The United States Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776. The Declaration announced that the Thirteen Colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain would regard themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. With the Declaration, these new states took a collective first step toward forming the United States of America. The declaration was signed by representatives from New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

The Lee Resolution for independence was passed on July 2 with no opposing votes. The Committee of Five had drafted the Declaration to be ready when Congress voted on independence. John Adams, a leader in pushing for independence, had persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document,^[2] which Congress edited to produce the final version. The Declaration was a formal explanation of why Congress had voted to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Adams wrote to his wife Abigail, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America”^[3] – although Independence Day is actually celebrated on July 4, the date that the wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved.

After ratifying the text on July 4, Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in several forms. It was initially published as the printed Dunlap broadside that was widely distributed and read to the public. The source copy used for this printing has been lost and may have been a copy in Thomas Jefferson’s hand.^[4] Jefferson’s original draft is preserved at the Library of Congress, complete with changes made by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, as well as Jefferson’s notes of changes made by Congress. The best-known version of the Declaration is a signed copy that is displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and which is popularly regarded as the official document. This engrossed copy (finalized, calligraphic copy) was ordered by Congress on July 19 and signed primarily on August 2.^[5]^[6]

The sources and interpretation of the Declaration have been the subject of much scholarly inquiry. The Declaration justified the independence of the United States by listing 27 colonial grievances against King George III and by asserting certain natural and legal rights, including a right of revolution. Its original purpose was to announce independence, and references to the text of the Declaration were few in the following years. Abraham Lincoln made it the centerpiece of his policies and his rhetoric, as in the Gettysburg Address of 1863. Since then, it has become a well-known statement on human rights, particularly its second sentence:

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.

This has been called “one of the best-known sentences in the English language”,^[7] containing “the most potent and consequential words in American history”.^[8] The passage came to represent a moral standard to which the United States should strive. This view was notably promoted by Lincoln, who considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his political philosophy and argued that it is a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted.^[9]

The Declaration of Independence inspired many similar documents in other countries, the first being the 1789 Declaration of United Belgian States issued during the Brabant Revolution in the Austrian Netherlands. It also served as the primary model for numerous declarations of independence in Europe and Latin America, as well as Africa (Liberia) and Oceania (New Zealand) during the first half of the 19th century.^[10]

Background

Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration

Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America.

— Thomas Jefferson, November 29, 1775^[11]

By the time that the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain had been at war for more than a year. Relations had been deteriorating between the colonies and the mother country since 1763. Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase revenue from the colonies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767. Parliament believed that these acts were a legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the costs to keep them in the British Empire.^[12]

Many colonists, however, had developed a different conception of the empire. The colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, and colonists argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them. This tax dispute was part of a larger divergence between British and American interpretations of the British Constitution and the extent of Parliament’s authority in the colonies.^[13] The orthodox British view, dating from the Glorious Revolution of 1688, was that Parliament was the supreme authority throughout the empire, and so, by definition, anything that Parliament did was constitutional.^[14] In the colonies, however, the idea had developed that the British Constitution recognized certain fundamental rights that no government could violate, not even Parliament.^[15] After the Townshend Acts, some essayists even began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all.^[16]Anticipating the arrangement of the British Commonwealth,^[17] by 1774 American writers such as Samuel Adams, James Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson were arguing that Parliament was the legislature of Great Britain only, and that the colonies, which had their own legislatures, were connected to the rest of the empire only through their allegiance to the Crown.^[18]

Congress convenes

The issue of Parliament’s authority in the colonies became a crisis after Parliament passed the Coercive Acts (known as the Intolerable Acts in the colonies) in 1774 to punish the colonists for the Gaspee Affair of 1772 and the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Many colonists saw the Coercive Acts as a violation of the British Constitution and thus a threat to the liberties of all of British America, so the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in September 1774 to coordinate a response. Congress organized a boycott of British goods and petitioned the king for repeal of the acts. These measures were unsuccessful because King George and the ministry of Prime Minister Lord North were determined to enforce parliamentary supremacy in America. As the king wrote to North in November 1774, “blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or independent”.^[19]

Most colonists still hoped for reconciliation with Great Britain, even after fighting began in the American Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.^[20] The Second Continental Congress convened at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia in May 1775, and some delegates hoped for eventual independence, but no one yet advocated declaring it.^[21] Many colonists no longer believed that Parliament had any sovereignty over them, yet they still professed loyalty to King George, who they hoped would intercede on their behalf. They were disappointed in late 1775 when the king rejected Congress’s second petition, issued a Proclamation of Rebellion, and announced before Parliament on October 26 that he was considering “friendly offers of foreign assistance” to suppress the rebellion.^[22] A pro-American minority in Parliament warned that the government was driving the colonists toward independence.^[23]

Toward independence

Thomas Paine‘s pamphlet Common Sense was published in January 1776, just as it became clear in the colonies that the king was not inclined to act as a conciliator.^[24] Paine had only recently arrived in the colonies from England, and he argued in favor of colonial independence, advocating republicanism as an alternative to monarchy and hereditary rule.^[25] Common Sense made a persuasive and impassioned case for independence, which had not yet been given serious intellectual consideration in the American colonies. Paine connected independence with Protestant beliefs as a means to present a distinctly American political identity, thereby stimulating public debate on a topic that few had previously dared to openly discuss,^[26] and public support for separation from Great Britain steadily increased after its publication.^[27]

The Assembly Room in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence

Some colonists still held out hope for reconciliation, but developments in early 1776 further strengthened public support for independence. In February 1776, colonists learned of Parliament’s passage of the Prohibitory Act, which established a blockade of American ports and declared American ships to be enemy vessels. John Adams, a strong supporter of independence, believed that Parliament had effectively declared American independence before Congress had been able to. Adams labeled the Prohibitory Act the “Act of Independency”, calling it “a compleat Dismemberment of the British Empire”.^[28] Support for declaring independence grew even more when it was confirmed that King George had hired German mercenaries to use against his American subjects.^[29]

Despite this growing popular support for independence, Congress lacked the clear authority to declare it. Delegates had been elected to Congress by 13 different governments, which included extralegal conventions, ad hoc committees, and elected assemblies, and they were bound by the instructions given to them. Regardless of their personal opinions, delegates could not vote to declare independence unless their instructions permitted such an action.^[30] Several colonies, in fact, expressly prohibited their delegates from taking any steps towards separation from Great Britain, while other delegations had instructions that were ambiguous on the issue;^[31] consequently, advocates of independence sought to have the Congressional instructions revised. For Congress to declare independence, a majority of delegations would need authorization to vote for it, and at least one colonial government would need to specifically instruct its delegation to propose a declaration of independence in Congress. Between April and July 1776, a “complex political war”^[32] was waged to bring this about.^[33]

Revising instructions

In the campaign to revise Congressional instructions, many Americans formally expressed their support for separation from Great Britain in what were effectively state and local declarations of independence. Historian Pauline Maieridentifies more than ninety such declarations that were issued throughout the Thirteen Colonies from April to July 1776.^[34] These “declarations” took a variety of forms. Some were formal written instructions for Congressional delegations, such as the Halifax Resolves of April 12, with which North Carolina became the first colony to explicitly authorize its delegates to vote for independence.^[35] Others were legislative acts that officially ended British rule in individual colonies, such as the Rhode Island legislature declaring its independence from Great Britain on May 4, the first colony to do so.^[36] Many “declarations” were resolutions adopted at town or county meetings that offered support for independence. A few came in the form of jury instructions, such as the statement issued on April 23, 1776, by Chief Justice William Henry Drayton of South Carolina: “the law of the land authorizes me to declare … that George the Third, King of Great Britain … has no authority over us, and we owe no obedience to him.”^[37] Most of these declarations are now obscure, having been overshadowed by the declaration approved by Congress on July 2, and signed July 4.^[38]

Some colonies held back from endorsing independence. Resistance was centered in the middle colonies of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.^[39] Advocates of independence saw Pennsylvania as the key; if that colony could be converted to the pro-independence cause, it was believed that the others would follow.^[39] On May 1, however, opponents of independence retained control of the Pennsylvania Assembly in a special election that had focused on the question of independence.^[40] In response, Congress passed a resolution on May 10 which had been promoted by John Adams and Richard Henry Lee, calling on colonies without a “government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs” to adopt new governments.^[41] The resolution passed unanimously, and was even supported by Pennsylvania’s John Dickinson, the leader of the anti-independence faction in Congress, who believed that it did not apply to his colony.^[42]

May 15 preamble

This Day the Congress has passed the most important Resolution, that ever was taken in America.

—John Adams, May 15, 1776^[43]

As was the custom, Congress appointed a committee to draft a preamble to explain the purpose of the resolution. John Adams wrote the preamble, which stated that because King George had rejected reconciliation and was hiring foreign mercenaries to use against the colonies, “it is necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed”.^[44] Adams’s preamble was meant to encourage the overthrow of the governments of Pennsylvania and Maryland, which were still under proprietary governance.^[45] Congress passed the preamble on May 15 after several days of debate, but four of the middle colonies voted against it, and the Maryland delegation walked out in protest.^[46] Adams regarded his May 15 preamble effectively as an American declaration of independence, although a formal declaration would still have to be made.^[47]

Lee’s resolution

On the same day that Congress passed Adams’s radical preamble, the Virginia Convention set the stage for a formal Congressional declaration of independence. On May 15, the Convention instructed Virginia’s congressional delegation “to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain”.^[48] In accordance with those instructions, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented a three-part resolution to Congress on June 7.^[49] The motion was seconded by John Adams, calling on Congress to declare independence, form foreign alliances, and prepare a plan of colonial confederation. The part of the resolution relating to declaring independence read:

Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.^[50]

Lee’s resolution met with resistance in the ensuing debate. Opponents of the resolution conceded that reconciliation was unlikely with Great Britain, while arguing that declaring independence was premature, and that securing foreign aid should take priority.^[51] Advocates of the resolution countered that foreign governments would not intervene in an internal British struggle, and so a formal declaration of independence was needed before foreign aid was possible. All Congress needed to do, they insisted, was to “declare a fact which already exists”.^[52] Delegates from Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, and New York were still not yet authorized to vote for independence, however, and some of them threatened to leave Congress if the resolution were adopted. Congress, therefore, voted on June 10 to postpone further discussion of Lee’s resolution for three weeks.^[53] Until then, Congress decided that a committee should prepare a document announcing and explaining independence in the event that Lee’s resolution was approved when it was brought up again in July.

