American Revolution Archives - Constitution Party

The Declaration Signing

Justin Magill — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 18:46:00 +0000

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN

Justin Magill

The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. It was engrossed on parchment and on August 2, 1776, delegates began signing it.

On August 2nd John Hancock, the President of the Congress, signed the engrossed copy with a bold signature. The other delegates, following custom, signed beginning at the right with the signatures arranged by states from northernmost New Hampshire to southernmost Georgia. Although all delegates were not present on August 2nd, 56 delegates eventually signed the document. Late signers were Elbridge Gerry, Oliver Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean, and Matthew Thornton, who was unable to place his signature with the other New Hampshire delegates due to a lack of space. Some delegates, including Robert R. Livingston of New York, a member of the drafting committee, never signed the Declaration.

(NOTE: There is only one handwritten, signed Declaration of Independence; It is on display in the National Archives in Washington D.C.)

National Archives

Visit the Signers of the Declaration page on our website to find out more about the Signers.

Read the full text of the original Constitution below:

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.

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.–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 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 mean time 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 harrass 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 benefits 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.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish 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.

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.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

Massachusetts

John Adams

Samuel Adams

Elbridge Gerry

John Hancock

Robert Treat Paine

Pennsylvania

George Clymer

Benjamin Franklin

Robert Morris

John Morton

George Ross

Benjamin Rush

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

New Jersey

Abraham Clark

John Hart

Francis Hopkinson

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

North Carolina

Joseph Hewes

William Hooper

John Penn

Maryland

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Delaware

Thomas McKean

George Read

Caesar Rodney

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

Matthew Thornton

William Whipple

Rhode Island

William Ellery

Stephen Hopkins

South Carolina

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

Edward Rutledge

Virginia

Carter Braxton

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Jefferson

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

George Wythe

New York

William Floyd

Francis Lewis

Philip Livingston

Lewis Morris

Connecticut

Samuel Huntington

Roger Sherman

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

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What was the Boston Non-importation Agreement?

Justin Magill — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 19:43:00 +0000

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN

Justin Magill

In response to the Townshend Acts, the Boston merchants and traders got together to boycott goods imported from Great Britain. The Townshend Revenue Act, required a tax to be paid for the purchase of glass, lead, oil, paint, paper, and tea. The non-importation agreement pushed Bostonians, and the surrounding areas, towards self-sufficiency; a characteristic that would prove invaluable throughout the American Revolution.

The American Colonies began heavy smuggling operations that took the bottom out of British merchant’s profits. These efforts, and the losses caused by them, ultimately led the Parliament to repeal the Townshend Acts.

Boston Non-Importation Agreement, August 1, 1768

The merchants and traders in the town of Boston, having taken into consideration the deplorable situation of the trade and the many difficulties it at present labours under on account of the scarcity of money, which is daily decreasing for want of the other remittances to discharge our debts in Great Britain, and the large sums collected by the officers of the customs for duties on goods imported; the heavy taxes levied to discharge the debts contracted by the government in the late war; the embarrassments and restrictions laid on the trade by the several late Acts of Parliament; together with the bad success of our cod fishery this season, and the discouraging prospect of the whale fishery, by which our principal sources of remittances are like to be greatly diminished, and we thereby rendered unable to pay the debts we owe the merchants in Great Britain, and to continue the importation of goods from thence:

We, the subscribers, in order to relieve the trade under those discouragements, to promote industry, frugality, and economy, and to discourage luxury and every kind of extravagance, do promise and engage to and with each other as follows:

That we will not send or import from Great Britain this fall, either on our own account, or on commission, any other goods than what are already ordered for the fall supply.

That we will not send for or import any kind of goods or merchandise from Great Britain, either on our own account, or on commissions, or any otherwise, from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770, except salt, coals, fish-hooks and lines, hemp, duck, bar lead and shot, wool-cards, and card-wire.

That we will not purchase of any factors, or others, any kind of goods imported from Great Britain from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770. That we will not import on our own account, or on commission, or Purchase from any Who shall import from any other colony in America, from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770, any tea, glass, paper, or other goods commonly imported from Great Britain.

That we will not, from and after January 1, 1769, import into the province any tea, paper, glass, or painters’ colours, until the Acts imposing duties on these articles have been repealed.

