II · Faithful Subjects
1770 → 1775 → 1774
Assembly resolution, reproduced in a later documentary history
New York Assembly provides for a statue of George III
General Assembly of the Province of New York · 23 June 1766
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: II · Faithful Subjects
The Assembly voted to provide an equestrian statue of George III following repeal of the Stamp Act. The statue was erected at Bowling Green in 1770. It also voted for a statue of William Pitt; gratitude was not reserved to the king alone.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 made public gratitude to the Crown compatible with resistance to imperial taxation; the monument was erected four years later.
- Intended audience
- The colonial assembly, imperial authorities, and the future New York public viewing the monument.
- Purpose
- Celebrate relief from the Stamp Act and express loyalty to George III; the simultaneous Pitt resolution recognized a parliamentary ally.
- Point of view
- An assembly's authorized public gesture, not a poll of every New Yorker. We depict the 1770 result; we don't date the repeal to 1770 or choose between disputed dedication days.
New York General Assembly journal, 23 June 1766, reproduced in Alexander J. Wall, The Equestrian Statue of George III (New-York Historical Society, 1920), pp. 37–57.
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Book
Haynes remembers his childhood indenture
Lemuel Haynes, as printed by Timothy Mather Cooley · 1837, recollection of 1753–1774
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: II · Faithful Subjects
When I was five months old I was carried to Granville, Massachusetts, and bound out as a servant to Deacon David Rose till I was twenty-one.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Cooley publishes Haynes’s recollection after his death, describing his childhood and term of service.
- Intended audience
- Readers of a religious biography in 1837.
- Purpose
- Record the minister’s origins and remembered experience.
- Point of view
- Retrospective first-person recollection mediated by a biographer. The narration says indentured servant, not formerly enslaved, and does not present the birth date as a surviving vital register.
Timothy Mather Cooley, Sketches of the Life and Character of the Rev. Lemuel Haynes (New York: Harper, 1837), p. 28. Cooley gives 18 July 1753 birth; spring 1775 is less than a year after the stated term ended.
View original
Petition
Congress's petition to George III (Olive Branch Petition)
Second Continental Congress; drafted by John Dickinson · signed 8 July 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: II · Faithful Subjects
In the Exam Room: Question 1, Question 2
We, your Majesty's faithful subjects of the colonies
…a happy and permanent reconciliation…
That your Majesty may enjoy a long and prosperous reign, and that your descendants may govern your dominions with honor to themselves and happiness to their subjects, is our sincere and fervent prayer.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Congress sought reconciliation in July 1775 while armed conflict continued. Adoption on 5 July and signing on 8 July are distinct events. The original petition was delivered to Dartmouth on 1 September; an earlier copy had been sent in August.
- Intended audience
- George III, addressed as the sovereign who could help restore the imperial relationship.
- Purpose
- Obtain a means of reconciliation and remedy colonial grievances while affirming loyalty.
- Point of view
- Congress's negotiated collective position, drafted by Dickinson. Its language of loyalty does not establish the personal opinions of all colonists or future participants in the statue's destruction. The performed closing prayer is an excerpt, not a reconstructed congressional speech.
Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 2 (Washington, 1905), pp. 158–62 (5 July 1775), entry for 8 July. Short opening and closing excerpts.
View original
Royal proclamation
Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition
George III · August 23, 1775
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: II · Faithful Subjects
George III proclaimed that resistance in the North American colonies had become open rebellion. The proclamation preceded the petition's delivery to Dartmouth on 1 September.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Armed conflict had spread during spring and summer 1775. The proclamation was issued before Penn and Lee formally delivered Congress's petition to the colonial secretary.
- Intended audience
- British subjects and officials, including people in the colonies and people assisting them in Britain.
- Purpose
- Command suppression of rebellion and enforcement of allegiance, and warn those aiding resistance.
- Point of view
- The Crown frames resistance as rebellion by misled subjects. Chronology rules out describing this proclamation as the king's personal answer to the September delivery.
George III, Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, 23 August 1775. Peter Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 3, cols. 240–41.
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Petition
Penn and Lee report the petition's delivery and the refusal of an answer
Richard Penn and Arthur Lee · 2 September 1775 · Congress hears it 9 November
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: II · Faithful Subjects
Penn and Lee reported giving the original petition to Lord Dartmouth on 1 September. Dartmouth said no answer would be given because the king did not receive the petition on the throne. Congress read their report on 9 November.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Congress’s emissaries delivered the original petition after the August proclamation; their September report crossed the Atlantic and was read to Congress in November. This sequence does not establish that British officials had never seen an earlier copy.
- Intended audience
- The president and members of the Continental Congress.
- Purpose
- Report what happened to the petition and the minister's explanation that it would receive no answer.
- Point of view
- The emissaries report their contact with Dartmouth, not a personal conversation with George. Date of action, date of report and date Congress heard the report must remain separate.
Richard Penn and Arthur Lee to the President of Congress, London, 2 September 1775; read 9 November, Journals of the Continental Congress 3:343–44. NYPL's Penn and Lee letters catalog independently describes the surviving 2 September letter. Paraphrase; no royal dialogue.
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Letter
Washington reports the destruction of Falmouth
George Washington · October 24, 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: II · Faithful Subjects
He is a very great Sufferer & informs me that the Time allowed for the Removal of Effects was so small that valuable Property of all kinds & to a great Amount has been destroyed.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Writing from Cambridge six days after the bombardment, Washington forwarded an account from Pearson Jones of Falmouth and warned of further coastal destruction.
- Intended audience
- John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress.
- Purpose
- Inform Congress of destruction, losses and danger to other coastal towns.
- Point of view
- A Patriot commander conveying a sufferer's account; he did not witness the bombardment. His letter supports the urgency of salvaging belongings, not our specific reconstructed family, kettle or lane.
George Washington to John Hancock, 24 October 1775, Papers of the Continental Congress (Letters of George Washington), 152, I, 241–42, National Archives. Naval Documents of the American Revolution, vol. 2, p. 590.
