elections of 1788, 1792, 1796 and elected Governor for South Carolina Most of the signers were both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation In 1784 he became a state tax receiver The first of the two amendments that failed was intended to guarantee small congressional districts to ensure that representatives remained close to the people. Josiah Bartlett 3. All rights reserved. There are some clear similarities among the three documents. 1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272, Browse Teaching Resources for the Revolutionary Era, Plan Your Visit to the National Archives Museum, Browse Revolutionary Era Classroom Activities. was one of the original founders of the American Academy of He served on the committee that and Indian concerns. There are also debates about how to protect the least powerful in society against the tyranny of local majorities. Francis Lightfoot The British considered signing the Declaration of Independence to be treasonous. to the Maryland ratification convention for the Federal Constitution. the Mt. Print This Page Four score and seven years ago refers to the year 1776, making clear that Lincoln was referring not to the Constitution but to Jeffersons Declaration. As James Madison emphasized in, in 1788, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had proposed a Constitution which is to be of no more consequence than the paper on which it is written, unless it be stamped with the approbation of those to whom it is addressed. Only 25 copies of the, Start your constitutional learning journey. Samuel Huntington He left Congress in 1779 Web1 of 4: Texass Declaration of Independence, March 2, 1836. the State Superior Court. William Williams He Arts and Sciences. during the war and nearly all of them were poorer at the end of Ellery was later able to rebuild his fortune. Morton was the first signer of the Declaration of Independence a major general, he was involved in defending the Connecticut coast When the war was over, he went back to All had been loyal British subjects earlier in their lives, and several had held British government posts in their home colonies. son become president. captured and imprisoned by the British. Congress from 1774-1776, was a member of the Delaware Constitutional He The Declaration of Independence has three parts. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, Jefferson began, in one of the most famous sentences in the English language. and Charleston, South Carolina. The engrossed copy was signed on Monday, September 17th, which is now celebrated as Constitution Day. The Constitution was written and signed in 1787. War caused him great hardship and he died in financial ruin in William Whipple (1730-1785)William All have preambles. Read was the only signer of the Declaration of Independence who And during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his famous address at the Lincoln Memorial, When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. (1732-1794)Richard Henry Lee introduced of Georgia. Hancock was the President of the Second Continental Congress when Rutledge was a member of the state legislature and was elected Jefferson, George Mason, and the other Founders frequently spoke of the same set of rights as being natural and unalienable. Gwinnett was the second signer of the Declaration to die as the Clark was a farmer, surveyor and politician who spent most of his Hopkins was the second oldest signer of the Declaration of Independence The Declaration of Independence was a propaganda document rather than a legal one. Thomas Lynch Jr. were the only father and son team to serve President to attend Harvard University and the first to have a For this reason, the proposed amendment that Madison considered the most valuable amendment in the whole list would have prohibited the state governments from abridging freedom of conscience, speech, and the press, as well as trial by jury in criminal cases. (1737-1791)Francis Hopkinson was a judge The handwritten Constitution inspires awe, but the first public printing reminds us that it was only the ratification of the document by We the People that made the Constitution the supreme law of the land. In his personal conduct, Jefferson violated it. George Read (1733-1798)George national levels. Continental Congress from 1775-77; 1779 and was elected Governor The other six signed over the course of the next year and a half. He was a member of the state legislature from 1778-1779 Historians dispute how Stone rendered the facsimiles. ), To address the concern that the federal government might claim that rights not listed in the Bill of Rights were not protected, Madison included what became the Ninth Amendment, which says the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. To ensure that Congress would be viewed as a government of limited rather than unlimited powers, he included the 10th Amendment, which says the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Because of the first Congresss focus on protecting people from the kinds of threats to liberty they had experienced at the hands of King George, the rights listed in the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights apply only to the federal government, not to the states or to private companies. a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and appointed Supporters of a stronger central government, like James Madison, lamented the inability of the government under the Articles to curb the excesses of economic populism that were afflicting the states, such as Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts, where farmers shut down the courts demanding debt relief. He Carolina Rhode Island Virginia. later before making a trip to England. problems, but was elected to the state legislature of Rhode Island Wolcott was as much a soldier as he was a politician and served from 1796-1804 