The final push

This idealized depiction of (left to right) Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson working on the Declaration was widely reprinted (by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, 1900).^[54]

Support for a Congressional declaration of independence was consolidated in the final weeks of June 1776. On June 14, the Connecticut Assembly instructed its delegates to propose independence and, the following day, the legislatures of New Hampshire and Delaware authorized their delegates to declare independence.^[55] In Pennsylvania, political struggles ended with the dissolution of the colonial assembly, and a new Conference of Committees under Thomas McKean authorized Pennsylvania’s delegates to declare independence on June 18.^[56] The Provincial Congress of New Jersey had been governing the province since January 1776; they resolved on June 15 that Royal Governor William Franklin was “an enemy to the liberties of this country” and had him arrested.^[57] On June 21, they chose new delegates to Congress and empowered them to join in a declaration of independence.^[58]

Only Maryland and New York had yet to authorize independence towards the end of June. Previously, Maryland’s delegates had walked out when the Continental Congress adopted Adams’s radical May 15 preamble, and had sent to the Annapolis Convention for instructions.^[59] On May 20, the Annapolis Convention rejected Adams’s preamble, instructing its delegates to remain against independence. But Samuel Chase went to Maryland and, thanks to local resolutions in favor of independence, was able to get the Annapolis Convention to change its mind on June 28.^[60] Only the New York delegates were unable to get revised instructions. When Congress had been considering the resolution of independence on June 8, the New York Provincial Congress told the delegates to wait.^[61] But on June 30, the Provincial Congress evacuated New York as British forces approached, and would not convene again until July 10. This meant that New York’s delegates would not be authorized to declare independence until after Congress had made its decision.^[62]

Draft and adoption

Political maneuvering was setting the stage for an official declaration of independence even while a document was being written to explain the decision. On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a “Committee of Five” to draft a declaration, consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. The committee took no minutes, so there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded; contradictory accounts were written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, too many years to be regarded as entirely reliable—although their accounts are frequently cited.^[63] What is certain is that the committee discussed the general outline which the document should follow and decided that Jefferson would write the first draft.^[64] The committee in general, and Jefferson in particular, thought that Adams should write the document, but Adams persuaded them to choose Jefferson and promised to consult with him personally.^[2] Considering Congress’s busy schedule, Jefferson probably had limited time for writing over the next 17 days, and he likely wrote the draft quickly.^[65] He then consulted the others and made some changes, and then produced another copy incorporating these alterations. The committee presented this copy to the Congress on June 28, 1776. The title of the document was “A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled.”^[66]

Portable writing desk that Jefferson used to draft and write the Declaration of Independence

Congress ordered that the draft “lie on the table”^[67] and then methodically edited Jefferson’s primary document for the next two days, shortening it by a fourth, removing unnecessary wording, and improving sentence structure.^[68] They removed Jefferson’s assertion that Great Britain had forced slavery on the colonies in order to moderate the document and appease persons in Great Britain who supported the Revolution. Jefferson wrote that Congress had “mangled” his draft version, but the Declaration that was finally produced was “the majestic document that inspired both contemporaries and posterity,” in the words of his biographer John Ferling.^[68]

Congress tabled the draft of the declaration on Monday, July 1 and resolved itself into a committee of the whole, with Benjamin Harrison of Virginia presiding, and they resumed debate on Lee’s resolution of independence.^[69] John Dickinson made one last effort to delay the decision, arguing that Congress should not declare independence without first securing a foreign alliance and finalizing the Articles of Confederation.^[70] John Adams gave a speech in reply to Dickinson, restating the case for an immediate declaration.

A vote was taken after a long day of speeches, each colony casting a single vote, as always. The delegation for each colony numbered from two to seven members, and each delegation voted amongst themselves to determine the colony’s vote. Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted against declaring independence. The New York delegation abstained, lacking permission to vote for independence. Delaware cast no vote because the delegation was split between Thomas McKean, who voted yes, and George Read, who voted no. The remaining nine delegations voted in favor of independence, which meant that the resolution had been approved by the committee of the whole. The next step was for the resolution to be voted upon by Congress itself. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina was opposed to Lee’s resolution but desirous of unanimity, and he moved that the vote be postponed until the following day.^[71]

“Declaration House”, the boarding house at Market and S. 7th Street where Jefferson wrote the Declaration

On July 2, South Carolina reversed its position and voted for independence. In the Pennsylvania delegation, Dickinson and Robert Morris abstained, allowing the delegation to vote three-to-two in favor of independence. The tie in the Delaware delegation was broken by the timely arrival of Caesar Rodney, who voted for independence. The New York delegation abstained once again since they were still not authorized to vote for independence, although they were allowed to do so a week later by the New York Provincial Congress.^[72] The resolution of independence was adopted with twelve affirmative votes and one abstention, and the colonies officially severed political ties with Great Britain.^[73]John Adams wrote to his wife on the following day and predicted that July 2 would become a great American holiday^[74] He thought that the vote for independence would be commemorated; he did not foresee that Americans would instead celebrate Independence Day on the date when the announcement of that act was finalized.^[75]

I am apt to believe that [Independence Day] will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.^[76]

Congress next turned its attention to the committee’s draft of the declaration. They made a few changes in wording during several days of debate and deleted nearly a fourth of the text. The wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4, 1776 and sent to the printer for publication.

The opening of the original printing of the Declaration, printed on July 4, 1776 under Jefferson’s supervision. The engrossed copy was made later (shown at the top of this article). Note that the opening lines differ between the two versions.^[77]

There is a distinct change in wording from this original broadside printing of the Declaration and the final official engrossed copy. The word “unanimous” was inserted as a result of a Congressional resolution passed on July 19, 1776:

Resolved, That the Declaration passed on the 4th, be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title and stile of “The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America,” and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress.^[78]

Historian George Billias says:

Independence amounted to a new status of interdependence: the United States was now a sovereign nation entitled to the privileges and responsibilities that came with that status. America thus became a member of the international community, which meant becoming a maker of treaties and alliances, a military ally in diplomacy, and a partner in foreign trade on a more equal basis.^[79]

Annotated text of the engrossed declaration

The declaration is not divided into formal sections; but it is often discussed as consisting of five parts: introduction, preamble, indictment of King George III, denunciation of the British people, and conclusion.^[80]

Introduction Asserts as a matter of Natural Law the ability of a people to assume political independence; acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable, and therefore explicable, and ought to be explained.	In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Preamble Outlines a general philosophy of government that justifies revolution when government harms natural rights.^[80]	“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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Indictment A bill of particulars documenting the king’s “repeated injuries and usurpations” of the Americans’ rights and liberties.^[80]	“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. “He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. “He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. “He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. “He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people. “He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. “He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. “He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. “He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: “For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: “For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: “For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: “For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: “For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: “For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: “For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: “For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: “For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. “He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. “He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. “He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. “In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
Denunciation This section essentially finishes the case for independence. The conditions that justified revolution have been shown.^[80]	“Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”
Conclusion The signers assert that there exist conditions under which people must change their government, that the British have produced such conditions and, by necessity, the colonies must throw off political ties with the British Crown and become independent states. The conclusion contains, at its core, the Lee Resolution that had been passed on July 2.	“We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Signatures The first and most famous signature on the engrossed copy was that of John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress. Two future presidents (Thomas Jefferson and John Adams) and a father and great-grandfather of two other presidents (Benjamin Harrison V) were among the signatories. Edward Rutledge (age 26) was the youngest signer, and Benjamin Franklin (age 70) was the oldest signer. The fifty-six signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows (from north to south):^[81]	New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross Delaware: George Read, Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward Jr., Thomas Lynch Jr., Arthur Middleton Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Influences and legal status

English political philosopher John Locke (1632–1704)

Historians have often sought to identify the sources that most influenced the words and political philosophy of the Declaration of Independence. By Jefferson’s own admission, the Declaration contained no original ideas, but was instead a statement of sentiments widely shared by supporters of the American Revolution. As he explained in 1825:

Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.^[82]

Jefferson’s most immediate sources were two documents written in June 1776: his own draft of the preamble of the Constitution of Virginia, and George Mason‘s draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Ideas and phrases from both of these documents appear in the Declaration of Independence.^[83] They were, in turn, directly influenced by the 1689 English Declaration of Rights, which formally ended the reign of King James II.^[84] During the American Revolution, Jefferson and other Americans looked to the English Declaration of Rights as a model of how to end the reign of an unjust king.^[85] The Scottish Declaration of Arbroath (1320) and the Dutch Act of Abjuration (1581) have also been offered as models for Jefferson’s Declaration, but these models are now accepted by few scholars.^[86]

Jefferson wrote that a number of authors exerted a general influence on the words of the Declaration.^[87] English political theorist John Locke is usually cited as one of the primary influences, a man whom Jefferson called one of “the three greatest men that have ever lived”.^[88] In 1922, historian Carl L. Becker wrote, “Most Americans had absorbed Locke’s works as a kind of political gospel; and the Declaration, in its form, in its phraseology, follows closely certain sentences in Locke’s second treatise on government.”^[89] The extent of Locke’s influence on the American Revolution has been questioned by some subsequent scholars, however. Historian Ray Forrest Harvey argued in 1937 for the dominant influence of Swiss jurist Jean Jacques Burlamaqui, declaring that Jefferson and Locke were at “two opposite poles” in their political philosophy, as evidenced by Jefferson’s use in the Declaration of Independence of the phrase “pursuit of happiness” instead of “property”.^[90] Other scholars emphasized the influence of republicanism rather than Locke’s classical liberalism.^[91] Historian Garry Wills argued that Jefferson was influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment, particularly Francis Hutcheson, rather than Locke,^[92] an interpretation that has been strongly criticized.^[93]

Legal historian John Phillip Reid has written that the emphasis on the political philosophy of the Declaration has been misplaced. The Declaration is not a philosophical tract about natural rights, argues Reid, but is instead a legal document—an indictment against King George for violating the constitutional rights of the colonists.^[94] As such, it follows the process of the 1550 Magdeburg Confession, which legitimized resistance against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in a multi-step legal formula now known as the doctrine of the Lesser magistrate.^[95] Historian David Armitage has argued that the Declaration was strongly influenced by de Vattel’s The Law of Nations, the dominant international law treatise of the period, and a book that Benjamin Franklin said was “continually in the hands of the members of our Congress”.^[96] Armitage writes, “Vattel made independence fundamental to his definition of statehood”; therefore, the primary purpose of the Declaration was “to express the international legal sovereignty of the United States”. If the United States were to have any hope of being recognized by the European powers, the American revolutionaries first had to make it clear that they were no longer dependent on Great Britain.^[97] The Declaration of Independence does not have the force of law domestically, but nevertheless it may help to provide historical and legal clarity about the Constitution and other laws.^[98]^[99]^[100]^[101]

Signing

The signed copy of the Declaration is now badly faded because of poor preserving practices in the 19th century. It is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

The Syng inkstand was used at both the signing of the Declaration and the 1787 signing of the U.S. Constitution.