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Letter
Jefferson's conditional attachment to Britain
Thomas Jefferson · November 29, 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: II · Faithful Subjects
there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a Union with Gr. Britain than I do. But by the god that made me I will cease to exist before I yeild to a connection on such terms as the British parliament propose and in this I think I speak the sentiments of America.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- In November 1775, with fighting underway, Jefferson wrote from Philadelphia to John Randolph, the Virginia attorney general who had left for England. This is not John Randolph of Roanoke.
- Intended audience
- A personally connected Virginian who had chosen the British side and might communicate colonial views in England.
- Purpose
- Express continuing attachment to union while rejecting connection on Parliament's proposed terms and warning that separation was becoming more likely.
- Point of view
- A colonial rights advocate and enslaver, not an unconditionally loyal subject. The affection sentence and its condition must travel together. We quote the draft's spelling; the next narrator line paraphrases the condition as a demand to preserve colonial rights.
Thomas Jefferson to John Randolph, 29 November 1775, draft, Library of Congress; Papers of Thomas Jefferson 1:268–70; Founders Online, Jefferson/01-01-02-0141.
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IV · Read It Aloud
1776
Retrospective memoir
Benjamin Rush remembers the reception of Common Sense
Benjamin Rush · c. 1800
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: IV · Read It Aloud
Rush remembered the pamphlet being repeated in clubs, spoken in schools and, in one Connecticut instance, delivered from a pulpit. This is a paraphrase of a later recollection.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Rush recalls the independence controversy decades after his involvement in Paine's work.
- Intended audience
- Readers of his autobiographical account, eventually published posthumously.
- Purpose
- Record his part in the events and the pamphlet's public impact.
- Point of view
- A participant with vivid memories and a stake in the story. The account supports oral circulation but does not measure how many people heard it or establish any particular tavern encounter.
Benjamin Rush, A Memorial Containing Travels Through Life, ed. Louis Alexander Biddle (1905), pp. 84–85. The shop listeners are an acknowledged reconstruction, not people identified by Rush.
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Letter
Abigail Adams asks how Congress receives Common Sense
Abigail Adams · 2–10 March 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: IV · Read It Aloud
I am charmed with the Sentiments of Common Sense; and wonder how an honest Heart, one who wishes the welfare of their country, and the happiness of posterity can hesitate one moment at adopting them; I want to know how those Sentiments are received in Congress?
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Abigail writes from Braintree during March 1776, while John is in Philadelphia and the question of independence remains contested.
- Intended audience
- Her husband John Adams, a member of Congress.
- Purpose
- Express enthusiasm for Paine's argument and seek news of its reception among delegates.
- Point of view
- A politically engaged woman advocating independence through correspondence; she does not speak for all women or possess a seat in Congress.
Abigail Adams to John Adams, 2–10 March 1776, Adams Family Correspondence, Massachusetts Historical Society, Adams Electronic Archive, L17760302aa. We perform the opening and final clause separately, omitting the middle clause; the ellipsis in this excerpt records that cut. This is not the Remember the Ladies letter.
View original
Book
The Deceiver Unmasked / The True Interest of America Impartially Stated
Charles Inglis (published anonymously) · 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: IV · Read It Aloud
In the Exam Room: Question 5, Question 7
Limited monarchy is the form of government which is most favourable to liberty—which is best adapted to the genius and temper of Britons; although here and there among us a crack-brained zealot for democracy or absolute monarchy, may be sometimes found.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- A Loyalist answer to Common Sense appears in 1776, during an expanding war and an unsettled debate over independence.
- Intended audience
- Colonial readers, particularly people who might prefer reconciliation and constitutional reform.
- Purpose
- Defend limited monarchy and the imperial connection as safeguards of liberty, peace and trade.
- Point of view
- An Anglican minister who regards constitutional monarchy as a protection against arbitrary power. His stated opposition includes absolute monarchy as well as democracy.
Charles Inglis, The Deceiver Unmasked; or, Loyalty and Interest United (1776), later issued as The True Interest of America Impartially Stated. The ECCO scan's long dash is rendered as an em dash. We end the excerpt at the semicolon. Trade argument corroborated online in NHC selection, p. 3, points 3–6: https://americainclass.org/sources/makingrevolution/rebellion/text7/inglisdeceiverunmasked.pdf .
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Newspaper
The Forester's Letter II: Paine's circulation claim
Thomas Paine, writing as The Forester · Written 8 April; printed 10 April 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: IV · Read It Aloud
In the Exam Room: Question 6
It is Cato’s hard fate to be always detected: for perhaps there never was a pamphlet, since the use of letters were known, about which so little pains were taken, and of which so great a number went off in so short a time; I am certain that I am within compass when I say one hundred and twenty thousand.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Paine answers Cato's criticisms of Common Sense in a newspaper exchange during spring 1776.
- Intended audience
- Readers of the Pennsylvania Journal and the wider pamphlet controversy.
- Purpose
- Defend the pamphlet's influence and discredit an opponent's claims about its reception.
- Point of view
- The author is counting the success of his own polemic in a polemical exchange. This is evidence of what he claimed, not independently audited sales.
Thomas Paine, The Forester's Letter II, dated Philadelphia, 8 April 1776; Pennsylvania Journal, 10 April 1776; reproduced in Philip S. Foner, ed., Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, vol. 2, p. 67, and the Thomas Paine Historical Association transcription. We perform Paine’s exact circulation claim, followed by a narrator warning that no sales ledger survives to check him. For the lack of an established sales total, see the documented critic's discussion and Ray Raphael, 'Thomas Paine's Inflated Numbers' (2013), discussing Trish Loughran, The Republic in Print (2007): https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/03/thomas-paines-inflated-numbers/ .
View original
Letter
Washington on Common Sense and burned towns
George Washington · January 31, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: IV · Read It Aloud
A few more of such flaming Arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk, added to the sound Doctrine, and unanswerable reasoning containd (in the pamphlet) Common Sense, will not leave numbers at a loss to decide upon the Propriety of a Seperation.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Washington writes from the headquarters near Boston after the pamphlet appears and after news of coastal destruction.
- Intended audience
- His associate Joseph Reed, in a private letter.
- Purpose
- Assess the case for separation as events and arguments change opinion.