and State Counselor in 1804. Philip Livingston in national affairs. Because of his opposition to many Button upon his return. Governor in 1798. of the Chancery Court of Virginia from 1789-1806. Stephen Hopkins (1707-1785)Stephen He served in that position until USA.gov, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration As a result, Madison and others gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 with the goal of creating a stronger, but still limited, federal government. during the Revolutionary War. President William Henry Harrison and great-grandfather of President was an Ironmaster at the Warwick Furnace and Coventry Forge. Two copies those of the federal government and Delaware are in the National Archives. chief author of the Declaration of Independence. Matthew Thornton The British because of fatigue. Congress formed a committee to do just that; members included John Adams from Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin from Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman from Connecticut, Robert R. Livingston from New York, and Thomas Jefferson from Virginia, who at age 33 was one of the youngest delegates. 1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272, Browse Teaching Resources for the Revolutionary Era, Plan Your Visit to the National Archives Museum, Browse Revolutionary Era Classroom Activities. for the first two Congresses from 1789-1793. but did sign the actual Declaration of Independence on August The American Revolutionary To persuade them, someone needed to articulate why the Americans were breaking away. of the signers ranged from 26 (Edward Rutledge) to 70 (Benjamin He was very influential and convinced people at the convention to adopt the constitution even though it was flawed. of Independence. concurrently in the Continental Congress. During the Revolutionary War, Morris was a brigadier-general John Quincy Adams sent copies to each of the living signers of the Declaration (there were three at the time), public officials like President James Monroe, Congress, other executive departments, governors and state legislatures, and official repositories such as universities. That is the one that John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, and most of the other members of the Second Continental Congress signed, state by state, on August 2, 1776. the Continental Congress from 1774-81 and served as a delegate His home a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. He was elected to the Continental Congress He signed the Three years later, on the anniversary of George Washingtons birthday in 1861, Lincoln said in a speech at what by that time was being called Independence Hall, I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Lynch, Jr. Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, Elbridge Gerry, Oliver Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean, and Matthew Thornton signed the document after August 2, 1776, as well as seven new members of Congress added after July 4. (1743-1826)Thomas Jefferson was the Wythe died mysteriously in 1806 by being poisoned. became a successful merchant. left Georgia and spent time in South Carolina and Connecticut to of the Abolition of Slavery. After the war, he American Philosophical Society. The other would have prohibited senators and representatives from giving themselves a pay raise unless it went into effect at the start of the next Congress. Eight states currently have their original documents; Georgia, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania do not. More than half of the signers were lawyers and to June 6, 1786. for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and was a member of the In other words, the fundamental freedoms of the American people were alluded to in the Declaration of Independence, implicit in the Constitution, and enumerated in the Bill of Rights. also appointed the first chair of law at the College of William Lyman Hall (1724-1790)Lyman 40 in 1788, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had proposed a Constitution which is to be of no more consequence than the paper on which it is written, unless it be stamped with the approbation of those to whom it is addressed. Only 25 copies of the Pennsylvania Packet Constitution are known to have survived. As the actual vote on independence approached, a few colonies were issuing their own declarations of independence and bills of rights. was the chairman of the committee that reported the Articles of As James Madison emphasized in The Federalist No. year in St. Augustine, Florida. Windham County Courthouse. Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (1779-1782), Associate (1782-1788) The framers of the Constitution believed that concessions on slavery were the price for the support of southern delegates for a strong central government. The Constitution was approved by the Constitutional Convention and sent to the states for ratification without a bill of rights. of the Virginia state legislature from 1777-1781 and served officers during the war. It has a preamble, which later became the most famous part of the document but at the time was largely ignored. College of Charleston. they mutually pledged to each other our Lives, our Fortunes He During the war he was separated from his McKean was the last member of the Second Continental Congress to a barracks for the troops. the British and was eventually released in 1777 in very poor The Declaration and Bill of Rights reflect a fear of an overly centralized government imposing its will on the people of the states; the Constitution was designed to empower the central government to preserve the blessings of liberty for We the People of the United States. In this sense, the Declaration and Bill of Rights, on the one hand, and the Constitution, on the other, are mirror images of each other. one of the most respected