The Declaration became official when Congress voted for it on July 4; signatures of the delegates were not needed to make it official. The handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence that was signed by Congress is dated July 4, 1776. The signatures of fifty-six delegates are affixed; however, the exact date when each person signed it has long been the subject of debate. Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams all wrote that the Declaration had been signed by Congress on July 4.^[102] But in 1796, signer Thomas McKean disputed that the Declaration had been signed on July 4, pointing out that some signers were not then present, including several who were not even elected to Congress until after that date.^[103]

The Declaration was transposed on paper, adopted by the Continental Congress, and signed by John Hancock, President of the Congress, on July 4, 1776, according to the 1911 record of events by the U.S. State Departmentunder Secretary Philander C. Knox.^[104] On August 2, 1776, a parchment paper copy of the Declaration was signed by 56 persons.^[104] Many of these signers were not present when the original Declaration was adopted on July 4.^[104] Signer Matthew Thornton from New Hampshire was seated in the Continental Congress in November; he asked for and received the privilege of adding his signature at that time, and signed on November 4, 1776.^[104]

On July 4, 1776, Continental Congress President John Hancock‘s signature authenticated the United States Declaration of Independence.

Historians have generally accepted McKean’s version of events, arguing that the famous signed version of the Declaration was created after July 19, and was not signed by Congress until August 2, 1776.^[105] In 1986, legal historian Wilfred Ritz argued that historians had misunderstood the primary documents and given too much credence to McKean, who had not been present in Congress on July 4.^[106] According to Ritz, about thirty-four delegates signed the Declaration on July 4, and the others signed on or after August 2.^[107] Historians who reject a July 4 signing maintain that most delegates signed on August 2, and that those eventual signers who were not present added their names later.^[108]

Two future U.S. presidents were among the signatories: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. The most famous signature on the engrossed copy is that of John Hancock, who presumably signed first as President of Congress.^[109]Hancock’s large, flamboyant signature became iconic, and the term John Hancock emerged in the United States as an informal synonym for “signature”.^[110] A commonly circulated but apocryphal account claims that, after Hancock signed, the delegate from Massachusetts commented, “The British ministry can read that name without spectacles.” Another apocryphal report indicates that Hancock proudly declared, “There! I guess King George will be able to read that!”^[111]

Various legends emerged years later about the signing of the Declaration, when the document had become an important national symbol. In one famous story, John Hancock supposedly said that Congress, having signed the Declaration, must now “all hang together”, and Benjamin Franklin replied: “Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” The quotation did not appear in print until more than fifty years after Franklin’s death.^[112]

The Syng inkstand used at the signing was also used at the signing of the United States Constitution in 1787.

Publication and reaction

Johannes Adam Simon Oertel‘s painting Pulling Down the Statue of King George III, N.Y.C., ca. 1859, depicts citizens destroying a statue of King George after the Declaration was read in New York City on July 9, 1776.

After Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration on July 4, a handwritten copy was sent a few blocks away to the printing shop of John Dunlap. Through the night, Dunlap printed about 200 broadsides for distribution. Before long, it was being read to audiences and reprinted in newspapers throughout the 13 states. The first formal public readings of the document took place on July 8, in Philadelphia (by John Nixon in the yard of Independence Hall), Trenton, New Jersey, and Easton, Pennsylvania; the first newspaper to publish it was the Pennsylvania Evening Post on July 6.^[113] A German translation of the Declaration was published in Philadelphia by July 9.^[114]

President of Congress John Hancock sent a broadside to General George Washington, instructing him to have it proclaimed “at the Head of the Army in the way you shall think it most proper”.^[115] Washington had the Declaration read to his troops in New York City on July 9, with thousands of British troops on ships in the harbor. Washington and Congress hoped that the Declaration would inspire the soldiers, and encourage others to join the army.^[113] After hearing the Declaration, crowds in many cities tore down and destroyed signs or statues representing royal authority. An equestrian statue of King George in New York City was pulled down and the lead used to make musket balls.^[116]

William Whipple, signer of the Declaration of Independence, freed his slave believing that he could not both fight for liberty and own a slave.

British officials in North America sent copies of the Declaration to Great Britain.^[117] It was published in British newspapers beginning in mid-August, it had reached Florence and Warsaw by mid-September, and a German translation appeared in Switzerland by October. The first copy of the Declaration sent to France got lost, and the second copy arrived only in November 1776.^[118] It reached Portuguese America by Brazilian medical student “Vendek” José Joaquim Maia e Barbalho, who had met with Thomas Jefferson in Nîmes.

The Spanish-American authorities banned the circulation of the Declaration, but it was widely transmitted and translated: by Venezuelan Manuel García de Sena, by Colombian Miguel de Pombo, by Ecuadorian Vicente Rocafuerte, and by New Englanders Richard Cleveland and William Shaler, who distributed the Declaration and the United States Constitution among Creoles in Chile and Indians in Mexico in 1821.^[119] The North Ministry did not give an official answer to the Declaration, but instead secretly commissioned pamphleteer John Lind to publish a response entitled Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress.^[120] British Tories denounced the signers of the Declaration for not applying the same principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” to African Americans.^[121] Thomas Hutchinson, the former royal governor of Massachusetts, also published a rebuttal.^[122]^[123] These pamphlets challenged various aspects of the Declaration. Hutchinson argued that the American Revolution was the work of a few conspirators who wanted independence from the outset, and who had finally achieved it by inducing otherwise loyal colonists to rebel.^[124] Lind’s pamphlet had an anonymous attack on the concept of natural rights written by Jeremy Bentham, an argument that he repeated during the French Revolution.^[125] Both pamphlets asked how the American slaveholders in Congress could proclaim that “all men are created equal” without freeing their own slaves.^[126]

William Whipple, a signer of the Declaration of Independence who had fought in the war, freed his slave Prince Whipple because of revolutionary ideals. In the postwar decades, other slaveholders also freed their slaves; from 1790 to 1810, the percentage of free blacks in the Upper South increased to 8.3 percent from less than one percent of the black population.^[127] All Northern states abolished slavery by 1804.

History of the documents

The official copy of the Declaration of Independence was the one printed on July 4, 1776, under Jefferson’s supervision. It was sent to the states and to the Army and was widely reprinted in newspapers. The slightly different “engrossed copy” (shown at the top of this article) was made later for members to sign. The engrossed version is the one widely distributed in the 21st century. Note that the opening lines differ between the two versions.^[77]

The copy of the Declaration that was signed by Congress is known as the engrossed or parchment copy. It was probably engrossed (that is, carefully handwritten) by clerk Timothy Matlack.^[128] A facsimile made in 1823 has become the basis of most modern reproductions rather than the original because of poor conservation of the engrossed copy through the 19th century.^[128] In 1921, custody of the engrossed copy of the Declaration was transferred from the State Department to the Library of Congress, along with the United States Constitution. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the documents were moved for safekeeping to the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox in Kentucky, where they were kept until 1944.^[129] In 1952, the engrossed Declaration was transferred to the National Archives and is now on permanent display at the National Archives in the “Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom“.^[130]

The Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom in the National Archives building

The document signed by Congress and enshrined in the National Archives is usually regarded as the Declaration of Independence, but historian Julian P. Boyd argued that the Declaration, like Magna Carta, is not a single document. Boyd considered the printed broadsides ordered by Congress to be official texts, as well. The Declaration was first published as a broadside that was printed the night of July 4 by John Dunlap of Philadelphia. Dunlap printed about 200 broadsides, of which 26 are known to survive. The 26th copy was discovered in The National Archives in England in 2009.^[131]

In 1777, Congress commissioned Mary Katherine Goddard to print a new broadside that listed the signers of the Declaration, unlike the Dunlap broadside.^[128]^[132] Nine copies of the Goddard broadside are known to still exist.^[132] A variety of broadsides printed by the states are also extant.^[132]

Several early handwritten copies and drafts of the Declaration have also been preserved. Jefferson kept a four-page draft that late in life he called the “original Rough draught”.^[133] It is not known how many drafts Jefferson wrote prior to this one, and how much of the text was contributed by other committee members. In 1947, Boyd discovered a fragment of an earlier draft in Jefferson’s handwriting.^[134] Jefferson and Adams sent copies of the rough draft to friends, with slight variations.

During the writing process, Jefferson showed the rough draft to Adams and Franklin, and perhaps to other members of the drafting committee,^[133] who made a few more changes. Franklin, for example, may have been responsible for changing Jefferson’s original phrase “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” to “We hold these truths to be self-evident”.^[135] Jefferson incorporated these changes into a copy that was submitted to Congress in the name of the committee.^[133] The copy that was submitted to Congress on June 28 has been lost and was perhaps destroyed in the printing process,^[136] or destroyed during the debates in accordance with Congress’s secrecy rule.^[137]

On April 21, 2017, it was announced that a second engrossed copy had been discovered in the archives at West Sussex County Council in Chichester, England.^[138] Named by its finders the “Sussex Declaration”, it differs from the National Archives copy (which the finders refer to as the “Matlack Declaration”) in that the signatures on it are not grouped by States. How it came to be in England is not yet known, but the finders believe that the randomness of the signatures points to an origin with signatory James Wilson, who had argued strongly that the Declaration was made not by the States but by the whole people.^[139]^[140]

Legacy

The Declaration was given little attention in the years immediately following the American Revolution, having served its original purpose in announcing the independence of the United States.^[141] Early celebrations of Independence Day largely ignored the Declaration, as did early histories of the Revolution. The act of declaring independence was considered important, whereas the text announcing that act attracted little attention.^[142] The Declaration was rarely mentioned during the debates about the United States Constitution, and its language was not incorporated into that document.^[143] George Mason’s draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights was more influential, and its language was echoed in state constitutions and state bills of rights more often than Jefferson’s words.^[144] “In none of these documents”, wrote Pauline Maier, “is there any evidence whatsoever that the Declaration of Independence lived in men’s minds as a classic statement of American political principles.”^[145]

Influence in other countries

Many leaders of the French Revolution admired the Declaration of Independence^[145] but were also interested in the new American state constitutions.^[146] The inspiration and content of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789) emerged largely from the ideals of the American Revolution.^[147] Its key drafts were prepared by Lafayette, working closely in Paris with his friend Thomas Jefferson. It also borrowed language from George Mason‘s Virginia Declaration of Rights.^[148]^[149] The declaration also influenced the Russian Empire. The document had a particular impact on the Decembrist revolt and other Russian thinkers.

According to historian David Armitage, the Declaration of Independence did prove to be internationally influential, but not as a statement of human rights. Armitage argued that the Declaration was the first in a new genre of declarations of independence that announced the creation of new states.