- Point of view
- His rhetorical pairing expresses his judgment. It does not establish which force caused every part of the Norfolk fire; we leave that responsibility unassigned.
George Washington to Joseph Reed, 31 January 1776, Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 3, Founders Online. Exact text opened 2026-10-04. two consecutive performed fragments.
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Dramatized encounter
The Reader: a dramatized encounter
Our reconstruction · April 1776
Dramatization. Dramatized, based on the record.
On screen: IV · Read It Aloud
The landlord, farmer, storekeeper, Quaker elder, widow and silent server are composite characters. All conversation, gestures, practical stakes and local outcomes are invented. Printed excerpts from Paine, Inglis and the renewed Quaker testimony are identified separately before reading. The widow's words are not a historical woman's testimony. The server's presence is deliberate staging, not evidence of employment at a particular tavern. No branch claims this invented room caused national independence.
Chapter writer’s additional staging description: An imagined Bucks County tavern brings a militia farmer, shopkeeping widow, Loyalist storekeeper, Quaker elder, landlord and enslaved server into the same room. No document records this gathering. Printed passages are separately cited.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Reconstruction of a possible argument in a Bucks County tavern in April 1776.
- Intended audience
- Students considering how one political argument can reach listeners with different stakes.
- Purpose
- Make choices about reading, hearing objections and confronting exclusion, while preserving disagreement.
- Point of view
- Modern authored dialogue and staging. A local branch result is not historical evidence or a poll.
Composite encounter, not a surviving account.
View original
V · A Sentence Too Large
June 1776
Participant’s notes of proceedings
Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress
Thomas Jefferson · June–July 1776 proceedings
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: V · A Sentence Too Large; VI · Silence Would Be Guilt
Congress assigned a committee to prepare a declaration; the committee selected Jefferson to draft it. The July 1 division changed on July 2 as South Carolina and the Delaware and Pennsylvania delegations shifted. Twelve colonies voted for independence; New York’s delegates abstained under their instructions. On July1, nine colonies voted yes in committee; Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted no, Delaware divided, and New York abstained. South Carolina requested final determination the next day for unanimity. The preliminary majority passed; we do not call it a failed vote.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- A participant’s account of the drafting and debates, surviving in a worked manuscript and a copy sent to Madison in 1783.
- Intended audience
- Jefferson’s own record, then Madison and later readers.
- Purpose
- Preserve the arguments and explain how decisions and revisions developed.
- Point of view
- Jefferson supported independence and defended his draft. This is neither a stenographic transcript nor a colony-by-colony clerk’s roll. His erroneous July 4 signing account is excluded.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress, 7 June–1 August 1776, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, ed. Julian P. Boyd (1950), pp. 299–329, Founders Online. Paraphrased. The primary notes describe changed attendance without naming Dickinson and Morris.
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Reconstruction notice
Reconstructing the drafting room and Congress
Our writers · 2026
Dramatization. Dramatized, based on the record.
On screen: V · A Sentence Too Large; VI · Silence Would Be Guilt
Room arrangements, gestures, paper handoffs, Robert Hemings’s placement, Rodney’s wet coat and the militia road are staged. No invented words or feelings are assigned to Hemings. Jefferson’s draft, Dickinson’s notes and Adams’s letter are performed writings, not recorded conversations.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- We reconstruct places and actions around separately documented political events.
- Intended audience
- Viewers distinguishing archival evidence from cinematic reconstruction.
- Purpose
- Make the limits of the visual evidence explicit.
- Point of view
- We direct bodies, light and cuts.
Historical setting follows the listed primary sources and the National Park Service Graff-house furnishings research.
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Document
The Lee Resolution
Richard Henry Lee, for the Virginia delegation · June 7, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: V · A Sentence Too Large
“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.” (moved June 7, adopted July 2, 1776)
Historical context · modern research
Robert Hemings at the Graff house
National Park Service; Doris Devine Fanelli, historical furnishings research · 1776
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: V · A Sentence Too Large
Robert Hemings was fourteen and enslaved by Jefferson. He accompanied Jefferson to Philadelphia in 1776 and lived at the Graff house during the drafting period. His words and thoughts in the pictured scene are not recorded.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Modern historical research reconstructs the Graff household using Jefferson’s papers and other records.
- Intended audience
- Visitors seeking to understand the drafting place and the people who lived there.
- Purpose
- Restore Hemings’s presence to the account of Jefferson’s Philadelphia stay.
- Point of view
- A historical reconstruction cannot recover Hemings’s thoughts from Jefferson’s records. We give him a name, age and space without invented testimony or reactions.
National Park Service, Thomas Jefferson and Robert Hemmings in Philadelphia, drawing on Doris Devine Fanelli, The Furnishings Plan for the Graff House, Philadelphia, PA (1988). Excerpt is our paraphrase.
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Draft declaration
Jefferson’s original Rough draught
Thomas Jefferson · June 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: V · A Sentence Too Large; VII · He Has
In the Exam Room: Question 8, Question 13
We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it's foundation on such principles & organising it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.
[…]
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.
he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them;
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Congress commissioned a declaration in June before voting for independence. This is Boyd’s reconstructed initial text, not the July 4 adopted wording. Jefferson prepared a draft before committee and congressional revision.
- Intended audience
- First the drafting committee, then Congress and the wider public. The drafting committee and Congress, with a wider audience anticipated.
- Purpose
- Justify political separation through equal natural rights and conditional governmental authority. Indict the king, including for protecting the slave trade and encouraging enslaved people to take arms.
- Point of view
- Jefferson makes universal claims while enslaving people, including Robert Hemings. We perform written words; we don't claim he spoke them to Hemings. A slaveholder condemns the trade while displacing colonial responsibility onto the king and opposing armed action by enslaved people. This is an accusation, not a proposed emancipation law.
Thomas Jefferson, original Rough draught, reconstructed by Julian P. Boyd, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1 (Princeton, 1950), pp. 243–247; Library of Congress exhibition transcription. Additional citation/locator: Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1 (Princeton, 1950), pp. 243–247; reconstruction transcribed by the Library of Congress. Selected passages are separated by editorial omission marks; they are not a continuous passage.