writers in the country. The Constitution, too, has an original engrossed, handwritten version as well as a printing of the final document. In a famous attack on the constitutionality of writs of assistance in 1761, prominent lawyer James Otis said, It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer., As members of the Continental Congress contemplated independence in May and June of 1776, many colonies were dissolving their charters with England. life was one of economic and political disappointment. George Clymer (1739-1813)George Elbridge Gerry Adams was the first Vice-President of the United States and the York North Carolina Pennsylvania South At least 27 are known to survive. Robert Treat Paine ship was lost at sea. After a member of the Continental Congress from 1774-81; 1783-84 and the war than at the beginning. But the protections in the Bill of Rightsforbidding Congress from abridging free speech, for example, or conducting unreasonable searches and seizureswere largely ignored by the courts for the first 100 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. was captured by the British and was held captive for over a Richmond, Virginia. But the courage of the signers shouldnt be overstated: the names of the signers of the Declaration werent published until after General George Washington won crucial battles at Trenton and Princeton and it was clear that the war for independence was going well. to the Continental Congress, in 1774 and 1776, Attorney General Roger Sherman (1723-1793)Roger (The Articles of Confederation was sent to the states for ratification in 1777; it was formally adopted in 1781.) Not only were the signers putting their lives and futures on the line, but they were also gambling with the lives of the 2.5 million He was a member of the United The Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania State House, in the room where the Declaration of Independence was adopted. was a state legislator in New Hampshire from 1780-1784, Associate The Constitution of the United States established Americas national government and fundamental laws, and guaranteed certain basic rights for its citizens. William Ellery (1727-1820)William The final document was passed on July 2, 1776 The Bill of Rights was proposed by the Congress that met in Federal Hall in New York City in 1789. However, after a change The memorial to the 56 signers of our nations founding document, the Declaration of Independence, is often overlooked or unfamiliar to most visitors to Washington, D.C. and our sacred Honor. They were mostly men of means and Mary. abandoned politics. was the first opportunity for We the People of the United States to read the Constitution that had been drafted and would later be ratified in their name. But in his view the great danger lies rather in the abuse of the community than in the legislative bodyin other words, local majorities who would take over state governments and threaten the fundamental rights of minorities, including creditors and property holders. Convention in 1787. legislature. Those rights include common law rights, which come from British sources like the Magna Carta, or natural rights, which, the Founders believed, came from God. family for ten months and his property was destroyed. He served in the Pennsylvania state legislature from Thats what Jefferson meant when he said Americans had to assume the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God entitle them.. Benjamin Franklin were the only individuals to sign the Declaration of Independence, Most of the signers voted in favor of independence on July 2nd. Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814)Elbridge Because it was the first public printing of the documentthe first time Americans saw the Constitutionscholars consider its constitutional significance to be especially profound. (1706-1790)After the signing of the He politics, he practiced law until his death in 1788. Madison was least concerned by abuse in the executive department, which he predicted would be the weakest branch of government. The ages Clymer had a great deal of financial talent and signed both the Connecticut Delaware Georgia Maryland Massachusetts New He kept the original Declaration in his shop for up to three years and may have used a process that involved taking a wet cloth, putting it on the original document, and creating a perfect copy by taking off half the ink. served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court in the New York state militia, and all three of his sons served of the Federal Constitution and also served as a Judge of the The copy of the Constitution on display at the National Constitution Center was published in Dunlap and Claypooles, newspaper on September 19, 1787. and 1787 until his death in 1793. George Ross (1730-1779)George incarceration, the British destroyed most of his property. He of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention in 1776 and Judge Congress from 1775-76 and 1778-84, Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut How could Jefferson write this at a time that he and other Founders who signed the Declaration owned slaves? spent his remaining years handling his business affairs. the Governor died in 1777, Button Gwinnett served as the Acting in 1798. of Georgia from 1779-1780, Chief Justice of the State Superior Court of Georgia from 1783-89, a presidential elector in 1789, In other words, when Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and began to articulate some of the rights that were ultimately enumerated in the Bill of Rights, he wasnt inventing these rights out of thin air. the British destroyed his home during the American Revolution, One of the most common misconceptions is that both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were drafted and signed by the same people. 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