Other French leaders were directly influenced by the text of the Declaration of Independence itself. The Manifesto of the Province of Flanders (1790) was the first foreign derivation of the Declaration;^[150] others include the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence (1811), the Liberian Declaration of Independence (1847), the declarations of secession by the Confederate States of America (1860–61), and the Vietnamese Proclamation of Independence (1945).^[151] These declarations echoed the United States Declaration of Independence in announcing the independence of a new state, without necessarily endorsing the political philosophy of the original.^[152]

Other countries have used the Declaration as inspiration or have directly copied sections from it. These include the Haitian declaration of January 1, 1804, during the Haitian Revolution, the United Provinces of New Granada in 1811, the Argentine Declaration of Independence in 1816, the Chilean Declaration of Independence in 1818, Costa Rica in 1821, El Salvador in 1821, Guatemala in 1821, Honduras in (1821), Mexico in 1821, Nicaragua in 1821, Peru in 1821, Bolivian War of Independence in 1825, Uruguay in 1825, Ecuador in 1830, Colombia in 1831, Paraguay in 1842, Dominican Republic in 1844, Texas Declaration of Independence in March 1836, California Republic in November 1836, Hungarian Declaration of Independence in 1849, Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand in 1835, and the Czechoslovak declaration of independence from 1918 drafted in Washington D.C. with Gutzon Borglum among the drafters. The Rhodesian declaration of independence, ratified in November 1965, is based on the American one as well; however, it omits the phrases “all men are created equal” and “the consent of the governed“.^[119]^[153]^[154]^[155] The South Carolina declaration of secession from December 1860 also mentions the U.S. Declaration of Independence, though it, like the Rhodesian one, omits references to “all men are created equal” and “consent of the governed”.

Revival of interest

Interest in the Declaration was revived in the 1790s with the emergence of the United States’s first political parties.^[156] Throughout the 1780s, few Americans knew or cared who wrote the Declaration.^[157] But in the next decade, Jeffersonian Republicans sought political advantage over their rival Federalists by promoting both the importance of the Declaration and Jefferson as its author.^[158] Federalists responded by casting doubt on Jefferson’s authorship or originality, and by emphasizing that independence was declared by the whole Congress, with Jefferson as just one member of the drafting committee. Federalists insisted that Congress’s act of declaring independence, in which Federalist John Adams had played a major role, was more important than the document announcing it.^[159] But this view faded away, like the Federalist Party itself, and, before long, the act of declaring independence became synonymous with the document.

A less partisan appreciation for the Declaration emerged in the years following the War of 1812, thanks to a growing American nationalism and a renewed interest in the history of the Revolution.^[160] In 1817, Congress commissioned John Trumbull‘s famous painting of the signers, which was exhibited to large crowds before being installed in the Capitol.^[161] The earliest commemorative printings of the Declaration also appeared at this time, offering many Americans their first view of the signed document.^[162] Collective biographies of the signers were first published in the 1820s,^[163] giving birth to what Garry Wills called the “cult of the signers”.^[164] In the years that followed, many stories about the writing and signing of the document were published for the first time.

When interest in the Declaration was revived, the sections that were most important in 1776 were no longer relevant: the announcement of the independence of the United States and the grievances against King George. But the second paragraph was applicable long after the war had ended, with its talk of self-evident truths and unalienable rights.^[165] The Constitution and the Bill of Rights lacked sweeping statements about rights and equality, and advocates of groups with grievances turned to the Declaration for support.^[166] Starting in the 1820s, variations of the Declaration were issued to proclaim the rights of workers, farmers, women, and others.^[167] In 1848, for example, the Seneca Falls Convention of women’s rights advocates declared that “all men and women are created equal”.^[168]

John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence (1817–1826)

John Trumbull‘s famous paintingis often identified as a depiction of the signing of the Declaration, but it actually shows the drafting committee presenting its work to the Congress.^[169]

John Trumbull‘s painting Declaration of Independence has played a significant role in popular conceptions of the Declaration of Independence. The painting is 12-by-18-foot (3.7 by 5.5 m) in size and was commissioned by the United States Congress in 1817; it has hung in the United States Capitol Rotunda since 1826. It is sometimes described as the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but it actually shows the Committee of Five presenting their draft of the Declaration to the Second Continental Congress on June 28, 1776, and not the signing of the document, which took place later.^[170]

Trumbull painted the figures from life whenever possible, but some had died and images could not be located; hence, the painting does not include all the signers of the Declaration. One figure had participated in the drafting but did not sign the final document; another refused to sign. In fact, the membership of the Second Continental Congress changed as time passed, and the figures in the painting were never in the same room at the same time. It is, however, an accurate depiction of the room in Independence Hall, the centerpiece of the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Trumbull’s painting has been depicted multiple times on U.S. currency and postage stamps. Its first use was on the reverse side of the $100 National Bank Note issued in 1863. A few years later, the steel engraving used in printing the bank notes was used to produce a 24-cent stamp, issued as part of the 1869 Pictorial Issue. An engraving of the signing scene has been featured on the reverse side of the United States two-dollar bill since 1976.

United States two-dollar bill(reverse)

Slavery and the Declaration

The apparent contradiction between the claim that “all men are created equal” and the existence of American slavery attracted comment when the Declaration was first published. As mentioned above, Jefferson had included a paragraph in his initial draft that strongly indicted Great Britain’s role in the slave trade, but this was deleted from the final version.^[171] Jefferson himself was a prominent Virginia slave holder, having owned hundreds of slaves.^[172] Referring to this seeming contradiction, English abolitionist Thomas Day wrote in a 1776 letter, “If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.”^[173]

In the 19th century, the Declaration took on a special significance for the abolitionist movement. Historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown wrote that “abolitionists tended to interpret the Declaration of Independence as a theological as well as a political document”.^[174] Abolitionist leaders Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison adopted the “twin rocks” of “the Bible and the Declaration of Independence” as the basis for their philosophies. “As long as there remains a single copy of the Declaration of Independence, or of the Bible, in our land,” wrote Garrison, “we will not despair.”^[175] For radical abolitionists such as Garrison, the most important part of the Declaration was its assertion of the right of revolution. Garrison called for the destruction of the government under the Constitution, and the creation of a new state dedicated to the principles of the Declaration.^[176]

The controversial question of whether to add additional slave states to the United States coincided with the growing stature of the Declaration. The first major public debate about slavery and the Declaration took place during the Missouri controversy of 1819 to 1821.^[177]Antislavery Congressmen argued that the language of the Declaration indicated that the Founding Fathers of the United States had been opposed to slavery in principle, and so new slave states should not be added to the country.^[178] Proslavery Congressmen led by Senator Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina argued that the Declaration was not a part of the Constitution and therefore had no relevance to the question.^[179]

With the antislavery movement gaining momentum, defenders of slavery such as John Randolph and John C. Calhoun found it necessary to argue that the Declaration’s assertion that “all men are created equal” was false, or at least that it did not apply to black people.^[180] During the debate over the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1853, for example, Senator John Pettit of Indiana argued that the statement “all men are created equal” was not a “self-evident truth” but a “self-evident lie”.^[181] Opponents of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, including Salmon P. Chase and Benjamin Wade, defended the Declaration and what they saw as its antislavery principles.^[182]

Lincoln and the Declaration

Congressman Abraham Lincoln,
1845–1846

The Declaration’s relationship to slavery was taken up in 1854 by Abraham Lincoln, a little-known former Congressman who idolized the Founding Fathers.^[183] Lincoln thought that the Declaration of Independence expressed the highest principles of the American Revolution, and that the Founding Fathers had tolerated slavery with the expectation that it would ultimately wither away.^[9] For the United States to legitimize the expansion of slavery in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, thought Lincoln, was to repudiate the principles of the Revolution. In his October 1854 Peoria speech, Lincoln said:

Nearly eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a “sacred right of self-government”. … Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. … Let us repurify it. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. … If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union: but we shall have saved it, as to make, and keep it, forever worthy of the saving.^[184]

The meaning of the Declaration was a recurring topic in the famed debates between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858. Douglas argued that the phrase “all men are created equal” in the Declaration referred to white men only. The purpose of the Declaration, he said, had simply been to justify the independence of the United States, and not to proclaim the equality of any “inferior or degraded race”.^[185] Lincoln, however, thought that the language of the Declaration was deliberately universal, setting a high moral standard to which the American republic should aspire. “I had thought the Declaration contemplated the progressive improvement in the condition of all men everywhere,” he said.^[186] During the seventh and last joint debate with Steven Douglas at Alton, Illinois on October 15, 1858, Lincoln said about the declaration:

I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal—equal in “certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all, constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere.^[187]

According to Pauline Maier, Douglas’s interpretation was more historically accurate, but Lincoln’s view ultimately prevailed. “In Lincoln’s hands,” wrote Maier, “the Declaration of Independence became first and foremost a living document” with “a set of goals to be realized over time”.^[188]

[T]here is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man.

—Abraham Lincoln, 1858^[189]

Like Daniel Webster, James Wilson, and Joseph Story before him, Lincoln argued that the Declaration of Independence was a founding document of the United States, and that this had important implications for interpreting the Constitution, which had been ratified more than a decade after the Declaration.^[190] The Constitution did not use the word “equality”, yet Lincoln believed that the concept that “all men are created equal” remained a part of the nation’s founding principles.^[191] He famously expressed this belief in the opening sentence of his 1863 Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago [i.e. in 1776] 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’s view of the Declaration became influential, seeing it as a moral guide to interpreting the Constitution. “For most people now,” wrote Garry Wills in 1992, “the Declaration means what Lincoln told us it means, as a way of correcting the Constitution itself without overthrowing it.”^[192] Admirers of Lincoln such as Harry V. Jaffa praised this development. Critics of Lincoln, notably Willmoore Kendall and Mel Bradford, argued that Lincoln dangerously expanded the scope of the national government and violated states’ rights by reading the Declaration into the Constitution.^[193]

Women’s suffrage and the Declaration

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her two sons (1848).

In July 1848, the first woman’s rights convention, the Seneca Falls Convention, was held in Seneca Falls, New York. The convention was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane Hunt. In their “Declaration of Sentiments“, patterned on the Declaration of Independence, the convention members demanded social and political equality for women. Their motto was that “All men and women are created equal” and the convention demanded suffrage for women. The suffrage movement was supported by William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass.^[194]^[195]

Twentieth century and later

The Declaration was chosen to be the first digitized text (1971).^[196]

The Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence was dedicated in 1984 in Constitution Gardens on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where the signatures of all the original signers are carved in stone with their names, places of residence, and occupations.