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Political treatise
Second Treatise of Government
John Locke · 1689
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: V · A Sentence Too Large
MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Written amid English disputes over political authority and published around the Glorious Revolution.
- Intended audience
- Readers debating the legitimacy and limits of government.
- Purpose
- Ground legitimate political power in consent and the preservation of people’s rights.
- Point of view
- Locke’s theory supplies an argument against arbitrary rule. Its universal language should not be mistaken for equal political inclusion in practice. We narrate a gloss of sections 6, 95 and 123 rather than inventing speech for Locke.
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, sections 6, 95 and 123, Project Gutenberg no. 7370.
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Adopted declaration of rights
Virginia Declaration of Rights, article I
Virginia Convention; drafted by George Mason and amended by the convention · June 12, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: V · A Sentence Too Large
In the Exam Room: Question 9
That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Virginia adopted its declaration of rights while replacing royal government in June 1776.
- Intended audience
- Virginia’s political community and other colonies debating new governments.
- Purpose
- State inherent rights and principles to guide public authority.
- Point of view
- The adopted article adds the state-of-society qualification absent from Mason’s first draft. Slaveholders could interpret that qualification as excluding enslaved people; we identify that limit without treating it as an emancipation measure.
Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted June 12, 1776, article I. Avalon Project, Yale Law School.
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Draft revision · editorial comparison
Two readings of the opening
Thomas Jefferson; our editorial comparison · June 1776
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
On screen: V · A Sentence Too Large
sacred & undeniable
↓
self-evident
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Jefferson’s draft accumulated revisions before and during committee and congressional review. This particular substitution predates Adams’s copy.
- Intended audience
- The draft’s early readers and, ultimately, the public.
- Purpose
- Revise how the argument identifies the certainty of its opening claims. The arrow is a modern comparison mark, not manuscript punctuation.
- Point of view
- The Jefferson Papers editors identify the handwriting as Jefferson’s and reject a conclusive attribution to Franklin. This change alone does not establish a religious-versus-secular divide; the adopted Declaration invokes a Creator.
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, original Rough draught, editorial note 2; Julian P. Boyd, The Declaration of Independence (1945), pp. 22–23, as cited in Founders Online. The two phrases are exact; their comparison layout is editorial.
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Declaration
Declaration of Independence
Second Continental Congress · July 4, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
On screen: V · A Sentence Too Large; VII · He Has; VIII · Melted Majesty
In the Exam Room: Question 12
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;
[…]
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
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.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Congress adopted its public explanation on July 4 after resolving for independence on July 2. Congress explained its decision to break with Britain during an existing war.
- Intended audience
- Colonists, Britain, and a world whose recognition and support the new states sought. Colonists, British readers and foreign powers whose recognition or assistance mattered.
- Purpose
- Justify separation through rights, consent, accusations of destructive rule and a claim to independent statehood. Justify independence through principles of rights and consent followed by accusations and a declaration of separate statehood.
- Point of view
- Congress asserted universal equality while slavery and political exclusion continued. The preamble states a principle and gives reasons for changing government; it is not itself a grant of equal suffrage or an emancipation law. Representatives asserting colonial rights; its hostile account of enslaved resistance and Native peoples does not speak for those groups. The Native grievance contains racist language, critically attributed in IX4.
National Archives, Declaration of Independence: A Transcription, preamble. IX3’s hypothetical and options are explicitly teaching paraphrases, not additional historical statements. Additional citation/locator: National Archives, “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription,” following the Stone engraving of the engrossed parchment; spelling and punctuation retained. Selected passages are separated by editorial omission marks; they are not a continuous passage.
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Background
Poem
The Battle of Lexington
Lemuel Haynes · 1775 · after the battle
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
For Liberty, each Freeman Strives
As its a Gift of God
And for it willing yield their Lives
And Seal it with their Blood
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Written after Lexington, whose date the poem calls 'The Nineteenth Day of April last.' Haynes served with the militia after the alarm; he was twenty-one that April, born 18 July 1753. His camp is reconstructed, not the documented place of composition or recitation.
- Intended audience
- A patriotic ballad's imagined community of readers or hearers; the manuscript remained unpublished during Haynes's lifetime.
- Purpose
- Honor the Patriot dead and give resistance a religious justification by describing liberty as God's gift.
- Point of view
- A young Black Patriot's religious and political commitment, not neutral battle reportage. This is the 1775 ballad, first printed in 1985, distinct from his c.1776 antislavery essay first printed in 1983.
Lemuel Haynes, The Battle of Lexington (1775), stanza beginning 'For Liberty'; transcription in James G. Basker and Nicole A. Seary, eds., Slavery and Abolition in the Founding Era: Black and White Voices (Gilder Lehrman Institute, 2021), p. 9. First publication: Ruth Bogin, WMQ 42, no. 4 (October 1985): 499–506. Age and service. Full four-line stanza performed; we don't claim Haynes sang it at the historical camp or on the battle date.
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Letter
Paine recalls arriving too ill to move unaided
Thomas Paine · 4 March 1775 · recalling November 1774
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
Dr. Kearsley of this Place, attended the Ship on her Arrival, and when he understood that I was on your Recommendation he provided a Lodging for me, and sent two of his Men with a Chaise to bring me on Shore, for I could not at that Time turn in my bed without help. I was six Weeks On Shore before I was well enough to wait on Mr. Beache with your favour, but am now thank God perfectly recover’d.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Paine wrote to Franklin in March 1775 about his illness and removal from the ship following his November 1774 arrival. Writing in Philadelphia in March 1775, Paine recalls the fever that disabled him on his arrival the previous November.
- Intended audience
- Benjamin Franklin, whose recommendation had helped Paine obtain assistance in Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin, whose introduction had helped him secure assistance and connections.
- Purpose
- Explain what had happened after arrival and acknowledge the assistance enabled by Franklin's recommendation. Thank Franklin, report his recovery and describe his prospects in Philadelphia.
- Point of view
- A grateful newcomer describing his experience months later, not speaking from his sickbed at the time. Kearsley sent two men; the doctor did not personally carry him. The cabin and helpers' gestures are staged; the exact landing site is unresolved. An immigrant reporting his own suffering after recovery; retrospective testimony, not words recorded on the gangway.
