Declaration of Independence adopted

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved the final text of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson drafted the document with input from John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston on the Committee of Five. Congress adopted the Declaration two days after voting for independence and then ordered the text printed for public distribution.

The Declaration transformed an act of separation into a statement of political principle by grounding independence in natural rights, popular consent, and the right of revolution. Jefferson's language placed the war against George III within a universal argument about legitimate government rather than a merely local quarrel over taxation. The document also turned Congress from a body of protest into the public voice of a people claiming nationhood before the world.

The Declaration became the central state paper of the Revolution and influenced state constitutions drafted in 1776 and 1777. Its principles continued to shape American political language long after the war, even as foreign alliances and the Treaty of Paris of 1783 made the independence it announced internationally secure.