The Declaration of Independence Was a Call for Freedom — and National Unity

When the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor on the morning of July 4, 1776, they were making a fundamental compact uniting Americans for all time.

It may not have seemed so on that steamy morning in Philadelphia, when the members of the Continental Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson’s announcement that the united colonies had voted — two days earlier — to separate from Great Britain.

The Declaration was seen as an administrative task, something necessary to legitimize their attempts to form an alliance with France and to start creating a confederated government among the 13 now sovereign states.

So busy were they with the business of trying to turn around a losing war that not until weeks later did they even think to have their Declaration written out formally and signed.

The summer of 1776 was a dark time for the Americans.