Thomas Paine to Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia, 4 March 1775, ALS, American Philosophical Society; The Papers of Benjamin Franklin 21:515–18, ed. William B. Willcox (Yale University Press, 1978). Arrival month is established biography; the letter itself gives no arrival day. Additional citation/locator: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 21, ed. William B. Willcox (Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 515–518. Autograph letter signed, American Philosophical Society; Founders Online transcription. Excerpt begins within the sentence after 'for'.
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Written account
Christopher Marshall records the king's speech and Common Sense
Christopher Marshall · January 1776
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
Background: not shown on screen.
Marshall records news of the king's speech and then buying Common Sense at Bell's in the opening weeks of January 1776. This is a summary, not a quotation.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Philadelphia receives October news from Britain while Paine's pamphlet enters circulation in January 1776.
- Intended audience
- A private diary, later edited for publication.
- Purpose
- Record daily activity and political news.
- Point of view
- A politically engaged Philadelphia resident can establish what he saw and read; his diary is not evidence of every reader's response.
Christopher Marshall, Passages from the Diary of Christopher Marshall, ed. William Duane (Philadelphia, 1839), January 1776 entries, p. 64.
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Letter
John Adams replies about Common Sense
John Adams · March 19, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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You ask, what is thought of Common sense. Sensible Men think there are some Whims, some Sophisms, some artfull Addresses to superstitious Notions, some keen attempts upon the Passions, in this Pamphlet. But all agree there is a great deal of good sense, delivered in a clear, simple, concise and nervous Style.
His Sentiments of the Abilities of America, and of the Difficulty of a Reconciliation with G.B. are generally approved. But his Notions, and Plans of Continental Government are not much applauded. Indeed this Writer has a better Hand at pulling down than building.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Writing from Philadelphia, John answers Abigail's question about Paine's pamphlet before Congress declares independence.
- Intended audience
- His wife Abigail Adams, corresponding from Massachusetts and asking how Congress received Common Sense.
- Purpose
- Give a qualified appraisal of the pamphlet's reasoning and persuasive style.
- Point of view
- An advocate of independence who nevertheless mistrusts parts of Paine's reasoning. Disagreement among Patriots did not necessarily mean opposition to separation.
John Adams to Abigail Adams, 19 March 1776, Adams Family Correspondence, Massachusetts Historical Society, Adams Electronic Archive, L17760319ja. We perform a complete sentence from the letter; no words have been rewritten as Adams’s speech. The narration’s spring publication reference is John Adams, Thoughts on Government, April 1776, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-04-02-0026-0004 . U.S. Senate primary-document edition dates it April 1776. No additional performed quotation.
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Book
Plain Truth: addressed to the inhabitants of America
James Chalmers, writing as Candidus · 1776
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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Robert Bell printed and sold Plain Truth in Third Street, Philadelphia, in 1776. This is a summary of its title-page imprint.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- A Loyalist reply to Common Sense enters the Philadelphia print market in 1776.
- Intended audience
- Colonial readers considering the case for independence.
- Purpose
- Oppose separation from Britain; the imprint also identifies who printed and sold the work.
- Point of view
- A Loyalist argument sold by the printer of Paine's first edition. The imprint establishes Bell's commercial involvement, not his personal agreement with every argument he sold.
James Chalmers (Candidus), Plain Truth (Philadelphia: R. Bell, 1776), title-page imprint. Bell sells this reply, not the Inglis pamphlet featured immediately before it. No Chalmers dialogue is performed. Source excerpt summarizes the imprint rather than silently normalizing its typography.
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Letter
Caesar Rodney to Thomas Rodney
Caesar Rodney · July 4, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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I arrived in Congress tho detained by thunder and Rain time enough to give my Voice in the matter of Independence.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Rodney wrote after arriving in time to resolve Delaware’s divided delegation in favor of independence on July 2.
- Intended audience
- His brother Thomas Rodney, receiving news of the vote and his arrival in Philadelphia.
- Purpose
- Report his arrival and congressional business.
- Point of view
- A participant supporting independence. His reference elsewhere in the July 4 letter to thirteen colonies cannot be used to erase New York’s July 2 abstention.
Caesar Rodney to Thomas Rodney, Philadelphia, July 4, 1776, Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection, University of Virginia, MSS 12568-a; manuscript text printed New York Times, July 5, 1926. Item identity located in UVA’s catalog during this pass; live item fetch returned 403. Narration paraphrases; no Rodney performance.
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Letter
John Adams to Abigail Adams, second letter of July 3
John Adams · July 3, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.
[…]
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.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Adams wrote the day after Congress adopted the independence resolution, before the Declaration was adopted July 4.
- Intended audience
- His wife Abigail Adams in Massachusetts.
- Purpose
- Share the significance and anticipated future commemoration of the decision.
- Point of view
- An advocate elated by a hard-won vote. His prediction concerns July 2. The dry joke is narration, not Adams’s own correction.
John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776, second letter (Had a Declaration), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, document L17760703jasecond. Anniversary continuation: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0016 ; we end our excerpt after “other”.
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Letter
John Dickinson to Charles Lee
John Dickinson · July 25, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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Our Convention, since I have been in this Place with my Battalion, have left me out of the new Delegation.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Dickinson writes from Elizabethtown with his battalion after opposing the timing of independence and losing his place in Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation.
- Intended audience
- General Charles Lee, a friend who disagreed with him.
- Purpose
- Explain his continued opposition to the declaration’s timing and discuss military operations and Lee’s affairs.
- Point of view
- Dickinson defends his integrity while remaining actively engaged in the colonial military cause. The letter directly supports service after the vote; it does not document the road scene.
John Dickinson to Charles Lee, Elizabethtown, New Jersey, July 25, 1776, Dickinson College Archives & Special Collections, MC 2001.13, B1, F1. Manuscript and transcript, PDF pp. 6–7. Read online 2026-10-04; excerpt from the supplied transcript, with no editorial normalization.
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Retrospective anecdotes
Anecdotes of Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Jefferson · c. December 4, 1818
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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he composed it in these words ‘John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats. for ready money,’ with a figure of a hat subjoined.
so his inscription was reduced ultimately to ‘John Thomson’ with the figure of a hat subjoined.
