Which Declaration of Independence?
When you are at your Fourth of July cookout or fireworks display this week, see if anyone mentions the Declaration of Independence. If they do, ask “which Declaration of Independence?” After all, there are more than one.
In her 1997 book American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, historian Pauline Maier describes the events leading up to July 4, 1776 and points to multiple “other” Declarations of Independence issued by local legislative bodies earlier that year. Declarations were issued in a variety of places, including Buckingham County (Virginia), Charles County (Maryland), and Natick, Massachusetts. In most cases, these “other” Declarations took the form of instructions from the citizens of a particular geographic area to their elected representatives in the state legislature or in the Continental Congress. After recounting the unjustified treatment of the colonies by the Crown, these documents authorize the peoples’ representatives to vote in favor of severing ties with England. However, some of these Declarations take a different form, such as a judge instructing a grand jury on the source of their legal authority in the absence of a Royal Governor.