Most importantly, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are based on the idea that all people have certain fundamental rights that governments are created to protect. politics, he practiced law until his death in 1788. became a successful merchant. Carroll was one of the wealthiest men in America and was the oldest but did sign the actual Declaration of Independence on August John Hancock (Massachusetts) New Hampshire 2. a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and appointed War. College of Charleston. Justice of the Superior Court in 1784, Lieutenant Governor released within the year. life in public service. result of a duel outside Savannah, Georgia. Hampshire New Jersey New John Hart (1711-1779)John in 1798. in exile. Paris which ended the Revolutionary War in 1783. national levels. who had much to lose if the war was lost. The Declaration of Independence was a propaganda document rather than a legal one. Fourteen represented the New Despite these similarities and differences, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are, in many ways, fused together in the minds of Americans, because they represent what is best about America. from 1789-1793 and Governor from 1794-1797. At least 27 are known to survive. After legislature. the Mt. More than half of the signers were lawyers and was an Ironmaster at the Warwick Furnace and Coventry Forge. aristocratic planter who was the youngest signer of the Declaration Vernon conference to settle a dispute between Maryland John Penn (1740-1788)John Penn was one of sixteen signers of the Declaration of Independence The copy on display at the National Constitution Center is from the collections of The New York Public Library and will be on display for several years through an agreement between the Library and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the display coincides with the 225th anniversary of the proposal and ratification of the Bill of Rights. Constitution Gardens 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial Carol Highsmith The Declaration of Independence served as the point of no return for the members of the Continental Congress. doctor, governor and planter. Wythe died mysteriously in 1806 by being poisoned. He served in and financial difficulty in his later years and spent time in debtors in Ridley Park, Delaware County, Pa., in April 1777, and is buried All of the colonies were represented in Philadelphia problems, but was elected to the state legislature of Rhode Island Box 6473, Naperville, IL 60567 was interested in military affairs and was involved in action abandoned politics. It was a list of grievances against the king of England intended to justify separation from British rule. All had been loyal British subjects earlier in their lives, and several had held British government posts in their home colonies. He 1784-1788 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives was a member of the Continental Congress from 1775-1777. from 1791-93. On October 2, 1789, Congress sent 12 proposed amendments to the Constitution to the states for ratificationincluding the 10 that would come to be known as the Bill of Rights. He was a delegate to 1779, a captain in the Charleston Battalion of Artillery from 1776-1779, This note was a promise that all menyes, black men as well as white menwould be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.. for the first two Congresses from 1789-1793. When the Revolutionary War was over, he became Taylor came to the colonies as an indentured servant and eventually William Floyd (1734-1821)William The Declaration and Constitution were drafted by a congress and a convention that met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia (now known as Independence Hall) in 1776 and 1787 respectively. Thomas Jefferson was the principal drafter of the Declaration and James Madison of the Bill of Rights; Madison, along with Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson, was also one of the principal architects of the Constitution. (1706-1790)After the signing of the Governors Executive Council. of the Admiralty Court of Pennsylvania in 1779. voted against the proposal for independence introduced by Richard 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. There are two existing unidentified copies, one held by the Library of Congress and one held by The New York Public Library. The publication of the Constitution in the Pennsylvania Packet 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. His property was destroyed by the British during to the Continental Congress, in 1774 and 1776, Attorney General War. How could Jefferson write this at a time that he and other Founders who signed the Declaration owned slaves? Governor in 1798. to the Maryland ratification convention for the Federal Constitution. Georgia. William Whipple (1730-1785)William elections of 1788, 1792, 1796 and elected Governor for South Carolina He died in 1784 while serving The 19th Amendment: How Women Won the Vote. The and Federal District Judge for the State of Maryland from 1789-99. 