50 Fun Facts About Declaration of Independence

In what year did the Second Continental Congress adopt the Declaration of Independence?

The vote for independence itself came on July 2; John Adams predicted that day would be the great national holiday.

In which building was the Declaration adopted?

It was later renamed Independence Hall.

Who wrote the original draft of the Declaration?

Adams persuaded the committee to give Jefferson the job and promised to consult with him personally.

How many members were on the committee appointed on June 11, 1776 to draft the Declaration?

Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman.

Which Committee of Five member represented New York?

Sherman was from Connecticut, Adams from Massachusetts, Franklin from Pennsylvania and Jefferson from Virginia.

How many grievances against the king does the Declaration list?

It also asserted natural and legal rights, including a right of revolution.

Delegates knew that signing the Declaration amounted to which crime against the Crown?

It was punishable by torture and death, which is why Benjamin Rush recalled the signing as a scene of pensive and awful silence.

Which newspaper was the first to publish the Declaration, on July 6, 1776?

A German translation appeared in Philadelphia by July 9.

The first public readings on July 8, 1776 took place in Philadelphia, Trenton and which other town?

All three readings happened simultaneously at noon.

Who hand-lettered, or engrossed, the signed parchment copy of the Declaration?

Congress ordered the engrossed copy on July 19; most delegates signed it on August 2.

Which president made the Declaration the centerpiece of the Gettysburg Address?

He saw it as the moral standard through which the Constitution should be read.

Which word completes the famous line "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of ..."?

George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights had spoken of pursuing happiness and safety, and of property.

Which 1776 pamphlet by Thomas Paine made the impassioned public case for independence?

In proportion to population it had the largest sale of any book in American history.

Which colony first explicitly authorized its delegates to vote for independence, on April 12, 1776?

That instruction was the Halifax Resolves; Rhode Island became the first to renounce allegiance on May 4.

Which colony's legislature was the first to renounce allegiance to Great Britain, on May 4, 1776?

More than ninety state and local declarations were issued between April and July 1776.

Which county's local declaration, allegedly adopted in May 1775, do most scholars consider inauthentic?

It would have predated every other local declaration by a full year.

Which Pennsylvania delegate led the anti-independence faction in Congress?

He abstained on July 2, which let Pennsylvania vote three-to-two for independence.

Who presented the three-part resolution for independence to Congress on June 7, 1776?

The resolution also called for foreign alliances and a plan of confederation.

Which New Jersey royal governor was declared an enemy of liberty and arrested in June 1776?

He was Benjamin Franklin's son.

Which delegate went home to persuade the Annapolis Convention to back independence on June 28?

Maryland's delegates had walked out over Adams's May 15 preamble.

Which colony's delegation still lacked authority to vote for independence on July 2?

Its Provincial Congress had evacuated as the British approached and did not reconvene until July 10.

At what Philadelphia address did Jefferson rent rooms while writing the Declaration?

The three-story house is now called the Declaration House.

Roughly how many days did Jefferson have to write his first draft?

He worked largely alone between June 11 and June 28, 1776.

Which Enlightenment philosopher is usually cited as a primary influence on the Declaration?

Jefferson called him one of the three greatest men that ever lived.

By about how much did Congress shorten Jefferson's draft during editing?

Jefferson complained that Congress had mangled his draft.

What did Congress cut from the draft to appease South Carolina and Georgia?

Jefferson later noted Northern states, as carriers of enslaved people, also backed the deletion.

Whose last-minute arrival broke Delaware's tie in favor of independence on July 2?

McKean had voted yes and Read no, leaving the delegation split the day before.

How many colonies voted for the resolution of independence on July 2, 1776?

New York abstained, making the tally twelve in favor with one abstention.

Which word was added to the title by a Congressional resolution of July 19, 1776?

The engrossed title became The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America.

Which Baltimore postmaster printed the 1777 broadside that first listed the signers?

Her full name appears at the bottom; nine copies of her broadside survive.

Whose Virginia Declaration of Rights was one of Jefferson's most immediate sources?

Mason in turn drew on the 1689 English Declaration of Rights.

Which international-law treatise did Franklin say was continually in the hands of Congress?

Historian David Armitage argues the Declaration's main purpose was to express legal sovereignty to other states.

How many delegates' signatures are on the Declaration?

Most signed on August 2, 1776, though Jefferson, Franklin and Adams all recalled a July 4 signing.

Who signed the Declaration on July 4 itself, as President of the Congress?

His name became an American synonym for a signature.

Which signer disputed in 1796 that the document was signed on July 4?

Some signers were not even elected to Congress until after that date; historians accept his account.

Which rotund signer joked to Elbridge Gerry that he would die faster when they were all hanged?

Benjamin Rush recalled the gallows joke briefly breaking the gloom of the August 2 signing.

The "hang together or hang separately" quip attributed to Franklin first appeared in print where?

The legend grew only after the Declaration became a national symbol.

The Syng inkstand used for the Declaration was used again at which event?

It is one of the few objects linked to both founding documents.

Which Philadelphia printer produced about 200 broadsides overnight on July 4?

Only 26 are known to survive; the 26th turned up in England's National Archives in 2009.

How many Dunlap broadsides are known to survive?

Two originals are kept at the Library of Congress.

Who read the Declaration aloud in the yard of Independence Hall on July 8, 1776?

The readings in Trenton and Easton happened at the same noon hour.

What did New York crowds do with the lead from a toppled statue of King George?

Washington had read the Declaration to his troops in the city on July 9.

Which pamphleteer did the North Ministry secretly commission to answer the Declaration?

His pamphlet included an anonymous attack on natural rights written by Jeremy Bentham.

In November 1776, 547 Loyalists signed what at Fraunces Tavern?

They pledged their loyalty to the Crown in Manhattan.

Where was the engrossed Declaration kept for safekeeping from 1941 to 1944?

It was moved after Pearl Harbor, along with the Constitution.

In which year was the engrossed Declaration transferred to the National Archives?

It sits in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom.

Which Founder may have changed "sacred and undeniable" to "self-evident"?

Jefferson showed the rough draft to Adams and Franklin, who made a few changes.

A second engrossed copy found in Chichester, England in 2017 is known by what name?

Its signatures are not grouped by state, pointing its finders toward signer James Wilson.

By what year had much of the original document's ink faded from light exposure?

That is why an 1823 facsimile underlies most modern reproductions.

Which 1789 French document drew largely on the ideals of the American Revolution?

Lafayette prepared key drafts while working closely with Jefferson in Paris.