The new One World Trade Center building in New York City (2014) is 1776 feet high to symbolize the year that the Declaration of Independence was signed.^[197]^[198]^[199]

Popular culture

The adoption of the Declaration of Independence was dramatized in the 1969 Tony Award–winning musical 1776 and the 1972 film version, as well as in the 2008 television miniseries John Adams.^[200]^[201] In 1970, The 5th Dimension recorded the opening of the Declaration on their album Portrait in the song “Declaration”. It was first performed on the Ed Sullivan Show on December 7, 1969, and it was taken as a song of protest against the Vietnam War.^[202] The Declaration of Independence is also a plot device in the 2004 American film National Treasure.^[203]

References …

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

Trump asks Americans to ‘stay true to our cause’

United States Declaration of Independence
	1823 facsimile of the engrossed copy
Created	June–July 1776
Ratified	July 4, 1776
Location	Engrossed copy: National Archives and Records; Administration Rough draft: Library of Congress
Author(s)	Thomas Jefferson et al.
Signatories	56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress
Purpose	To announce and explain separation from Great Britain

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, CALVIN WOODWARD and LYNN BERRYyesterday

1 of 20

President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Karen Pence and others stand as the US Army Band performs and the US Navy Blue Angels flyover at the end of an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump celebrated the story of America as “the greatest political journey in human history” in a Fourth of July commemoration before a soggy but cheering crowd of spectators, many of them invited, on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial. Supporters welcomed his tribute to the U.S. military while protesters assailed him for putting himself center stage on a holiday devoted to unity.

As rain fell on him, Trump called on Americans to “stay true to our cause” during a program that adhered to patriotic themes and hailed an eclectic mix of history’s heroes, from the armed forces, space, civil rights and other endeavors of American life.

He largely stuck to his script, avoiding diversions into his agenda or re-election campaign. But in one exception, he vowed, “Very soon, we will plant the American flag on Mars,” actually a distant goal not likely to be achieved until late in the 2020s if even then.

A late afternoon downpour drenched the capital’s Independence Day crowds and Trump’s speech unfolded in occasional rain. The warplanes and presidential aircraft he had summoned conducted their flyovers as planned, capped by the Navy Blue Angels aerobatics team.

By adding his own, one-hour “Salute to America” production to capital festivities that typically draw hundreds of thousands anyway, Trump became the first president in nearly seven decades to address a crowd at the National Mall on the Fourth of July.

President Donald Trump celebrated America as "the most exceptional nation in the history of the world" in a Fourth of July commemoration before a soggy, cheering crowd of spectators. He spoke on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial Thursday. (July 4)

Protesters objecting to what they saw as his co-opting of the holiday inflated a roly-poly balloon depicting Trump as an angry, diaper-clad baby.

Trump set aside a historic piece of real estate — a stretch of the Mall from the Lincoln Monument to the midpoint of the reflecting pool — for a mix of invited military members, Republican and Trump campaign donors and other bigwigs. It’s where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech, Barack Obama and Trump held inaugural concerts and protesters swarmed into the water when supporters of Richard Nixon put on a July 4, 1970, celebration, with the president sending taped remarks from California.

Aides to the crowd-obsessed Trump fretted about the prospect of empty seats at his event, said a person familiar with the planning who was not authorized to be identified. Aides scrambled in recent days to distribute tickets and mobilize the Trump and GOP social media accounts to encourage participation for an event hastily arranged and surrounded with confusion.

Back at the White House, Trump tweeted an aerial photo showing an audience that filled both sides of the memorial’s reflecting pool and stretched to the Washington Monument. “A great crowd of tremendous Patriots this evening, all the way back to the Washington Monument!” he said.

Many who filed into the sprawling VIP section said they got their free tickets from members of Congress or from friends or neighbors who couldn’t use theirs. Outside that zone, a diverse mix of visitors, locals, veterans, tour groups, immigrant families and more milled about, some drawn by Trump, some by curiosity, some by the holiday’s regular activities along the Mall.

Protesters earlier made their voices heard in sweltering heat by the Washington Monument, along the traditional parade route and elsewhere, while the VIP section at the reflecting pool served as something of a buffer for Trump’s event.

In the shadow of the Washington Monument hours before Trump’s speech, the anti-war organization Codepink erected a 20-foot tall “Trump baby” balloon to protest what activists saw as his intrusion in Independence Day and a focus on military might that they associate with martial regimes.

“We think that he is making this about himself and it’s really a campaign rally,” said Medea Benjamin, the organization’s co-director. “We think that he’s a big baby. … He’s erratic, he’s prone to tantrums, he doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions. And so this is a great symbol of how we feel about our president.”

The balloon remained tied down at the Mall because park officials restricted the group’s permission to move it or fill it with helium, Benjamin said.

Protesters also handed out small Trump-baby balloons on sticks. Molly King of La Porte, Indiana, a 13-year-old Trump supporter in sunglasses and a “Make America Great Again” hat, happily came away with one.

“They’re making a big stink about it but it’s actually pretty cute,” she said. “I mean, why not love your president as you’d love a baby?”

A small crowd gathered to take pictures with the big balloon, which drew Trump supporters and detractors.

“Even though everybody has different opinions,” said Kevin Malton, a Trump supporter from Middlesboro, Kentucky, “everybody’s getting along.”

But Daniela Guray, a 19-year-old from Chicago who held a “Dump Trump” sign, said she was subjected to a racial epithet while walking along the Constitution Avenue parade route and told to go home.

She said she did not come to the Mall to protest but ended up doing so. “I started seeing all the tanks with all the protests and that’s when I said, ‘Wait, this is not an actual Fourth of July,’” she said. “Trump is making it his day rather than the Fourth of July.”

Trump had sounded a defensive note Wednesday, tweeting that the cost “will be very little compared to what it is worth.” But he glossed over a host of expenses associated with the display of military might, including flying in planes and tanks and other vehicles to Washington by rail.

Not since 1951, when President Harry Truman spoke before a large gathering on the Washington Monument grounds to mark the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, has a commander in chief made an Independence Day speech to a sizable crowd on the Mall.

Pete Buttigieg, one of the Democrats running for president, said, “This business of diverting money and military assets to use them as a kind of prop, to prop up a presidential ego, is not reflecting well on our country.” Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a Navy Reserve veteran who served in Afghanistan in 2014.

Two groups, the National Parks Conservation Foundation and Democracy Forward, want the Interior Department’s internal watchdog to investigate what they say may be a “potentially unlawful decision to divert” national parks money to Trump’s “spectacle.”

Trump has longed for a public display of U.S. military prowess ever since he watched a two-hour procession of French military tanks and fighter jets in Paris on Bastille Day in July 2017.

Washington has held an Independence Day celebration for decades, featuring a parade along Constitution Avenue, a concert on the Capitol lawn with music by the National Symphony Orchestra and fireworks beginning at dusk near the Washington Monument.

Trump altered the lineup by adding his speech, moving the fireworks closer to the Lincoln Memorial and summoning the tanks and warplanes.

Amid all the theatrics, Trump did pay tribute to the reason for the holiday — the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. “With a single sheet of parchment and 56 signatures,” Trump said, “America began the greatest political journey in human history.”

Story 2: Millions March and Protest for Freedom and Independence From Chinese Communist Coercion and Tyranny — Totalitarian Tyranny —Every breath you take — Every move you make — Every bond you break — Every step you take — I’ll be watching you — Every single day — Every word you say — Every game you play — Every night you stay — I’ll be watching you — Oh can’t you see — You belong to me — Chinese Communist Party Social Credit System — Belt and Road Initiative — Videos

The Police – Every Breath You Take (Official Music Video)

Every Breath You Take

The Police

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you

Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I’ll be watching you

Oh can’t you see
You belong to me
My poor heart aches
With every step you take

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
I’ll be watching you

Since you’ve gone I been lost without a trace
I dream at night I can only see your face
I look around but it’s you I can’t replace
I feel so cold and I long for your embrace
I keep crying baby, baby, please

Oh can’t you see
You belong to me
My poor heart aches
With every step you take

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
I’ll be watching you
Every move you make
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you

I’ll be watching you
(Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take)
I’ll be watching you
(Every single day, every word you say, every game you play, every night you stay)
I’ll be watching you
(Every move you make, every vow you break, every smile you fake, every claim you stake)
I’ll be watching you
(Every single day, every word you say, every game you play, every night you stay)
I’ll be watching you
(Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take)
I’ll be watching you
(Every single day, every word you say, every game you play, every night you stay)
I’ll be watching you

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Gordon Sumner

Every Breath You Take lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

The Police – Every Breath You Take (subtitulada en español)

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Hong Kong protesters call for people to withdraw funds from the Bank of China to keep up pressure on city’s Beijing-backed government as police arrest six demonstrators after latest clashes

Hong Kong protesters began circulating plans to ‘stress test’ the Bank of China
Six people have been arrested following violent clashes with police on Sunday
Police baton-charged small groups of young protesters who refused to disperse
Rallies sparked by extradition bill have morphed into anti-government protest

By AFP

PUBLISHED: 04:44 EDT, 8 July 2019 | UPDATED: 11:24 EDT, 8 July 2019

Anti-government protesters in Hong Kong began circulating plans on Monday to ‘stress test’ the Bank of China in their bid to keep pressure on the city’s pro-Beijing leaders, after six people were arrested in the latest clashes with police.

The city has been plunged into its worst crisis in recent history following a month of huge marches as well as separate violent confrontations with police involving a minority of hardcore protesters.

The rallies were sparked by a now-suspended law that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China, but have since morphed into a wider movement calling for democratic reforms and a halt to sliding freedoms in the semi-autonomous territory.

A protester is being restrained by an officer during violent clashes with police in Mong Kok district in Kowloon on Sunday night. Anti-government protesters in Hong Kong began circulating plans on Monday to ‘stress test’ the Bank of China in their bid to keep pressure on the city’s pro-Beijing leaders

Sunday night saw fresh political violence break out in Hong Kong’s district of Mongkok. The city has been plunged into its worst crisis in history following a month of huge marches as well as separate violent confrontations with police involving a minority of hardcore protesters

Police said the group were taking part in an ‘unlawful assembly’ and had been warned that officers would take action.

‘Some protesters resisted and police arrested five persons for assaulting a police officer and obstructing a police officer in the execution of duties,’ a statement said.

Another protester was arrested earlier in the day for failing to provide identification during a stop and search.

Hong Kong police baton-charged small groups of masked, largely young protesters who were walking along roads and refused to disperse

Police said the group were taking part in an ‘unlawful assembly’ and had been warned that officers would take action. ‘Some protesters resisted and police arrested five persons for assaulting a police officer and obstructing a police officer in the execution of duties,’ a statement said

An anti-extradition bill protester is seen injured after a conflict with riot police at the end of a march at Hong Kong’s tourism district Mongkok on Sunday night

Activists hit out at the police tactics, saying the protesters had remained peaceful as they made their way home, and that violence was started by a shield wall of riot officers that had blocked the crowd’s path.

‘HKers joined rally peacefully… against extradition bill result in being beaten and assaulted by HK Police,’ democracy activist Joshua Wong wrote in a tweet accompanying pictures of at least two protesters with bleeding head wounds.

‘Just another example of excessive force used by the police,’ he added in another tweet.

