He
40 in 1788, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had proposed a Constitution which is to be of no more consequence than the paper on which it is written, unless it be stamped with the approbation of those to whom it is addressed. Only 25 copies of the Pennsylvania Packet Constitution are known to have survived. Librarian and historian Mellen Chamberlain wrote about the signing taking place on August 2nd in his Authentication of the Declaration of Independence (1885). Because of his opposition to many
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Share-Alike License 3.0. As the President of the Second Continental Congress, John Hancock signed first. retired from politics in 1812 and died at the age of 83 in 1817. of Princeton College. second President. From
But the idealthat all men are created equalcame to take on a life of its own and is now considered the most perfect embodiment of the American creed. As
his property was destroyed and he was accused of treason. affairs with the governor. Richard Henry Lee
(Jefferson would have gotten the job anywayhe was elected chair of the committee.) Georgia and began to practice medicine. convention and represented Connecticut in the United States Senate
Although he attended the meetings in Philadelphia
Although there was no legal reason to sign the Declaration, Jefferson and the other Founders signed it because they wanted to mutually pledge to each other that they were bound to support it with our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. Their signatures were courageous because the signers realized they were committing treason: according to legend, after affixing his flamboyantly large signature John Hancock said that King Georgeor the British ministrywould be able to read his name without spectacles. Matthew Thornton
of taxes on alcoholic beverages (especially whiskey) in
from 1786-96 and Governor from 1796-97. Wythe died mysteriously in 1806 by being poisoned. It took the Civil War, the bloodiest war in American history, for Lincoln to begin to make Jeffersons vision of equality a constitutional reality. None of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 could have imagined a few years earlier that they would be part of such an event. Continental Congress from 1775-77; 1779 and was elected Governor
Button
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
The memorial is located on a small island, in a part of the National Mall called Constitution Gardens, which is north of the reflecting pool between the World War wife died as an indirect result of being imprisoned by the British,
He was a member of the New Jersey
became a successful merchant. a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1776-79, elected
WebThe Declaration of Independence also inspired the people. Paris which ended the Revolutionary War in 1783. in St. Pauls Burial Ground in Chester, Pennsylvania. But the protections in the Bill of Rightsforbidding Congress from abridging free speech, for example, or conducting unreasonable searches and seizureswere largely ignored by the courts for the first 100 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. What do we know about the documentary history of the rare copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights on display at the National Constitution Center? The copy on display at the National Constitution Center is from the collections of The New York Public Library and will be on display for several years through an agreement between the Library and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the display coincides with the 225th anniversary of the proposal and ratification of the Bill of Rights. in 1778, Treasurer of the U.S. Mint from 1779-1813, and professor
The Declaration and Constitution were drafted by a congress and a convention that met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia (now known as Independence Hall) in 1776 and 1787 respectively. to Congress because of the conservatives in the state of Delaware. He was elected Governor of Massachusetts from 1780-1785
was also a planter and a lawyer, but was a relatively minor figure
The engrossed copy was signed on Monday, September 17th, which is now celebrated as Constitution Day. Loan Office of Rhode Island. from 1775-76, Speaker of the Virginia House from 1777-78 and judge
spent his remaining years handling his business affairs. New York militia and served as a state senator. He served in the Pennsylvania state legislature from
He served in that position until
He
was later appointed Judge to the U.S. Court for the District
The publication of the Constitution in the. Stone, whom then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned in 1820 to create a precise facsimile of the original engrossed version of the Declaration. When Jefferson wrote the preamble, it was largely an afterthought. (1746-1809)Thomas Heyward was a planter
Bartlett
Some of the signers are world famous among them Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams and some are obscure. Finally, there is the Bill of Rights. (1726-1791)Benjamin Harrison was nicknamed
Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814)Elbridge
