One of my fondest memories of Independence Day is reading the Declaration of Independence aloud with friends, line by line. But while working on Timeline 1700-1799, I realized that I didn’t know the Declaration’s full context: the sources of its philosophical premises and the actions of the British government that inspired its list of 27 grievances.
That’s not a criticism of Thomas Jefferson’s work. He could safely assume that his fellow Americans well knew all those details. But many of us have forgotten (or never knew) them. So this year, I decided to celebrate July 4th by posting an annotated version of the Declaration.
For a thorough analysis of the philosophical ideas behind the Declaration, see C. Bradley Thompson, America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It.
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CLICK BELOW to download the PDF of the annotated Declaration of Independence. A couple notes:
In the PDF, the text of the Declaration and my annotations begin on p. 4.
Pages 1-3 include entries on laws and regulations from my forthcoming book Timeline 1700-1799, which will be available in July or August 2025.
Cross-references to entries in the Timeline are in curly brackets, with year and category, for example: {6/1/1740 US}. When the entry is included in this document, the cross-reference is in bold. If the cross-reference isn’t in bold ... you’ll have to buy the book to see it.
Coming in the next 4 days: speeches celebrating the Declaration of Independence on its 50th anniversary (1826), 100th (1876), 150th (1926), and 200th (1976).
NOTE: The next installment of the Timeline project will appear on August 4th. This month, I’m polishing Timeline 1700-1799 for publication. More on that soon.
I had never heard the part about Quebec before. This was eye-opening. After reading this and Brad Thompson's book, I am finally getting the education about the Declaration that I should have gotten in high school.