July 4, 1776

United States Declaration of Independence

Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence

Congress spent July 4 editing the explanation for a decision it had already made two days earlier — and the famous parchment wasn't signed that day at all.

4 July 1776: the wording, not the vote

The vote for independence had come on 2 July, when Congress adopted Richard Henry Lee's resolution. What happened at the Pennsylvania State House on 4 July 1776 was the completion of the explanation: through the afternoon, the Second Continental Congress finished revising and adopted the Declaration of Independence.

The text had been drafted by Thomas Jefferson between 11 and 28 June — not by Benjamin Franklin, as the old article claimed. Franklin served with Jefferson, John Adams, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston on the Committee of Five that revised it, and Congress revised it further on 3 and 4 July.

Typeset overnight

That night, a handwritten copy of the approved text went to John Dunlap's Philadelphia printshop, where compositors set and printed the first broadside edition through the night of 4–5 July — an estimated 200 copies, of which 26 are known to survive.

The first printing carried the typeset names of congressional president John Hancock and secretary Charles Thomson — not the delegates' handwritten signatures. Signing of the engrossed parchment began on 2 August, with some names added later.

From the State House to the country

By that night the approved words were being typeset. On 5 July, broadsides began going out to assemblies, committees and military commanders; the first Philadelphia public reading followed on 8 July.

What 4 July settled was the wording of the explanation. Congress had voted independence on 2 July, and the engrossed parchment on display today was not signed until 2 August.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 3 audit passes, 1 issue open

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →