skin, and it's far more sturdy and used for formal documents. This copy was to be penned by Timothy Matlack, who was the clerk of Congress, and evidently had good penmanship. This official version was signed by the members of the Continental Congress on August 2nd. Unlike the scene imagined in later paintings, this probably was a very informal affair with everyone just getting up and taking turns signing it at a desk.

Starting point is 00:08:49 The journal entry for Congress on that day simply says, quote, the Declaration of Independence being engrossed and compared at the table was signed by its members. End quote. Fifty-six men ultimately signed the document, although not all of them were there for the vote, and not all of them signed on August 2nd. The physical parchment copy, now known as the Matlack Declaration, was kept with Congress over the next several years, even as they had to move to avoid the British. After the passage of the Constitution, the copy was given to the State Department. Over time, the Matlock Declaration began to deteriorate. So in 1820, President John Quincy Adams ordered an engraving,

Starting point is 00:09:25 identical to the Matlack Declaration to be made. Almost all subsequent copies of the Declaration of Independence were made off this engraving. From 1841 to 1876, the declaration hung on a wall in the patent office, where it was exposed to sunlight, which further caused the document to fade. In 1892, a trip to the Chicago World's Fair for the document was canceled due to its deteriorated state. It was then placed between two glass panes, and it was seldom ever shown over the next several decades.

Starting point is 00:09:53 In 1921, custody the document was given to the Library of Congress, and more money and efforts were spent towards preservation. During World War II, it and other historic documents were moved for safekeeping to Fort Knox, Kentucky, where the United States kept its gold bullion. In 1952, custody was once again changed as control was given to the National Archive, where it remains today. It's now encased in bulletproof glass filled with inert argon. It's on display at the National Archive.

Starting point is 00:10:20 buildings in the Charter of Freedom exhibit, along with the original copy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. All of the Charter of Freedom documents can descend into an armored vault at the push of a button, and they're also stored there at night, just in case anyone wants to try and reenact National Treasure. The political impact of the document was immediate. It was read in public by George Washington to his troops in New York City on July 9th, and the crowd tore down a statue of King George. The statue is then used to make over 40,000 musket balls. It was published in newspapers in London by mid-August. It was in Italy and Poland by mid-September. The copy sent to Paris was initially lost, so they didn't actually get it until mid-November.

Starting point is 00:11:00 Spanish authorities in the Americas banned it, but it spread anyhow. Translated copies appeared in Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador by the end of the year. The Tories in Britain pointed out, correctly, the hypocrisy of declaring the rights of man while at the same time allowing slavery. The English abolitionist Thomas Day wrote in 1776, quote, If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot signing resolutions of independency with one hand and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves. It was a contradiction that would fester in the United States for 90 years. Abraham Lincoln used the Declaration of Independence and its popularity as a lens to interpret

Starting point is 00:11:42 the Constitution and to support his efforts for ending slavery. In France, revolutionaries were inspired by the document and wrote the Declaration of the Rights of man and of the citizen in 1789. The Declaration of Independence was the spark that set off a series of revolutions on both sides of the Atlantic. Other countries used the Declaration of Independence as the basis or inspiration for their own declarations over the next two centuries. Venezuela, Haiti, Liberia, Vietnam, Chile, Hungary, New Zealand, and many other countries created similar documents when they became independent. The American Declaration of Independence, being the first such declaration of any colony of any European country, not only brought about independence

Starting point is 00:12:23 for the United States, it had ramifications over the next 250 years that the signers of the document could never have imagined. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day. And also, Patreon is currently the only place where Everything Everywhere or Daily merchandise is available to the top tier of supporters. If you'd like to talk

Starting point is 00:12:58 to other listeners of the show and members of the Completionist Club, you can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Declaration of Independence (Encore)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.