As most Americans around the world get ready for back yard bar-b-ques, family gatherings and organized events surrounding this one only holiday celebrating the Independence of the United States of America, I thought I would do a little research on the holiday and give a little background... (isn't Wikipedia wonderful?)
The United States Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, announcing that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were no longer a part of the British Empire. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration was a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The birthday of the United States of America—Independence Day—is celebrated on July 4, the day the wording of the Declaration was approved by Congress.
Contrary to a once-common misconception, Congress did not sign the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. First published as a printed broadside, the famous handwritten version was created after July 19, and was signed by most Congressional delegates on August 2. This copy, usually regarded as the Declaration of Independence, is now on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
By the time the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain had been at war for more than a year. Relations between the colonies and the mother country had been deteriorating since the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763. The war had plunged the British government deep into debt, and so Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase tax revenue from the colonies. Parliament believed that these acts, such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767, were a legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the costs of the empire.
Many colonists, however, had developed a different conception of the British Empire. Because the colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, they argued, Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them, a view expressed by the slogan "No taxation without representation". After the Townshend Acts, some essayists began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all. By 1774, American writers such as Samuel Adams, James Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson were arguing that Parliament was the legislature of Great Britain only, and that the colonies, which had their own legislatures, were connected to the rest of the Empire only through their allegiance to the Crown.
On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a "Committee of Five", consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, to draft a declaration. Because the committee left no minutes, there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded—accounts written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, although frequently cited, are contradictory and not entirely reliable. What is certain is that the committee, after discussing the general outline that the document should follow, decided that Jefferson would write the first draft. Considering Congress' busy schedule, Jefferson probably had limited time for writing over the next 17 days, and likely wrote the draft quickly. He then consulted the others, made some changes, and then produced another copy incorporating these alterations. The committee presented this copy to the Congress on June 28, 1776. The title of the document was "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled."
John Trumbull's famous painting is usually incorrectly identified as a depiction of the signing of the Declaration, but it actually shows the drafting committee presenting its work to the Congress.
The committee's draft was set aside while Congress resumed debate on Lee's resolution of independence. John Dickinson made one last effort to delay the decision, but following a speech by John Adams, Congress approved the resolution on July 2. Twelve of the thirteen delegations voted in favor; the New York delegation abstained, since they had not yet been authorized to vote for independence, although they were finally allowed to do so by the New York Provincial Congress on July 9. With the passage of the resolution of independence, the colonies had officially severed political ties with Great Britain. In a now-famous letter written to his wife on the following day, John Adams predicted that July 2 would become a great American holiday.
After voting in favor of the resolution of independence, Congress turned its attention to the committee's draft of the declaration. Over several days of debate, Congress made a few changes in wording and deleted nearly a fourth of the text, most notably a passage critical of the slave trade, changes that Jefferson resented. On July 4, 1776, the wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved and sent to the printer for publication.
On July 19, Congress ordered a copy be engrossed on parchment for the delegates to sign. This engrossed copy was probably produced by Timothy Matlack, assistant to the secretary of Congress. Most of the delegates who signed did so on August 2, 1776, although some signers were not present and had to sign later. The signed, engrossed copy is now on display at the National Archives.