The Avalon Project

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From the Lyon’s Mouth. War an Ode.

Justin Magill — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 21:14:59 +0000

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN

Justin Magill

The Pennsylvania Ledger: Or the Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, & New-Jersey Weekly Advertiser

Printed by James Humphreys, Jr.

POET’s CORNER.

15 June 1776

From the Lyon’s Mouth.
WAR an ODE.

ON all these dreary plains,
There yet a sorrowing Muse remains,
Who has seen with weeping eye,
These former domes of love and joy,
Happiness, contentment, case,
And Freedom cloth’d in robes of peace,
Where the Graces us’d to play,
Now fallen desolation’s prey;

With her I’ll view the scene of blood
And destruction, that pursued
The tracts of Mars, stern God of war,
When, riding in his brazen car;
Drawn by horses swift as wind,
With all the furies close behind,
And civil discord in his train
He took his way o’er heaps of slain.

First, shrouded in the veil of night,
To Lexington we’ll take our flight.
Borne on fancy’s rapid pinions,
Swift I fly through liquid regions,
Already do I see the ground
On which, her brows with cypress bound,
Britain’s genius mournful view’d
Her children shed each other’s blood.

Sudden darkness round is spread,
Hark! What roaring peals of thunder!
See the forked lightning fly!
The bodies of the mighty dead,
Their icy bands have burst assunder,
And, in silent majesty,
Rising from their tomb,
Stalk along the awful gloom.

Oh! from this more than deepest night
Quickly let us take our flight;
Swift as thought, convey’d through air,
I stand on Abr’am’s fatal plain,
Soft pity sheds a tender tear,
To think how many heroes, slain,
In the pride of youthful bloom,
On this spot have found a tomb.

Ah me! what hosts in dread array
Towards yonder City bend their way.
Hark! the angry cannons sound;
Nought but flame and smoak is seen,
Streams of blood bedew the ground,
Alas! how horrid is the scene.

Here the Son, his Parent’s pride,
The only comfort of their age,
On the field all crimson dy’d,
Feels the Tyrant’s keenest rage,
Here the bleeding Father lies,
His Widow’s and his Orphan’s cries
Assault his dying ear,
And fills his soul with deep despair.

Here the Patriot bends beneath
His wounds all honest on the breast,
He feels the approaching hand of death,
And with groaning sinks to rest,
That eye is clos’d in endless night
Which late flash’d terror round,
The arm so terrible in fight
Now helpless lies upon the ground.

Here the Lover seeking fame,
Meets a glorious death;
While his much lov’d Mistress’s name
Sounds upon his last breath.
Be calm, my tortur’d Soul, he cries,
Ye boisterous winds your raging cease,
Least my dreary, mournful sighs
Wound my fair Amanda’s peace.

But let some gentle breathing Zephyr,
In the softest, tenderest whisper,
Convey the tidings to her ear;
The drop, if she does drop a tear
Oh! let some little Cherub save,
And borne on pity’s downy wing,
The pearly treasure bring,
And cast it on my grave.

Most happy men! your troubles cease,
Your souls are fled to realms of peace;
Beyond a cruel Monarch’s power,
In some blest Elysian Bower,
Where bloody Tyrants ne’er can come;
Perhaps ye read your Country’s doom.
Oh! say, will never peace return?
Ah! are we ever doom’d to mourn?

Self whisp’ring reason tells me no,
Our sorrows soon will cease to flow;
Peace again will bless this shore,
Smiling Freedom will return,
And horrid war no more
Shall cause this land to mourn.
The Almighty’s self will interpose
This scene of blood to close.

Declaration Stories

The post From the Lyon’s Mouth. War an Ode. appeared first on Constitution Party.

The Committee of Five

Justin Magill — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 06:06:00 +0000

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN

Justin Magill

“If ever the Time should come, when vain and aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin.”

Samuel Adams

On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress selected five men to serve on a committee for drafting a Declaration of Independence in accordance with the resolves proposed by Richard Henry Lee. The Committee of Five, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, were chosen for this task.

The Committee of Five discussed the structure it should follow, then asked Thomas Jefferson, the Virginian, to prepare a draft of the declaration. Thomas Jefferson’s first draft was then discussed and minor edits made by the committee.

The Committee of Five would present their proposed declaration to the Continental Congress on June 28, 1776.

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.