The First Continental Congress, a gathering of representatives from 12 of the original 13 colonies took place September 5, 1774 after the British Navy implemented a blockade of Boston Harbor. The blockade was the British response after colonists participated in the Boston Tea Party. There colonists emptied a British ship throwing 92,615 pounds of tea into the harbor. They were protesting taxing colonists to pay British war debts and Parliament’s authority over the colonies. At the First Continental Congress they drew up a petition pleading for redress of their grievances with the King and British Parliament. (Wikipedia, First Continental Congress) That appeal was unsuccessful, leading the colonists to convene a Second Continental Congress on May 10, 1775. It was there the original thirteen colonies debated staying unified with Great Britain or supporting an American Revolution and subsequent war.
On June 14, 1775 delegates voted to create a Continental Army of the militia units around Boston. By July 6, 1775 they approved a motion making George Washington its commanding general.
A year later, on June 7, 1776 Richard Henry Lee offered a resolution. He argued that independence was the only way to ensure a foreign alliance with other nations. A document was needed to state the colonists grievances and the wish to be independent of British rule.
To create such a document, The Committee of Five was established including Thomas Jefferson who worked to draft it. Jefferson, the representative from Virginia was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. At 33 he was one of the youngest delegates to the Congress. Jefferson largely wrote in isolation between June 11 and 28, 1776 in a room he was renting at 700 Market Street in Philadelphia.
On Monday, July 1, Congress began debating the document contents resulting in the removal of roughly a fourth of the original draft. Jefferson was displeased.
The document began '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.'
It continued with one of the greatest statements in the history of the world. It said '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.' (Wikipedia, Declaration of Independence) If they approved the Declaration, the Delegates knew they were committing an act of treason against the Crown which was punishable by torture and death. Congress formally adopted the resolution of independence and approved it on July 2, 1776. The United States Declaration of Independence was unanimously ratified and signed on July 4 by delegates and John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress. His was the first and largest signature on the document. Only John Hancock’s signature was officially needed to authenticate it. (Wikipedia, Second Continental Congress) Two days later, the Pennsylvania Evening Post was the first newspaper to publish it. The first public readings took place on July, 8 in Trenton, New Jersey, Easton, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. By the time the Declaration of Independence was adopted, the thirteen colonies and Great Britain had been at war for over a year.
Other delegates added their signatures on August 2. Benjamin Rush recounted it was a scene of “Pensive and awful silence” as delegates were called up one by one for the signing.
Each knew they were committing treason and essentially signing their own death warrants.
The Declaration has been proven an influential and globally impactful statement on human rights.