By Monday morning, online groups were already planning more protests on encrypted messenger apps and chat forums that have been successfully used by demonstrators to bring out huge crowds.

Despite repeated requests, Hong Kong’s police have not released a breakdown of how many people have been detained in the last month of protests

Protesters in Hong Kong are demanding that a postponed extradition bill be scrapped entirely. By Monday morning, online groups were already planning more protests on encrypted messenger apps and chat forums that have been successfully used by protesters

One proposal going viral was a call to collectively withdraw funds from the Bank of China this Saturday to ‘stress test’ the organisation’s liquidity.

The state-owned Bank of China’s towering Hong Kong headquarters is one of the most recognisable buildings in the territory’s famous skyline and the organisation is one of three banks licensed to issue its own notes

Shares in the bank were down about one percent Monday in line with the broader market.

Public anger has soared against the city’s pro-Beijing leaders and its police force after officers used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters outside parliament last month.

Since then the chaos has only escalated.

Public anger has soared against the city’s pro-Beijing leaders and its police force after officers used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters outside parliament last month

Protesters are demanding the bill be scrapped entirely, an independent inquiry into police tactics, amnesty for those arrested, and for the city’s leader Carrie Lam to step down

Last Monday, anger peaked as hundreds of demonstrators stormed and trashed the city’s parliament.

Those unprecedented scenes – and renewed huge marches – have failed to persuade the government, whose sole concession so far has been to suspend the loathed extradition bill.

Protesters are demanding the bill be scrapped entirely, an independent inquiry into police tactics, amnesty for those arrested, and for the city’s unelected leader Carrie Lam to step down.

They have also demanded authorities stop characterising protesters as ‘rioters’, a definition that carries much steeper jail terms.

Beijing has thrown its full support behind the embattled Lam, calling on police to pursue anyone involved in the parliament storming and other clashes.

Sunday’s rally outside a controversial train station that runs to the mainland drew 230,000 people, organisers said, after calls for the gathering started on online forums and snowballed

Despite repeated requests, police have not released a breakdown of how many people have been detained in the last month of protests

With the exception of a pre-dawn press conference after parliament was stormed, Lam has virtually disappeared from public view in recent weeks with little clue as to what direction her administration intends to take

With the exception of a pre-dawn press conference after parliament was stormed, Lam has virtually disappeared from public view in recent weeks with little clue as to what direction her administration intends to take.

Despite repeated requests, police have not released a breakdown of how many people have been detained in the last month of protests.

A tally kept by AFP shows at least 72 people have been arrested, though it is not clear how many have been charged.

Sunday’s rally outside a controversial train station that runs to the mainland drew 230,000 people, organisers said, after calls for the gathering started on online forums and snowballed.

Police estimated 56,000 people attended the protest at its peak.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7223889/Hong-Kong-protesters-moot-Bank-China-stress-test-latest-clashes.html

Tens of thousands in Hong Kong take message to mainlanders

By KEN MORITSUGU and ALICE FUNGyesterday

1 of 26

Protesters march with a flag calling for Hong Kong independence in Hong Kong on Sunday, July 7, 2019. Thousands of people, many wearing black shirts and some carrying British flags, were marching in Hong Kong on Sunday, targeting a mainland Chinese audience as a month-old protest movement showed no signs of abating. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

HONG KONG (AP) — Tens of thousands of people, many wearing black shirts and some carrying British colonial-era flags, marched in Hong Kong on Sunday, targeting a mainland Chinese audience as a month-old protest movement showed no signs of abating.

Chanting “Free Hong Kong” and words of encouragement to their fellow citizens, wave after wave of demonstrators streamed by a shopping district popular with mainland visitors on a march to the high-speed railway station that connects the semi-autonomous Chinese territory to Guangdong and other mainland cities.

Hong Kong has been riven by huge marches and sometimes disruptive protests for the past month, sparked by proposed changes to extradition laws that would have allowed suspects to be sent to the mainland to face trial. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam suspended the bill and apologized for how it was handled, but protesters want it to be formally withdrawn and for Lam to resign.

Organizers said 230,000 people marched on Sunday, while police estimated the crowd at 56,000.

“We want to show our peaceful, graceful protest to the mainland visitors because the information is rather blocked in mainland,” march organizer Ventus Lau said. “We want to show them the true image and the message of Hong Kongers.”

Chinese media have not covered the protests or their origins widely, focusing on clashes with police and damage to public property.

As the crowd broke up Sunday night, a few hundred remained and taunted police who had retreated behind huge barriers set up outside the railway station, while others moved to Canton Road, a street lined with luxury boutique stores. Around 11 p.m., police moved to disperse protesters who were blocking a road and arrested five people for assaulting or obstructing police officers, their statement said.

The march was the first major action since two simultaneous protests last Monday, the 22nd anniversary of the July 1, 1997, return of Hong Kong from Britain to China.

The march through central Hong Kong that’s held annually drew hundreds of thousands of people. It was overshadowed this year, however, by an assault on the legislative building by a few hundred demonstrators who shattered thick glass panels to enter the building and then wreaked havoc for three hours, spray-painting slogans on the chamber walls, overturning furniture and damaging electronic voting and fire prevention systems.

Sunday’s march was the first protest against the extradition legislation to take place on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong harbor. The previous ones were on Hong Kong Island, the city’s business and government center.

Many of the marchers were young and wore black shirts that have become the uniform of the protesters. The largely peaceful crowd also included older people carrying handheld fans in the muggy heat, as well as parents with children, including some in baby strollers.

Many held placards, including one that read “Extradite to China, disappear forever.” Some carried the British flag or the old Hong Kong flag from when it was a British colony.

“This is our fourth march because we think this government is not taking care of Hong Kong,” said Dan Lee, who joined with his wife and their three children. “We need to save Hong Kong and we need to come out for our future generations.”

The extradition legislation has raised concerns about an erosion of freedoms and rights in Hong Kong, which was guaranteed its own legal system for 50 years after its return to China in 1997.

Prior to the march, police put up large barricades blocking a main entrance to the railway station to prevent any attempt to enter it. Only passengers with train reservations were allowed into the station, the mass transit authority said, and Hong Kong media reported that ticket sales had been suspended for afternoon trains.

“The high-speed railway station is a connection between Hong Kong and China and this is the nearest place we can spread our message to China,” said Lau, the march organizer.

The station was a source of contention before it opened last September, because passengers pass through Chinese immigration and customs inside. Some opposition lawmakers said the fact that Chinese law applies in the immigration area violates the handover agreement under which Hong Kong maintains its own legal system.

Protesters also are demanding an independent investigation into a crackdown on June 12 demonstrations in which officers used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds blocking major streets. Police said the tactics, harsher than usual for Hong Kong, were justified after some protesters turned violent. Dozens were injured, both protesters and police.

The protesters are also calling for the direct election of Hong Kong’s leader. Lam was chosen by an elite committee of mainly pro-Beijing electors.

___

Associated Press journalist Johnson Lai contributed to this report.

https://apnews.com/4dc00ce27b3b467f97c9e4d47d1e2042

Fresh clashes in Hong Kong after huge march to China station

By AFP

PUBLISHED: 05:59 EDT, 7 July 2019 | UPDATED: 13:09 EDT, 7 July 2019

Riot police charged protesters in the district of Mongkok

Fresh political violence broke out in Hong Kong on Sunday night as riot police baton-charged anti-government protesters seeking to keep the pressure up on the city’s pro-Beijing leaders, after a mass rally outside a train station linking the finance hub to mainland China.

Hong Kong has been rocked by a month of huge marches as well as separate violent confrontations with police involving a minority of hardcore protesters, sparked by a law that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China.

Sunday’s clashes came hours after the first demonstration since young, masked protesters stormed parliament on Monday, plunging the city into an unprecedented crisis.

The extradition bill has been suspended following the backlash.

But that has done little to quell public anger, which has evolved into a wider movement calling for democratic reforms and a halt to sliding freedoms in the semi-autonomous city.

Protesters used umbrellas to defend themselves from police

Earlier on Sunday tens of thousands of people snaked through streets in the harbour-front district of Tsim Sha Tsui, an area popular with Chinese tourists, ending their march at a high-speed train terminus that connects to the mainland.

The march was billed as an opportunity to explain to mainlanders in the city what their protest movement is about given the massive censorship that Beijing’s leaders wield.

It passed without incident.

The rally was the first major protest since last Monday’s unprecedented storming of parliament by largely young protesters

But late Sunday police wielding batons and shields charged protesters to disperse a few hundreds demonstrators who had refused to leave.

AFP reporters saw multiple demonstrators detained by police after the fracas, their wrists bound with plastic handcuffs.

By early Monday only pockets of demontrators remained with police occupying key intersections around the protest area.

The scene of the clashes — Mongkok — is a densely-packed working class district, which has previosuly hosted running battles between police and anti-government protesters in 2014 and 2016.

– Bluetooth and Simplified Chinese –

Hong Kong enjoys rights unseen on the mainland, including freedom of speech, protected by a deal made before the city was handed back to China by Britain in 1997. But there are growing fears those liberties are being eroded.

Sunday’s clashes marred what had been an otherwise peaceful day of mass rallies aimed at reaching out to mainland Chinese visitors.

Organisers said 230,000 people marched while police said 56,000 attended at the peak.

“We want to show tourists, including mainland China tourists what is happening in Hong Kong and we hope they can take this concept back to China,” Eddison Ng, an 18-year-old demonstrator, told AFP.

Hong Kongers speak Cantonese but protesters used Bluetooth to send leaflets in Mandarin — the predominant language on the mainland — to nearby phones, hoping to spread the word to mainlanders.

There is still palpable anger at police for using tear gas and rubber bullets last month

“Why are there still so many people coming out to protest now?” one man said in Mandarin through a loudspeaker. “Because the Hong Kong government didn’t listen to our demands.”

Many protest banners were written with the Simplified Chinese characters used on the mainland, not the Traditional Chinese system used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Protesters are demanding the postponed extradition bill be scrapped entirely, an independent inquiry into police use of tear gas and rubber bullets, amnesty for those arrested, and for the city’s unelected leader Carrie Lam to step down.

Beijing has thrown its full support behind the embattled Lam, calling on Hong Kong police to pursue anyone involved in the parliament storming and other clashes.

Sunday’s protest made its way to a recently opened train station that links to China’s high-speed rail network

Sunday’s protest began on the waterfront — the first time a rally has taken place off the main island — and made its way to West Kowloon, a recently opened multi-billion-dollar station that links to China’s high-speed rail network.

The terminus is controversial because Chinese law operates in the parts of the station dealing with immigration and customs, as well as the platforms, even though West Kowloon is kilometres from the border.

Police gave permission for the rally to go ahead but said officers would step in if anyone attempted to storm the train station

Critics say that move gave away part of the city’s territory to an increasingly assertive Beijing.