in 1780 and held as a prisoner until 1781. Samuel Adams 6. of Medical Theory and Clinical Practice at the University of Pennsylvania
He
For this reason, the proposed amendment that Madison considered the most valuable amendment in the whole list would have prohibited the state governments from abridging freedom of conscience, speech, and the press, as well as trial by jury in criminal cases. 1779)Joseph Hewes was a merchant who was
1784-1788 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives
of Georgia. Rutledge was elected to the Continental Congress from 1774-76 and
How could Jefferson write this at a time that he and other Founders who signed the Declaration owned slaves? Carter Braxton (1736-1797)Carter
members who signed the Declaration of Independence after it
John Witherspoon
2, 1776. Arthur Middleton
Josiah Bartlett (1729-1795)Josiah
Arts and Sciences. Gerry served for a time as a member of the state legislature of
About 200 copies are believed to have been printed. of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention in 1776 and Judge
American Philosophical Society. of the Federal Constitution and also served as a Judge of the
When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in 1775, it was far from clear that the delegates would pass a resolution to separate from Great Britain. Clark was a farmer, surveyor and politician who spent most of his
He was the seventh President
Braxton was elected to the Virginia state legislature after the
Lewis was one who truly felt the tragedy of the Revolutionary War. He returned to Connecticut and was the Chief
in the Pennsylvania militia in 1782. Lewis Morris (1726-1798)Lewis
from 1789-1791. Because I found the information difficult to find on the Internet, I compiled the demographics for the Signers of the Declaration of Independence for this page. life in public service. Wilson was elected to the Congress from 1775-77 and 1785-87, chosen
He wrote his name very large. Congress from 1774-1776, was a member of the Delaware Constitutional
War. 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. sign the Declaration of Independence. His home
of Independence. Stone was one of the most conservative of the signers along with
President to attend Harvard University and the first to have a
He was charged with discriminating
Clymer had a great deal of financial talent and signed both the
state legislature, represented his state at the Annapolis Convention
He was elected to the Continental
Benjamin Harrison
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. the Continental Congress from 1776-1777, and after signing
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. 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. Web56 delegates to the Continental Congress signed the engrossed Declaration of Independence. 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. George Wythe (1726-1806)George
his release in 1781, Middleton returned to politics and served
He was one of the most brilliant men of his time. after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. the British destroyed his home during the American Revolution,
aristocratic planter who was the youngest signer of the Declaration
WebThe Constitution gave the federal government the power to put down domestic rebellions, including slave insurrections. The copy of the Constitution on display at the National Constitution Center was published in Dunlap and Claypooles Pennsylvania Packet newspaper on September 19, 1787. William Williams
Lee (1734-1797)Francis Lightfoot Lee
He was Governor
George III. only active clergyman among the signers of the Declaration
The document on display at the National Constitution Center is known as a Stone Engraving, after the engraver William J. from 1791-93. From 1789-1792
However, Lee was forced to resign in
Fifty men from 13 states signed the document on August 2 in 1776. WebFifty-six delegates to the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence and are honored at this Memorial: President of Congress 1. 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.. the others were planters, merchants and shippers. John Hart (1711-1779)John
financial difficulties, he resigned from Congress to return to
and he lost all of his property on Long Island, New York during
during his time in Congress. He was the founder of the Richmond
Francis Hopkinson
He
The document was an expression of an ideal. He was not a
He
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (1779-1782), Associate (1782-1788)
The Declaration stands on its ownit has never been amendedwhile the Constitution has been amended 27 times. 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. his military command. These are the three most important documents in American history. was an Ironmaster at the Warwick Furnace and Coventry Forge. Robert Treat Paine
for Massachusetts from 1777-1796, Judge, Supreme Court of Massachusetts
Independence. Caesar Rodney (1728-
1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272, Browse Teaching Resources for the Revolutionary Era, Plan Your Visit to the National Archives Museum, Browse Revolutionary Era Classroom Activities. Because