[…]
I have made it a rule, said he, whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Jefferson wrote these anecdotes for Robert Walsh decades after Congress revised the Declaration.
- Intended audience
- Walsh and prospective readers of recollections of Franklin.
- Purpose
- Recall Franklin’s wit and explain the discomfort of drafting for a public body.
- Point of view
- A late recollection by the author whose prose was revised; it records a story attributed to Franklin, not a 1776 conversation transcript.
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series; “Thomas Jefferson’s Anecdotes of Benjamin Franklin, [ca. 4 December 1818],” Founders Online, manuscript press copy, DLC: TJ Papers 214:38175–7. Franklin performance omits Jefferson’s reporting words “said he” with an explicit ellipsis. This remains Jefferson’s 1818 recollection, not a 1776 transcript.
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Speech
Abraham demands restoration of Mohawk land
Abraham, Mohawk spokesman, as recorded in the council proceedings · August 28, 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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Our brothers of Albany have taken two pieces of land from us, without any reward, not so much as a single pipe.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Representatives of the Six Nations met commissioners of the Continental Congress at Albany.
- Intended audience
- Congressional commissioners, especially representatives associated with Albany.
- Purpose
- Answer the colonial appeal and insist that land claims and Native security be addressed.
- Point of view
- Mohawk diplomatic agency survives through an English-language colonial record. It challenges treating Native peoples as a single body controlled by the king.
Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York, vol. 8 (1857), pp. 621–624; address dated August 28, 1775. Primary text reproduced in the Presidential 1776 Award study library. Only the intact closing land-restoration paragraphs are used; its web transcription has defects elsewhere.
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General Orders
General Orders: reading the Declaration to the brigades
George Washington · July 9, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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The several brigades are to be drawn up this evening on their respective Parades, at Six OClock, when the declaration of Congress, shewing the grounds and reasons of this measure, is to be read with an audible voice.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Washington’s army received news of Congress’s declaration while defending New York.
- Intended audience
- Army officers and soldiers assembled to hear Congress’s decision and Washington’s orders.
- Purpose
- Arrange the reading and strengthen commitment to the new states.
- Point of view
- Command orders express what was directed. Bangs supplies a separate account of reception.
John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, vol. 5, pp. 244–245. General Orders, July 9, 1776.
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General Orders
General Orders: the fallen statue and proper authority
George Washington · July 10, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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'Tho the General doubts not the persons, who pulled down and mutilated the Statue, in the Broadway, last night, were actuated by Zeal in the public cause; yet it has so much the appearance of riot, and want of order, in the Army, that he disapproves the manner, and directs that in future these things shall be avoided by the Soldiery, and left to be executed by proper authority.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Soldiers and townspeople had pulled down the royal statue the previous night.
- Intended audience
- The army through its officers.
- Purpose
- Stop soldiers participating in disorderly acts and assert command authority.
- Point of view
- Washington acknowledges patriotic zeal but disapproves of the disorder.
John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, vol. 5, pp. 245–246. General Orders, July 10, 1776.
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Military manual
A ball and a cartridge are different objects
Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben · 1779
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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A musket ball is the projectile; a live cartridge packages powder and ball for loading. The distinction explains the account’s terminology, not the precise contents of every Litchfield item.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Congress adopted a standardized military exercise and discipline manual in 1779.
- Intended audience
- Continental officers, noncommissioned officers and troops.
- Purpose
- Set common procedures for drill, ammunition handling and accountability.
- Point of view
- Prescriptive military practice, later than the 1776 scene. Used only to clarify material terms, not as proof that Litchfield followed a documented assembly process or identical specifications.
Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States (1779), manual exercise, exercises with powder, and chapter XXIII on arms and ammunition; text reproduced by the 5th New York Regiment. Compare its references to cartridges, powder and ball, and removal of cartridges with ball before powder exercises.
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Editorial chronology; not a quotation
Three different acts: independence, adoption, and signing
Editorial chronology after the National Archives · July 2–August 2, 1776
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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July 2, 1776: Congress adopted the independence resolution with twelve colonies in favor; New York did not vote. July 4: Congress adopted the text of the Declaration explaining separation. August 2: most delegates signed the engrossed parchment; some signatures were added later. These were different acts, not a single July 4 signing ceremony.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Congress separated the decision for independence, revision of its public explanation, and authentication of an engrossed parchment during the summer of 1776.
- Intended audience
- Students comparing dated institutional actions rather than relying on a familiar anniversary image.
- Purpose
- This editorial summary distinguishes the resolution, adoption of a text, and parchment signatures without inventing a contemporary quotation.
- Point of view
- A retrospective chronology compiled from the National Archives account; it establishes sequence but does not reveal every delegate's motives.
National Archives, Creating the Declaration: A Timeline, entries July 2, July 4, July 19 and August 2, 1776. Editorial summary, not archival wording.
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Declaration of rights; selected clauses
Virginia Declaration of Rights, sections I, II, IV and VI (excerpts)
Virginia Convention; principal drafter George Mason · June 12, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; … That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; … neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge be hereditary. … That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people in assembly ought to be free; and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community have the right of suffrage
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Virginia's convention framed a declaration of rights while replacing royal government in June 1776, before Congress adopted its Declaration of Independence.
- Intended audience
- Virginia's political community and officials establishing the new state's government, with wider circulation among other revolutionary leaders.
- Purpose
- To state government's popular basis, inherent rights, and qualifications attached to political participation. The ellipses separate selected clauses from four sections.
- Point of view
- The convention asserted natural equality while qualifying the language of membership and suffrage. Its principle is not proof that every resident received equal political participation.
Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted 12 June 1776, sections I, II, IV and VI; Yale Law School, Avalon Project transcription. Excerpts separated by ellipses; the state-of-society qualification is retained.
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Declaration; preamble excerpt
Declaration of Independence: the purpose and limits of government
Continental Congress; draft principally by Thomas Jefferson · July 4, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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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.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Congress adopted this public explanation two days after voting for independence, amid an ongoing war and competing claims to legitimate authority.