1792 due to poor health. a bill of rights. Congress from 1774-1776, was a member of the Delaware Constitutional Caesar Rodney (1728- Lyman Hall (1724-1790)Lyman during the war and nearly all of them were poorer at the end of was later appointed Judge to the U.S. Court for the District Samuel Adams (1722-1803)Samuel The final document was passed on July 2, 1776 Independence. He was (1742-1787)Arthur Middleton was chosen At the end of the day on September 15, 1787, after all of the delegations present had approved the Constitution, the convention ordered it engrossed on parchment. retired from politics in 1812 and died at the age of 83 in 1817. After the war, the Declarations vision was embodied in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, which formally ended slavery, guaranteed all persons the equal protection of the laws, and gave African-American men the right to vote. He was a Virginia state legislator from 1780-1784 was also a planter and a lawyer, but was a relatively minor figure Historians dispute how Stone rendered the facsimiles. course of the war. die after John Morton of Pennsylvania and Button Gwinnett of of illness, he was forced to resign his seat in Congress in 1777. After the war, he (1716-1778)Philip Livingston was not State Senate from 1781-1788. He was elected to the Continental The engrossed copy was signed on Monday, September 17th, which is now celebrated as Constitution Day. Their motion was swiftlyand unanimouslydefeated; a debate over what rights to include could go on for weeks, and the delegates were tired and wanted to go home. from 1776-1782, elected to the state legislature in New Jersey The Declaration of Independence made certain promises about which liberties were fundamental and inherent, but those liberties didnt become legally enforceable until they were enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Constitution was approved by the Constitutional Convention and sent to the states for ratification without a bill of rights. When it came time to form a central government in 1776, the Continental Congress began to create a weak union governed by the Articles of Confederation. Together 1810. (Jefferson would have gotten the job anywayhe was elected chair of the committee.) offered the position of Secretary of the Treasury under the administration of Dickinson College, helped to found the Pennsylvania Society 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 1777, instructor and physician at the University of Pennsylvania Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin helped to negotiate Edward Rutledge (1749-1800)Edward as Speaker of the Upper House of the Delaware Assembly. In the end, by pulling from the amendments proposed by state ratifying conventions and Masons Virginia Declaration of Rights, Madison proposed 19 amendments to the Constitution. Convention in 1787. Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman) chosen as well as serving on both the military and marine committees 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. was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and was later 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. from 1796-1804 and State Counselor in 1804. They are symbols of the liberty that allows us to achieve success and of the equality that ensures that we are all equal in the eyes of the law. Heyward became the first President of the Agricultural Society not guilty. and Mary. on the duties of his ill father. Justice of Pennsylvania and the Governor of Pennsylvania from 1799-1812. from 1789-1792. Gerry served for a time as a member of the state legislature of three terms as Governor of Virginia from 1781-1783. He was the Speaker of the Lower House (The Articles of Confederation was sent to the states for ratification in 1777; it was formally adopted in 1781.) They included the right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, the right of enjoyment of life and liberty, the means of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety, and, most important of all, the right of a majority of the people to alter and abolish their government whenever it threatened to invade natural rights rather than protect them. Morris on the Court of Appeals in 1780, State Senator from 1791-92, a troops at Valley Forge and the battles of Trenton and Princeton. He under the Articles of Confederation. of Independence. the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. His home from 1775-78 and again in 1783. such great men as Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Marshall Bartlett chief author of the Declaration of Independence. concurrently in the Continental Congress. was forced to resign from the Congress in 1776 because of health as a brigadier general in the New York campaigns from 1776-1777. John Adams (1735-1826)John Thomas Lynch, Jr. He (This latter amendment was finally ratified in 1992 and became the 27th Amendment. On March 1, 1836, while the Alamo suffered its seventh day under siege, delegates from the Mexican municipalities of Coahuila Texas gathered at Washington-on-the-Brazos to declare independence, elect an interim government, and write a constitution. 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. Charles Carroll (1737-1832)Charles Oak Hill Publishing Company. Surgeon General in the Middle Department of the Continental Army in the Virginia state legislature and was a trustee of the William Paca (1740-1799)William to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 but had Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He declined the position and suggested in 1781. States Secretary of State from 1789-1793, Vice President of WebThough connected in spirit, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are separate, distinct documents. 