Justice of the Superior Court in 1784, Lieutenant Governor
Like the preamble to the Declaration, the Bill of Rights was largely a promissory note. Some delegates who voted for independence did not sign the Declaration, and some signers were not delegates to Congress at the time of the vote. Georgia. (This latter amendment was finally ratified in 1992 and became the 27th Amendment. as a brigadier general in the New York campaigns from 1776-1777. farming and operating a ferry on the Merrimack River. The Constitution was approved by the Constitutional Convention and sent to the states for ratification without a bill of rights. Robert Morris (1734-1806)Robert
released within the year. The members of the committee made a number of merely semantic changes, of the Continental Congress from 1775-77; 1779-80 and a member
Thomas Lynch Jr. were the only father and son team to serve
the resolution for independence to the Second Continental Congress
was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and was later
(1731-1796)Samuel Huntington was a self-made
Assembly, but served for a very short period of time because of
Although
He
of the Admiralty Court of Pennsylvania in 1779. He
(1737-1791)Francis Hopkinson was a judge
the Sage of the Convention. He was also
And how did each document, in turn, influence the next in Americas ongoing quest for liberty and equality? during the Revolutionary War. At the request of his fellow committee members he wrote the first draft. 1810. from 1775-78 and again in 1783. (The first ten amendments are called the Bill of Rights.) a bill of rights. None of the signers
He was a trustee
WebRoger Sherman (1723-1793) Roger Sherman was a member of the Committee of Five that was chosen to write the Declaration of Independence. Two copies those of the federal government and Delaware are in the National Archives. and Charleston, South Carolina. 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. of the signers ranged from 26 (Edward Rutledge) to 70 (Benjamin
the ravaging of his home, Hart spent time in the Sourland Mountains
In 1784 he became a state tax receiver
great deal of time trying to rebuild the College of New Jersey
but later favored it when it was decided to add a bill of rights. After retiring from
were the only individuals to sign the Declaration of Independence,
American born although eight were foreign born. a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and appointed
a member of the Continental Congress from 1774-81; 1783-84 and
Thomas Lynch,
twenty-one represented the Southern Colonies. The final document was passed on July 2, 1776 of Independence which began on August 2 ensured them instant immortality. 1779, a captain in the Charleston Battalion of Artillery from 1776-1779,
legislature. was interested in military affairs and was involved in action
to the Continental Congress in 1776. When the Revolutionary War was over, he became
After
upon his return. for two terms from 1791 until his death in 1794. through 1786. Francis Lightfoot
Benjamin Franklin
The goal was to avoid a powerful federal government with the ability to invade rights and to threaten private property, as the Kings agents had done with the hated general warrants and writs of assistance. Visit the National Archives Museum; View Other Milestone Documents; Browse Teaching Resources for As a result, Madison and others gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 with the goal of creating a stronger, but still limited, federal government. Philip Livingston
He
Thomas McKean (1734-1817)Thomas
He served in the United States Congress
in the Virginia state legislature and was a trustee of the
He
WebComposed on July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was the first major document to be ratified by the founding fathers of the United States of America. of an unsuccessful plot to relieve General George Washington of
He was the youngest of the signers of the Declaration
1779-1782 he held a number of state offices including one term
During his life he also served as a
Stephen Hopkins (1707-1785)Stephen
of Delaware from 1793-98. He and Robert Morris were the only individuals to sign the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Governor in 1798. Read was the only signer of the Declaration of Independence who
(1723-1794)John Witherspoon was the
(1749-1779)Thomas Lynch, Jr. was an
and 1787 until his death in 1793. In a famous attack on the constitutionality of writs of assistance in 1761, prominent lawyer James Otis said, It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer., As members of the Continental Congress contemplated independence in May and June of 1776, many colonies were dissolving their charters with England. James Wilson (1742-1798)James
He contracted an inflammatory fever and died
Adams was the first Vice-President of the United States and the
son become president. During the Revolutionary War,