- Intended audience
- Colonists, British readers, potential foreign allies, and a wider public whose recognition and support mattered to independence.
- Purpose
- To justify separation through an argument connecting inherent rights, government's protective purpose, consent, and the people's right to replace destructive government.
- Point of view
- The representatives present their cause as a universal principle. The passage does not specify a universal franchise or establish that excluded people received equal participation.
Declaration of Independence, adopted 4 July 1776, preamble; National Archives transcription of the Stone engraving of the engrossed Declaration.
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Bible
Common Sense: equality and scripture against kingship
Thomas Paine · February 14, 1776 edition
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Common Sense circulated during the debate over whether resistance to imperial policies should become a break with monarchy. This reading copy uses the expanded February edition.
- Intended audience
- American readers and listeners weighing the legitimacy of monarchy, including people familiar with biblical accounts of kingship.
- Purpose
- To challenge the institution of kingship through both natural equality and a particular reading of scripture.
- Point of view
- Paine advocates separation and interprets scripture against kingship. His reading does not establish that all religious readers agreed, or that religious arguments necessarily favored resistance.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense (Philadelphia: W. and T. Bradford, 14 February 1776), expanded edition, “Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession”; Project Gutenberg eBook 147, paragraph 35. The text is from the February edition, not a claimed transcription of the January first issue.
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Proclamation
Petition, proclamation, and transatlantic news
Editorial chronology from congressional records and Penn and Lee · July–November 1775
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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5 July: Congress adopts the petition seeking reconciliation; delegates sign on 8 July. 23 August: George III issues the proclamation of rebellion. 1 September: Penn and Lee deliver the original petition to Dartmouth. Their 2 September report says no answer will be given. Congress reads that report on 9 November. This sequence distinguishes the original’s delivery from earlier copies and does not establish everything ministers knew beforehand.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Armed conflict continued while Congress petitioned the king and imperial officials issued a proclamation; news crossed the Atlantic over weeks.
- Intended audience
- Students comparing the dates of actions with the dates on which others learned of them.
- Purpose
- To separate adoption, signing, original delivery, report-writing, and congressional receipt before making a causal inference.
- Point of view
- This retrospective comparison shows that a later delivery cannot cause an earlier proclamation. It does not prove that British ministers had no previous copy or knowledge.
Journals of the Continental Congress 2:158–62, 5 and 8 July 1775; George III, Proclamation of Rebellion, 23 August 1775; Richard Penn and Arthur Lee to the President of Congress, 2 September 1775, read 9 November, JCC 3:343–44, https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin03unit/page/343/mode/1up. NYPL, Richard Penn and Arthur Lee letters, MssCol 22996, describes delivery of the original the previous day. Editorial summary, not a historical quotation.
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Petition
Olive Branch Petition: loyalty and reconciliation (separate excerpts)
Second Continental Congress; drafted by John Dickinson · signed 8 July 1775
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
We, your Majesty's faithful subjects of the colonies
…a happy and permanent reconciliation…
That your Majesty may enjoy a long and prosperous reign, and that your descendants may govern your dominions with honor to themselves and happiness to their subjects, is our sincere and fervent prayer.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Congress sought reconciliation in July 1775 while armed conflict continued. Adoption on 5 July and signing on 8 July are distinct events. The original petition was delivered to Dartmouth on 1 September; an earlier copy had been sent in August.
- Intended audience
- George III, addressed as the sovereign who could help restore the imperial relationship.
- Purpose
- Obtain a means of reconciliation and remedy colonial grievances while affirming loyalty.
- Point of view
- Congress's negotiated collective position, drafted by Dickinson. Its language of loyalty does not establish the personal opinions of all colonists or future participants in the statue's destruction. The performed opening is an excerpt, not a reconstructed congressional speech.
Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 2 (Washington, 1905), pp. 158–62 (5 July 1775), entry for 8 July. Short opening and closing excerpts.
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Book
Common Sense: moral worth and royal rank
Thomas Paine (published anonymously) · January 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned Ruffians that ever lived.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Fighting has preceded independence; a newly published pamphlet challenges continued attachment to monarchy in January 1776. Paine argued for independence and republican government early in 1776.
- Intended audience
- Colonial readers and those who heard the arguments read aloud, including people beyond the governing elite. A broad colonial readership and listeners to readings.
- Purpose
- Persuade Americans to separate from Britain and establish representative government of their own. Dismantle hereditary monarchy’s authority and make government by the people imaginable.
- Point of view
- Paine attacks hereditary authority through moral worth, scripture and natural right. His broad appeal coexists with a passage casting Native people and Black people mobilized against colonists as threats; its 'us' has limits. Polemic rather than neutral history. His proposed demolition and scattering of a crown supplies an editorial metaphor, not evidence that Litchfield workers acted because of this passage.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense (Philadelphia: R. Bell, January 1776), sections 'Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession' and 'Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs'; first-edition scan, Internet Archive commonsenseaddre00pain_2. Three separate excerpts, not a continuous paragraph. C03's exclusionary-passage paraphrase is also supported by the primary text at https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/common-sense/; it is not a new verbatim performance or an attribution of that edition's punctuation to Bell. Additional citation/locator: Thomas Paine, Common Sense (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, first edition, January 1776), “Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs,” paragraph on the law as king. The crown sentence is paraphrased only. Selected passages are separated by editorial omission marks; they are not a continuous passage.
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Newspaper
Paine defends his own pamphlet’s circulation
Thomas Paine, writing as The Forester · Written 8 April; printed 10 April 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
It is Cato’s hard fate to be always detected: for perhaps there never was a pamphlet, since the use of letters were known, about which so little pains were taken, and of which so great a number went off in so short a time; I am certain that I am within compass when I say one hundred and twenty thousand.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Paine answers Cato's criticisms of Common Sense in a newspaper exchange during spring 1776.
- Intended audience
- Readers of the Pennsylvania Journal and the wider pamphlet controversy.
- Purpose
- Defend the pamphlet's influence and discredit an opponent's claims about its reception.
- Point of view
- The author is counting the success of his own polemic in a polemical exchange. This is evidence of what he claimed, not independently audited sales.
