United States Declaration of Independence - History of The Documents

History of The Documents

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. Because of poor conservation of the engrossed copy through the 19th century, a facsimile made in 1823, rather than the original, has become the basis of most modern reproductions. In 1921, custody of the engrossed copy of the Declaration, along with the United States Constitution, was transferred from the State Department to the Library of Congress. 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. 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".

Although the document signed by Congress and enshrined in the National Archives is usually regarded as the Declaration of Independence, 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. In 1777, Congress commissioned Mary Katherine Goddard to print a new broadside that, unlike the Dunlap broadside, listed the signers of the Declaration. Nine copies of the Goddard broadside are known to still exist. A variety of broadsides printed by the states are also extant.

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". How many drafts Jefferson wrote prior to this one, and how much of the text was contributed by other committee members, is unknown. In 1947, Boyd discovered a fragment of an earlier draft in Jefferson's handwriting. Jefferson and Adams sent copies of the rough draft, with slight variations, to friends.

During the writing process, Jefferson showed the rough draft to Adams and Franklin, and perhaps other members of the drafting committee, 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". Jefferson incorporated these changes into a copy that was submitted to Congress in the name of the committee. The copy that was submitted to Congress on June 28 has been lost, and was perhaps destroyed in the printing process, or destroyed during the debates in accordance with Congress's secrecy rule.