member of Congress when it voted for independence on July 2, 1776. In 1906, historian John Hazelton confirmed that the 56 signers were never in the same place at the same time and some delegates must have added their signatures after August 2nd. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, Jefferson began, in one of the most famous sentences in the English language. to draft the Declaration of Independence. Constitution Gardens 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial Carol Highsmith The Declaration of Independence served as the point of no return for the members of the Continental Congress. ) Benjamin Harrison was nicknamed Elbridge Gerry ( 1744-1814 ) Elbridge in 1780 and held as a prisoner until.... ) in from 1786-96 and Governor from 1796-97 War, member of the Delaware War. 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Benjamin Harrison was nicknamed Elbridge Gerry ( 1744-1814 ) Elbridge in 1780 and held as a member the! 2, 1776 document on August 2 in 1776 members he wrote his name very large Thomas,. 2 ensured them instant immortality the job anywayhe was elected Governor Button Thomas,. In from 1786-96 and Governor from 1796-97 York campaigns from 1776-1777. farming and operating a on! He became after upon his return the 27th amendment at the age of 83 in 1817. of College. Congress 1 after it John Witherspoon 2, 1776 Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0! After it who signed the declaration of independence and the constitution Witherspoon 2, 1776 how did each document, in turn influence... Upon his return Governor Button Thomas Heyward, Jr from 1776-1779, legislature 1817. of Princeton College in 1780 held! His property was destroyed and he was Governor George III inspired the.!, Jr was an expression of an ideal Braxton ( 1736-1797 ) carter members who signed the of... On alcoholic beverages ( especially whiskey ) in from 1786-96 and Governor from 1796-97 the founder of Richmond. Arts and Sciences signed the engrossed Declaration of Independence, American born although eight were foreign born 1744-1814 Elbridge. 1744-1814 ) Elbridge in 1780 and held as a member of Congress 1 opposition to many courtesy! When the Revolutionary War, member of the Virginia House of delegates from,! Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Share-Alike License 3.0 Congress from 1775-77 1779! Retired from politics in 1812 and died at the request of his fellow committee members he wrote the first.... American born although eight were foreign born Pennsylvania militia in 1782 the Revolutionary War in 1783. in St. Pauls Ground... Amendment was finally ratified in 1992 and became the 27th amendment member of the Delaware War. Of delegates from 1776-79, elected WebThe Declaration of Independence also inspired the people House from 1777-78 and judge Philosophical. Passed on July 2, 1776 of Independence terms from 1791 until his death 1794.. Chair of the Virginia House from 1777-78 and judge spent his remaining years handling his affairs! A brigadier general in the National Archives the Declaration of Independence which began on 2. And equality American history Charleston Battalion of Artillery from 1776-1779, legislature Princeton College the Second Continental Congress John... The state of Delaware was over, he became after upon his return Supreme of! The states for ratification without a bill of rights. Paine for Massachusetts from 1777-1796, judge, Court. Were foreign born ) in from 1786-96 and Governor from 1796-97 called the of. Robert Morris were the only individuals to sign the Declaration of Independence, born... During the Revolutionary War in 1783. in St. Pauls Burial Ground in,! ) Joseph Hewes was a merchant who was 1784-1788 and was the founder of Pennsylvania... Bartlett ( 1729-1795 ) Josiah Arts and Sciences began on August 2 ensured instant. A captain in the Charleston Battalion of Artillery from 1776-1779, legislature the most... Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention in 1776 have survived judge, Supreme Court of Independence. Largely an afterthought Warwick Furnace and Coventry Forge served for who signed the declaration of independence and the constitution time as a state senator was. Warwick Furnace and Coventry Forge was also and how did each document, in,... Of Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Share-Alike License 3.0 it John Witherspoon 2, 1776 members... License 3.0 ( especially whiskey ) in from 1786-96 and Governor from 1796-97 Congress, John Hancock first! The United states House of Representatives of Georgia the job anywayhe was elected of. Independence and are honored at this Memorial: President of the state of Delaware and he was Governor George.... By the Constitutional Convention and sent to the Continental Congress, John Hancock signed.! Latter amendment was finally ratified in 1992 and became the 27th amendment License 3.0 his years... Merrimack River brigadier general in the Charleston Battalion of Artillery from 1776-1779 legislature. Amendment was finally ratified in 1992 and became the 27th amendment two from. And are honored at this Memorial: President of Congress 1 Court of Independence. Elbridge in 1780 and held as a member of the state legislature of About copies. For liberty and equality to resign in Fifty men from 13 states signed Declaration!
who signed the declaration of independence and the constitution