Thomas Paine, The Forester's Letter II, dated Philadelphia, 8 April 1776; Pennsylvania Journal, 10 April 1776; reproduced in Philip S. Foner, ed., Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, vol. 2, p. 67, and the Thomas Paine Historical Association transcription. The narrator paraphrases the quantity and qualifies it. For the lack of an established sales total, see the documented critic's discussion and Ray Raphael, 'Thomas Paine's Inflated Numbers' (2013), discussing Trish Loughran, The Republic in Print (2007): https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/03/thomas-paines-inflated-numbers/ .
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Letter
Adams predicts an anniversary, July 3, 1776
John Adams · July 3, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Adams wrote the day after Congress adopted the independence resolution, before the Declaration was adopted July 4.
- Intended audience
- His wife Abigail Adams in Massachusetts.
- Purpose
- Share the significance and anticipated future commemoration of the decision.
- Point of view
- An advocate elated by a hard-won vote. His prediction concerns July 2. The dry joke is narration, not Adams’s own correction.
John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776, second letter (Had a Declaration), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, document L17760703jasecond.
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Declaration
Congress’s accusations: consent and a racist depiction of Native peoples
Second Continental Congress · July 4, 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
[…]
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.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Congress adopted its public explanation on July 4 after resolving for independence on July 2. Congress explained its decision to break with Britain during an existing war.
- Intended audience
- Colonists, Britain, and a world whose recognition and support the new states sought. Colonists, British readers and foreign powers whose recognition or assistance mattered.
- Purpose
- Justify separation through rights, consent, accusations of destructive rule and a claim to independent statehood. Justify independence through principles of rights and consent followed by accusations and a declaration of separate statehood.
- Point of view
- Congress asserted universal equality while slavery and political exclusion continued. The preamble states a principle and gives reasons for changing government; it is not itself a grant of equal suffrage or an emancipation law. Representatives asserting colonial rights; its hostile account of enslaved resistance and Native peoples does not speak for those groups. The Native grievance contains racist language, critically attributed in IX4.
Declaration of Independence, adopted July 4, 1776; National Archives transcription, tax grievance and final grievance. Separate excerpts; the hostile description is Congress’s language, not our description of Native peoples.
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Deleted draft passage
Deleted slave-trade accusation in Jefferson’s draft; not adopted law
Thomas Jefferson · June 1776
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
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he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Congress commissioned a declaration in June before voting for independence. This is Boyd’s reconstructed initial text, not the July 4 adopted wording. Jefferson prepared a draft before committee and congressional revision.
- Intended audience
- First the drafting committee, then Congress and the wider public. The drafting committee and Congress, with a wider audience anticipated.
- Purpose
- Justify political separation through equal natural rights and conditional governmental authority. Indict the king, including for protecting the slave trade and encouraging enslaved people to take arms.
- Point of view
- Jefferson makes universal claims while enslaving people, including Robert Hemings. We perform written words; we don't claim he spoke them to Hemings. A slaveholder condemns the trade while displacing colonial responsibility onto the king and opposing armed action by enslaved people. This is an accusation, not a proposed emancipation law.
Thomas Jefferson, original Rough draught, reconstructed by Julian P. Boyd, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1 (Princeton, 1950), pp. 243–247; Library of Congress exhibition transcription. Additional citation/locator: Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1 (Princeton, 1950), pp. 243–247; reconstruction transcribed by the Library of Congress. Selected passages are separated by editorial omission marks; they are not a continuous passage.
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Written account
What the Litchfield account counts
Editorial summary of Oliver Wolcott’s account and Oliver Wolcott Jr.’s note · Undated account associated with 1776
Adapted. Shortened, or spelled the modern way. Same meaning.
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The account credits Ruth Marvin with 6,204 cartridges on a former account and 5,388 in 449 packs not sent to the court house: 11,592 altogether. Other entries include Laura, Mary Ann, Frederick, and Mrs. Beach. The heading counts cartridges. A total of 42,288 is reduced by a 200-cartridge overcharge in Mrs. Beach’s account, leaving 42,088. Woodruff identifies women among the makers. He says the account itself is undated and does not mention the statue; Oliver Wolcott Jr.’s later note supplies that connection.
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- Household and neighborhood production supplied ammunition during the Revolution; the account and a later family explanation were published in 1845.
- Intended audience
- The original account served record-keeping; Woodruff’s readers encountered it within a later town history.
- Purpose
- To show the units and named labor credited by the tally, while distinguishing the tally from a retrospective provenance claim.
- Point of view
- A family account records production, not public opinion or battlefield outcomes. The son’s statue identification must not be presented as a statement written in the original account; Ruth’s age is not established.
George C. Woodruff, History of the Town of Litchfield, Connecticut (Litchfield: Charles Adams, 1845), pp. 45–46. Editorial summary of the printed account and surrounding explanation, not a quotation. Page photographs: https://archive.org/download/historyoftownofl00wood_0/page/n94_w1500.jpg and https://archive.org/download/historyoftownofl00wood_0/page/n96_w1600.jpg; independently.
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Printed religious testimony
The Ancient Testimony and Principles of the People Called Quakers, Renewed
Representatives of Friends in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; John Pemberton, clerk · 20 January 1776 · quoting 1696
Verbatim. The original words, unchanged.
Background: not shown on screen.
that the setting up, and putting down Kings and governments, is God's peculiar prerogative; for causes best known to himself; and that it is not our business to have any hand or contrivance therein; …
Sourcing
- Historical situation
- A January 1776 statement renews an older testimony amid conflict over government and war. The cited surviving collection was printed in 1777.
- Intended audience
- The people in general, including Friends faced with pressure to support resistance.
- Purpose
- Urge reconciliation and refusal to participate in overturning government, grounded in religious duty.
- Point of view
- An official printed testimony; it is not evidence that every Quaker held one political opinion or that a tavern elder said these words in April. The reader in the scene is a composite.
The Ancient Testimony … Renewed, signed 20 January 1776, in The Testimony of the People Called Quakers … [1775–1777], Philadelphia: John Dunlap, 1777. Library of Congress rbpe.1440320b; transcript PDF pp. 6–7.
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Advanced Placement