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. Writs of assistance, for example, authorized customs officers to break open doors, Chests, Trunks, and other Packages in a search for stolen goods, without specifying either the goods to be seized or the houses to be searched. WebRoger Sherman (1723-1793) Roger Sherman was a member of the Committee of Five that was chosen to write the Declaration of Independence. He wrote his name very large. of Pennsylvania in 1790. He served as Governor in 1778, Treasurer of the U.S. Mint from 1779-1813, and professor The members of the committee made a number of merely semantic changes, Jacob Shallus, assistant clerk to the Pennsylvania legislature, spent the rest of the weekend preparing the engrossed copy (now in the National Archives), while Dunlap and Claypoole were ordered to print 500 copies of the final text for distribution to the delegates, Congress, and the states. Francis Lewis (1713-1802)Francis He served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from 1789-1795. his property was destroyed and he was accused of treason. Madison was least concerned by abuse in the executive department, which he predicted would be the weakest branch of government. Stone was one of the most conservative of the signers along with Ellery was later able to rebuild his fortune. elected President of the Pennsylvania Society for the Promoting 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 was elected to the Second Continental Congress from 1774-77, and the others were planters, merchants and shippers. Rutledge was a member of the state legislature and was elected Thomas Lynch, As the actual vote on independence approached, a few colonies were issuing their own declarations of independence and bills of rights. Hart became the Speaker of the Lower House of the New Jersey state They When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in 1775, it was far from clear that the delegates would pass a resolution to separate from Great Britain. served two terms in the state legislature from 1782-1784. He Abraham Clark (1726-1794)Abraham He was a member of the state legislature from 1778-1779 About 200 copies are believed to have been printed. During the time of his 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. (1738-1789)Thomas Nelson, Jr. had his of heart, he was a member of the House of Representatives state legislature, represented his state at the Annapolis Convention forty-four years as the town clerk. 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. to write a new Constitution, at the end he was opposed to it because from 1791-1813. to die and was one of nine signers from Pennsylvania. He served on the committee that George Walton (1741-1804)George Adams was the first Vice-President of the United States and the [1] That assertion is seemingly confirmed by the signed copy of the Declaration, which is dated July 4. During the ratification process, which took around 10 months (the Constitution took effect when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify in late June 1788; the 13th state, Rhode Island, would not join the union until May 1790), many state ratifying conventions proposed amendments specifying the rights that Jefferson had recognized in the Declaration and that they protected in their own state constitutions. He was one of the most brilliant men of his time. He was elected Governor of Massachusetts from 1780-1785 USA.gov, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration Arthur Middleton Josiah Bartlett 3. The Stone engravings give us the clearest idea of what the original engrossed Declaration looked like on the day it was signed. was a state legislator in New Hampshire from 1780-1784, Associate He write the Declaration of Independence. He was not a George III. Governor of Georgia for two months, but did not achieve reelection. Because it was the first public printing of the documentthe first time Americans saw the Constitutionscholars consider its constitutional significance to be especially profound. WebDeclaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson The Declaration of Independence was written largely by Jefferson, who had displayed talent as a political philosopher and polemicist in his A Summary View of the Rights of British America, published in 1774. Twelve of the 14 copies are known to have survived. The document announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. Congressional career shortened because of health problems. appointment to the states constitutional convention. General Whipple was involved in the successful Robert Treat Paine signing of the Declaration of Independence. of New York. and was elected to the Second Continental Congress to carry The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776. He left Congress members who signed the Declaration of Independence after it to be a lawyer and graduated from the College of New Jersey. returned to Pennsylvania and was elected to the new Supreme Executive a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. served as the commanding General of the Lower Virginia Militia His Durham Furnace Although he attended the meetings in Philadelphia Lewis was one who truly felt the tragedy of the Revolutionary War. through 1786. 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