Under Hong Kong’s mini-constitution China’s national laws do not apply to the city apart from in limited areas, including defence.

But many say the relationship is changing.

Among recent watershed moments critics point to are the disappearance into mainland custody of dissident booksellers, the disqualification of prominent politicians, the de facto expulsion of a foreign journalist and the jailing of democracy protest leaders.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-7221505/Latest-Hong-Kong-rally-spotlights-China-station-tourists.html

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Category	June 2018	Apr. 2019	May 2019	June 2019	Change from: May 2019- June 2019
Employment status
Civilian noninstitutional population	257,642	258,693	258,861	259,037	176
Civilian labor force	162,129	162,470	162,646	162,981	335
Participation rate	62.9	62.8	62.8	62.9	0.1
Employed	155,592	156,645	156,758	157,005	247
Employment-population ratio	60.4	60.6	60.6	60.6	0.0
Unemployed	6,537	5,824	5,888	5,975	87
Unemployment rate	4.0	3.6	3.6	3.7	0.1
Not in labor force	95,513	96,223	96,215	96,057	-158

Unemployment rates
Total, 16 years and over	4.0	3.6	3.6	3.7	0.1
Adult men (20 years and over)	3.7	3.4	3.3	3.3	0.0
Adult women (20 years and over)	3.7	3.1	3.2	3.3	0.1
Teenagers (16 to 19 years)	12.6	13.0	12.7	12.7	0.0
White	3.5	3.1	3.3	3.3	0.0
Black or African American	6.5	6.7	6.2	6.0	-0.2
Asian	3.2	2.2	2.5	2.1	-0.4
Hispanic or Latino ethnicity	4.6	4.2	4.2	4.3	0.1

Total, 25 years and over	3.3	2.9	2.9	3.0	0.1
Less than a high school diploma	5.6	5.4	5.4	5.3	-0.1
High school graduates, no college	4.1	3.5	3.5	3.9	0.4
Some college or associate degree	3.3	3.1	2.8	3.0	0.2
Bachelor’s degree and higher	2.3	2.1	2.1	2.1	0.0

Reason for unemployment
Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs	3,055	2,651	2,664	2,736	72
Job leavers	801	737	803	888	85
Reentrants	2,078	1,926	1,870	1,868	-2
New entrants	579	530	599	541	-58

Duration of unemployment
Less than 5 weeks	2,218	1,904	2,147	1,961	-186
5 to 14 weeks	1,865	1,842	1,559	1,830	271
15 to 26 weeks	862	854	799	769	-30
27 weeks and over	1,467	1,230	1,298	1,414	116

Employed persons at work part time
Part time for economic reasons	4,736	4,654	4,355	4,347	-8
Slack work or business conditions	3,018	2,891	2,646	2,707	61
Could only find part-time work	1,453	1,446	1,339	1,337	-2
Part time for noneconomic reasons	21,336	21,322	21,366	21,524	158

Persons not in the labor force (not seasonally adjusted)
Marginally attached to the labor force	1,437	1,417	1,395	1,571	–
Discouraged workers	359	454	338	425	–
– Over-the-month changes are not displayed for not seasonally adjusted data. NOTE: Persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race. Detail for the seasonally adjusted data shown in this table will not necessarily add to totals because of the independent seasonal adjustment of the various series. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.

Category	June 2018	Apr. 2019	May 2019(P)	June 2019(P)
EMPLOYMENT BY SELECTED INDUSTRY (Over-the-month change, in thousands)
Total nonfarm	262	216	72	224
Total private	236	195	83	191
Goods-producing	56	37	11	37
Mining and logging	7	0	3	-1
Construction	17	34	5	21
Manufacturing	32	3	3	17
Durable goods(1)	27	1	3	12
Motor vehicles and parts	6.2	-2.5	1.5	-0.2
Nondurable goods	5	2	0	5
Private service-providing	180	158	72	154
Wholesale trade	7.8	8.1	7.0	0.1
Retail trade	-34.2	-14.8	-7.3	-5.8
Transportation and warehousing	18.7	8.4	3.3	23.9
Utilities	-0.5	-2.4	1.0	1.4
Information	0	-6	0	2
Financial activities	11	14	2	2
Professional and business services(1)	51	55	24	51
Temporary help services	-1.5	4.3	-0.3	4.3
Education and health services(1)	65	71	28	61
Health care and social assistance	33.1	57.5	26.3	50.5
Leisure and hospitality	43	9	18	8
Other services	18	16	-4	10
Government	26	21	-11	33

(3-month average change, in thousands)
Total nonfarm	243	142	147	171
Total private	228	131	144	156

WOMEN AND PRODUCTION AND NONSUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES AS A PERCENT OF ALL EMPLOYEES(2)
Total nonfarm women employees	49.7	49.8	49.8	49.8
Total private women employees	48.3	48.4	48.5	48.4
Total private production and nonsupervisory employees	82.4	82.3	82.3	82.3

HOURS AND EARNINGS ALL EMPLOYEES
Total private
Average weekly hours	34.5	34.4	34.4	34.4
Average hourly earnings	$27.05	$27.75	$27.84	$27.90
Average weekly earnings	$933.23	$954.60	$957.70	$959.76
Index of aggregate weekly hours (2007=100)(3)	109.6	110.9	111.0	111.2
Over-the-month percent change	0.2	-0.2	0.1	0.2
Index of aggregate weekly payrolls (2007=100)(4)	141.7	147.2	147.7	148.3
Over-the-month percent change	0.4	0.1	0.3	0.4

DIFFUSION INDEX (Over 1-month span)(5)
Total private (258 industries)	67.6	58.9	57.6	60.7
Manufacturing (76 industries)	66.4	52.0	52.0	59.9
Footnotes (1) Includes other industries, not shown separately. (2) Data relate to production employees in mining and logging and manufacturing, construction employees in construction, and nonsupervisory employees in the service-providing industries. (3) The indexes of aggregate weekly hours are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate hours by the corresponding annual average aggregate hours. (4) The indexes of aggregate weekly payrolls are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate weekly payrolls by the corresponding annual average aggregate weekly payrolls. (5) Figures are the percent of industries with employment increasing plus one-half of the industries with unchanged employment, where 50 percent indicates an equal balance between industries with increasing and decreasing employment. (P) Preliminary
NOTE: Data have been revised to reflect March 2018 benchmark levels and updated seasonal adjustment factors.

Rod Rosenstein


37th United States Deputy Attorney General
Incumbent
Assumed office April 26, 2017
President	Donald Trump
Preceded by	Sally Yates
United States Attorney for the District of Maryland
In office July 12, 2005 – April 26, 2017
President	George W. Bush Barack Obama Donald Trump
Preceded by	Thomas M. DiBiagio
Succeeded by	Robert K. Hur
Personal details
Born	Rod Jay Rosenstein January 13, 1965 (age 53) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Political party	Republican^[1]
Spouse(s)	Lisa Barsoomian
Education	University of Pennsylvania(BS) Harvard University (JD)
Signature

Supreme Court of the United States

Established	March 4, 1789; 229 years ago^[1]
Country	United States
Location	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Coordinates	38°53′26″N 77°00′16″WCoordinates: 38°53′26″N 77°00′16″W
Composition method	Presidential nomination with Senate confirmation
Authorized by	United States Constitution
Judge term length	Life tenure
No. of positions	9 by statute
Website	www.supremecourt.gov
Chief Justice of the United States
Currently	John Roberts
Since	September 29, 2005; 12 years ago

Name	Birth	Appointed by	Senate confirmation vote	Age at appointment	Current age	First day / Length of service	Previous positions	Succeeded
John Roberts (Chief Justice)	January 27, 1955 Buffalo, New York	George W. Bush	78–22	50	63	September 29, 2005 12 years, 8 months	Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (2003–2005); Principal Deputy Solicitor General (1989–1993); Associate Counsel to the President (1982–1986)	William Rehnquist
Anthony Kennedy	July 23, 1936 Sacramento, California	Ronald Reagan	97–0	51	81	February 18, 1988 30 years, 4 months	Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (1975–1988); Private practice (1963–1975)	Lewis Powell
Clarence Thomas	June 23, 1948 Pin Point, Georgia	George H. W. Bush	52–48	43	70	October 23, 1991 26 years, 8 months	Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1990–1991); Chairman, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1982–1990); Assistant Attorney General in Missouri under State Attorney General John Danforth(1974–1977)	Thurgood Marshall
Ruth Bader Ginsburg	March 15, 1933 Brooklyn, New York	Bill Clinton	96–3	60	85	August 10, 1993 24 years, 10 months	Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1980–1993); General Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union (1973–1980)	Byron White
Stephen Breyer	August 15, 1938 San Francisco, California	Bill Clinton	87–9	55	79	August 3, 1994 23 years, 10 months	Chief Judge, Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (1990–1994); Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (1980–1990)	Harry Blackmun
Samuel Alito	April 1, 1950 Trenton, New Jersey	George W. Bush	58–42	55	68	January 31, 2006 12 years, 4 months	Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1990–2006); U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey (1987–1990); Deputy Assistant Attorney General (1985–1987); Assistant to the Solicitor General (1981–1985)	Sandra Day O’Connor
Sonia Sotomayor	June 25, 1954 The Bronx, New York	Barack Obama	68–31	55	64	August 8, 2009 8 years, 10 months	Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1998–2009); District Judge, District Court for the Southern District of New York (1992–1998)	David Souter
Elena Kagan	April 28, 1960 Manhattan, New York	Barack Obama	63–37	50	58	August 7, 2010 7 years, 10 months	Solicitor General of the United States (2009–2010); Dean of Harvard Law School (2003–2009); Associate White House Counsel (1995–1999); Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council (1995–1999);	John Paul Stevens
Neil Gorsuch	August 29, 1967 Denver, Colorado	Donald Trump	54–45	49	50	April 10, 2017 1 year, 2 months	Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (2006–2017); Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General and Acting Associate Attorney General(2005–2006);	Antonin Scalia

Name	Date of birth	Appointed by	Retired under	Confirmation vote	Age at appointment	Current age	First day	Date of retirement	Length of tenure
John Paul Stevens	April 20, 1920 Chicago, Illinois	Gerald Ford	Barack Obama	98–0	55	98	December 19, 1975	June 29, 2010 (age 90)	34 years, 6 months and 10 days
Sandra Day O’Connor	March 26, 1930 El Paso, Texas	Ronald Reagan	George W. Bush	99–0	51	88	September 25, 1981	January 31, 2006 (age 75)	24 years, 4 months and 6 days
David Souter	September 17, 1939 Melrose, Massachusetts	George H. W. Bush	Barack Obama	90–9	51	78	October 9, 1990	June 29, 2009 (age 69)	18 years, 8 months and 20 days

Circuit	Justice
District of Columbia Circuit	Chief Justice Roberts
First Circuit	Justice Breyer
Second Circuit	Justice Ginsburg
Third Circuit	Justice Alito
Fourth Circuit	Chief Justice Roberts
Fifth Circuit	Justice Alito
Sixth Circuit	Justice Kagan
Seventh Circuit	Justice Kagan
Eighth Circuit	Justice Gorsuch
Ninth Circuit	Justice Kennedy
Tenth Circuit	Justice Sotomayor
Eleventh Circuit	Justice Thomas
Federal Circuit	Chief Justice Roberts

	Clinton	Trump
Alabama 9 electoral votes	35% 718,084	63% 1,306,925
Alaska 3 electoral votes	38% 92,013	53% 129,786
Arizona 11 electoral votes	45% 888,374	50% 972,900
Arkansas 6 electoral votes	34% 378,729	60% 677,904
California 55 electoral votes	61% 5,481,885	33% 2,965,704
Colorado 9 electoral votes	47% 1,126,384	45% 1,075,770
Connecticut 7 electoral votes	54% 823,360	42% 637,919
Delaware 3 electoral votes	53% 235,581	42% 185,103
District of Columbia 3 electoral votes	93% 260,223	4% 11,553
Florida 29 electoral votes	48% 4,485,745	49% 4,605,515
Georgia 16 electoral votes	46% 1,837,300	51% 2,068,623
Hawaii 4 electoral votes	62% 266,827	30% 128,815
Idaho 4 electoral votes	28% 189,677	59% 407,199
Illinois 20 electoral votes	55% 2,977,498	39% 2,118,179
Indiana 11 electoral votes	38% 1,029,197	57% 1,555,020
Iowa 6 electoral votes	42% 650,790	52% 798,923
Kansas 6 electoral votes	36% 414,788	57% 656,009
Kentucky 8 electoral votes	33% 628,834	63% 1,202,942
Louisiana 8 electoral votes	38% 779,535	58% 1,178,004
Maine 4 electoral votes	48% 352,485	45% 332,591
Maryland 10 electoral votes	61% 1,497,951	35% 873,646
Massachusetts 11 electoral votes	61% 1,964,433	34% 1,082,521
Michigan 16 electoral votes	47% 2,267,373	48% 2,279,210
Minnesota 10 electoral votes	47% 1,363,755	45% 1,321,014
Mississippi 6 electoral votes	40% 462,250	58% 677,782
Missouri 10 electoral votes	38% 1,054,889	57% 1,585,753
Montana 3 electoral votes	36% 174,249	57% 273,696
Nebraska 5 electoral votes	34% 273,858	60% 485,819
Nevada 6 electoral votes	48% 537,753	46% 511,319
New Hampshire 4 electoral votes	48% 346,816	47% 345,379
New Jersey 14 electoral votes	55% 1,979,768	42% 1,516,915
New Mexico 5 electoral votes	48% 380,724	40% 315,875
New York 29 electoral votes	59% 4,143,541	37% 2,637,678
North Carolina 15 electoral votes	47% 2,162,074	51% 2,339,603
North Dakota 3 electoral votes	28% 93,526	64% 216,133
Ohio 18 electoral votes	44% 2,317,001	52% 2,771,984
Oklahoma 7 electoral votes	29% 419,788	65% 947,934
Oregon 7 electoral votes	52% 919,591	41% 725,090
Pennsylvania 20 electoral votes	48% 2,844,705	49% 2,912,941
Rhode Island 4 electoral votes	55% 225,445	40% 165,810
South Carolina 9 electoral votes	41% 849,469	55% 1,143,611
South Dakota 3 electoral votes	32% 117,442	62% 227,701
Tennessee 11 electoral votes	35% 867,110	61% 1,517,402
Texas 38 electoral votes	43% 3,852,923	53% 4,677,115
Utah 6 electoral votes	28% 222,858	47% 375,006
Vermont 3 electoral votes	61% 178,072	33% 95,027
Virginia 13 electoral votes	50% 1,916,845	45% 1,731,155
Washington 12 electoral votes	56% 1,118,772	38% 750,719
West Virginia 5 electoral votes	26% 187,457	69% 486,198
Wisconsin 10 electoral votes	47% 1,382,210	48% 1,409,467
Wyoming 3 electoral votes	22% 55,949	70% 174,248

Poll	Date	Sample	MoE	Clinton (D)	Trump (R)	Johnson (L)	Stein (G)	Spread
RCP Average	8/9 – 8/28	—	—	42.2	37.9	7.8	3.2	Clinton +4.3
PPP (D)	8/26 – 8/28	881 LV	3.3	42	37	6	4	Clinton +5
Monmouth	8/25 – 8/28	689 LV	3.7	46	39	7	2	Clinton +7
NBC News/SM	8/22 – 8/28	24104 RV	1.0	41	37	11	5	Clinton +4
Rasmussen Reports	8/23 – 8/24	1000 LV	3.0	42	38	9	2	Clinton +4
Gravis	8/22 – 8/23	1493 LV	2.5	42	41	4	1	Clinton +1
Reuters/Ipsos	8/20 – 8/24	1049 LV	3.5	39	36	7	3	Clinton +3
Quinnipiac	8/18 – 8/24	1498 LV	2.5	45	38	10	4	Clinton +7
Economist/YouGov	8/19 – 8/23	906 RV	4.1	42	38	6	4	Clinton +4
Pew Research	8/9 – 8/16	1567 RV	2.8	41	37	10	4	Clinton +4

Gene Wilder
Wilder in 1970
Born	Jerome Silberman June 11, 1933 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Died	August 29, 2016 (aged 83) Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.
Cause of death	Complications of Alzheimer’s disease
Alma mater	University of Iowa
Occupation	Actor, screenwriter, director, author
Years active	1961–2016
Spouse(s)	Mary Mercier (m. 1960;div. 1965) Mary Joan Schutz (m. 1967;div. 1974) Gilda Radner (m. 1984; her death 1989) Karen Boyer (m. 1991; his death 2016)
Relatives	Jordan Walker-Pearlman(nephew)
Signature

Year	Award	Category	Title	Role	Result	Ref.
1962	Clarence Derwent Award	Best Performance by an Actor in a Nonfeatured Role	The Complaisant Lover	Hotel Valet	Won	^[17]
1968	Academy Award (41st)	Best Supporting Actor	The Producers	Leo Bloom	Nominated	^[60]
1971	Golden Globe Award	Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy	Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory	Willy Wonka	Nominated	^[61]
1974	Academy Award (47th)	Writing Adapted Screenplay	Young Frankenstein	Dr. Frederick Frankenstein	Nominated	^[62]
1976	Golden Globe Award	Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy	Silver Streak	George Caldwell	Nominated	^[63]
2003	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series	Will & Grace	Dr. Stein	Won	^[42]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1967	Bonnie and Clyde	Eugene Grizzard
1968	The Producers	Leo Bloom
1970	Start the Revolution Without Me	The twins Claude and Philippe
1970	Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx	Quackser Fortune
1971	Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory	Willy Wonka
1972	Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)	Dr. Doug Ross
1974	Rhinoceros	Stanley	Based on Eugène Ionesco‘s play Rhinoceros
1974	Blazing Saddles	Jim, “The Waco Kid”
1974	The Little Prince	The Fox
1974	Young Frankenstein	Dr. Frederick Frankenstein	Also writer
1975	The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother	Sigerson Holmes	Also director and writer
1976	Silver Streak	George Caldwell
1977	The World’s Greatest Lover	Rudy Valentine, aka Rudy Hickman	Also producer, director, and writer
1979	The Frisco Kid	Avram Belinski
1980	Sunday Lovers	Skippy	Directed “Skippy” segment
1980	Stir Crazy	Skip Donahue
1982	Hanky Panky	Michael Jordon
1984	The Woman in Red	Teddy Pierce	Also director and writer
1986	Haunted Honeymoon	Larry Abbot	Also director and writer
1989	See No Evil, Hear No Evil	Dave Lyons	Also writer
1990	Funny About Love	Duffy Bergman
1991	Another You	George/Abe Fielding

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1966	Death of a Salesman	Bernard	Television film
1972–77	The Electric Company	Voice for The Adventures of Letterman	Recurring role
1972	The Scarecrow	Lord Ravensbane/The Scarecrow	Television film
1974	Thursday’s Game	Harry Evers	Television film
1994–95	Something Wilder	Gene Bergman	Lead role
1999	Murder in a Small Town	Larry “Cash” Carter	Television film; co-written with Gilbert Pearlman
1999	Alice in Wonderland	The Mock Turtle	Television film
1999	The Lady in Question	Larry “Cash” Carter	Television film; co-written with Gilbert Pearlman
2002–03	Will & Grace	Mr. Stein	Episodes: “Boardroom and a Parked Place”, “Sex, Losers & Videotape”

Mork & Mindy
First season title card
Genre	Sitcom Science fiction Fantasy Comedy Slapstick
Created by	Garry Marshall Dale McRaven Joe Glauberg
Starring	Robin Williams Pam Dawber Elizabeth Kerr Conrad Janis Tom Poston Jay Thomas Gina Hecht Jim Staahl Crissy Wilzak Jonathan Winters
Theme music composer	Perry Botkin, Jr.
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	91 (original run) 95 (syndication) (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Antony W. Marshall Garry Marshall
Producer(s)	Bruce Johnson Brian Levant Dale McRaven Ed Scharlach Tom Tenowich
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	22–24 minutes
Production company(s)	Henderson Productions Miller-Milkis Productions(1978–1981) Miller-Milkis-Boyett Productions (1981–1982) Paramount Television
Distributor	CBS Television Distribution
Release
Original network	ABC
Audio format	Monaural
Original release	September 14, 1978 – May 27, 1982
Chronology
Preceded by	Love, American Style Happy Days
Related shows	Laverne & Shirley Blansky’s Beauties Out of the Blue Joanie Loves Chachi

Season		Episodes	Originally aired		Nielsen ratings^[1]
Season		Episodes	First aired	Last aired	Rank	Rating
	1	25	September 14, 1978	May 10, 1979	3	28.6 (Tied with Happy Days)
	2	26	September 16, 1979	May 1, 1980	27	20.2
	3	22	November 13, 1980	May 14, 1981	N/A	N/A
	4	22	October 8, 1981	May 27, 1982	N/A	N/A

Art

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United States Declaration of Independence

Contents

Background

Congress convenes

Toward independence

Revising instructions

May 15 preamble

Lee’s resolution

The final push

Draft and adoption

Annotated text of the engrossed declaration

Influences and legal status

Signing

Publication and reaction

History of the documents

Legacy

Influence in other countries

Revival of interest

John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence (1817–1826)

Slavery and the Declaration

Lincoln and the Declaration

Women’s suffrage and the Declaration

Twentieth century and later

Popular culture

See also

References …

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