Founders Sign Declaration: Independence Made Official

John Hancock reportedly signed his name large enough for King George to read it without spectacles. Whether or not the story is true, the delegates who gathered on August 2, 1776, to sign the Declaration of Independence understood they were putting their names to what amounted to their own death warrants if the Revolution failed. Signing a formal document accusing the king of tyranny and declaring independence was, under British law, high treason — a crime punishable by hanging, drawing, and quartering. The Continental Congress had actually voted for independence on July 2, and the revised text was approved on July 4. But the formal signing ceremony did not take place until August 2, after the declaration had been engrossed on parchment by clerk Timothy Matlack. Fifty delegates signed that day, with additional signatures added over the following weeks and months. Some delegates who had voted for independence never signed, and some who signed had not been present for the vote. The signers were not desperate men with nothing to lose. Most were wealthy, educated, and prominent in their colonies — lawyers, merchants, plantation owners, and physicians. Benjamin Franklin, at 70, was the eldest. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, at 26, was the youngest. Several would lose their fortunes during the war. Some saw their homes burned. A few were captured and imprisoned. But the majority survived the conflict and went on to serve in the new government they had willed into existence. The document they signed did more than declare a political separation. Thomas Jefferson's assertion that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "unalienable rights" introduced a philosophical standard that the nation would spend centuries struggling to live up to, from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage to the civil rights movement.