Season 3, Episode 12 | Announcing Independence: How the Declaration Went Viral in 1776

What good is a declaration if no one hears it? After the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the real work began: Announcing it to the American people and the world. 

In this episode of This Constitution, host Savannah Eccles Johnston is joined by Matthew Brogdon to explore how the Declaration of Independence was published, proclaimed, and received in 1776. Together, they trace the Declaration’s journey from Congress to the public square, examining how a fledgling nation used print culture, public readings, and a robust free press to unite the colonies and justify rebellion to the world.

Savannah and Matthew walk through the critical timeline from July 2 to July 4, explaining why Independence Day commemorates publication rather than the vote itself. They unpack the importance of John Hancock’s role as the public face of the Declaration, the significance of the Dunlap Broadside as the first printed versions Americans actually read, and why the famous handwritten parchment played little role in the document’s original impact.

The episode highlights how the Declaration spread rapidly through newspapers, churches, courthouses, and military camps, becoming as much an oral event as a written one. Public readings mobilized soldiers, artisans, farmers, women, and those unable to read, transforming the Declaration into a shared civic experience. Savannah and Matthew also explore the dramatic colonial reactions from celebrations and statue-toppling to loyalist resistance and rebuttals, revealing a nation deeply divided even at the moment of independence.

Finally, the conversation turns to the Goddard Declaration, the first printed version to include the signers' names, produced by Mary Katherine Goddard in 1777. The episode argues that the successful announcement of independence was not just a political achievement, but a triumph of the American free press and a powerful early expression of democratic communication.

In This Episode

• (00:18) The challenge of announcing independence
• (01:04) What’s new about the Declaration?
• (01:31) Congress’s role and the importance of eloquence
• (02:47) The Declaration’s immediate impact and fading
• (02:57) Timeline: July 2 vs. July 4
• (03:28) Why July 4th matters
• (05:24) John Hancock’s role in publication
• (08:10) The Dunlap broadside: the first printed Declaration
• (10:33) Dunlap’s editorial changes and official record
• (12:10) The engrossed copy vs. the Dunlap broadside
• (15:38) The technology and democratization of the Declaration
• (16:11) Distribution and public readings
• (17:45) First public readings and military announcements
• (19:11) The Declaration’s oral and print spread
• (21:07) The Declaration in print culture
• (23:20) Speed and reach of distribution
• (24:20) Colonial reactions: revolutionary celebrations
• (28:19) Colonial reactions: loyalist responses
• (32:13) The Goddard broadside: publishing the signers
• (35:21) The Declaration’s enduring legacy

Notable Quotes

• (03:32) “A declaration doesn’t matter unless you make it public.” — Matthew Brogdon
• (05:47) “It’s not Jefferson who is the face of the Declaration at first. It’s John Hancock.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston
• (10:23) “It  was the eighteenth-century version of going viral.” — Matthew Brogdon
• (16:11) “There’s something very democratic about the Dunlap broadsides.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston
• (17:24) “The Declaration was written to be read out loud.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston
• (25:22) “We’ve been tearing down statues since the very beginning.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston
• (35:34) “The Declaration of Independence announcement is a testament and a victory of the American Free Press.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston

Transcript

Intro:

[00:00:00  - 00:00:10]

We the people, do ordain and establish this Constitution. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:10 - 00:00:17]

Welcome to This Constitution. My name is Savannah Eccles Johnston.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:00:17 - 00:00:18

And I'm Matthew Brogdon.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:18 - 00:01:31]

And today we are going to talk about how the Declaration of Independence was announced. So the Declaration is just a piece of paper signed by a bunch of guys in a very stuffy room and in Philadelphia. Until it is announced en masse to the American people and publicly accepted, it's got to first do the job. But that's not an easy thing to do in 1776. How do you get the word out that the colonies have declared themselves free and independent states? So, first, you need to tell everyone, and second, you have to unite the American people behind this cause. And third, you have to justify rebellion to the world. So this Declaration's got some work cut out for it. And I just want to include a Benjamin Franklin quote here real quick. He told his. Reportedly told his fellow members of Congress, we must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. So there is something both about, of course, uniting the delegates, but also uniting the colonies behind the cause of independence, or the British will just kind of pick them off one by one. So how are we going to get this word out? Well, first, much of what is said in the Declaration isn't new. And we've had a bunch of episodes on this already, like the grievances aren't new, the theories aren't new. These have been spoken about in pulpits and churches. Everyone already knows this stuff. So what actually is new about the Declaration?

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:01:31 - 00:02:47]

We put it together, and it's Congress declaring it. Congress had stayed away from the brink of actually declaring independence up to this point. They hadn't taken the sort of fatal step of making the separation from Great Britain, even though they had done all of the things independent countries would do. They had been working to make alliances, they had been declaring their grievances, they had been waging war. They had urged states to set up their own governments. They had done all of this stuff. So they were behaving like an independent country, but they never really said it. And that was the crucial thing. It's also eloquent, and I think that's important. We talked about this before. We talked about Jefferson and Adams role in this. It is important that it's an eloquent statement, because eloquence doesn't just consist in piecing together words that sound good together. It often consists in putting it in a straightforward way that's artful and uses. Makes clear your meaning. So you could piece together all the things the Declaration said, but the fact that it pieced them together in this coherent, eloquent whole that spoke clearly not just to the American people, but at the world, actually made it distinctive and important in that sense. Though, admittedly, if we hadn't actually succeeded in setting up a union in a government, it would be an artifact in a museum somewhere.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:02:47 - 00:03:28]

Well, even then, much of the Declaration was kind of not forgotten, but became less important in the decade or two after it was issued, after it did its job. Not to say that the theories of the Declaration, the liberal theories of the Declaration, were forgotten. They weren't. They were everywhere. They were so common in the language that that's why you can say it's self evident, everyone, this, it's been in the pews. But the document itself kind of fades a little bit. It gets many resurgences, but it fades a little bit afterwards after it does its job. But first, let's talk about how it does that job. So, timeline. July 2nd, Congress votes for independence, and then July 4th, they approve the final text of the Declaration of Independence. So what's Independence Day? Is it the second or the fourth?

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:03:28 - 00:03:36]

Well, I think it should be the fourth, this one. It's a Declaration of Independence. And a declaration doesn't matter unless you make it public.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:03:36 - 00:03:37]

Right.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:03:37 -  00:04:14]

To say, you know, this is sort of like. Actually, there's a corollary to this. Lincoln had written and signed the announcement of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, like in the summer. Yeah, but he doesn't publish it. He actually showed it to his Cabinet months before he published it. We don't celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation on the day that Lincoln resolved to do it and showed it to his Cabinet. That would be a little wild. It's a proclamation. In this case, it's a declaration. You have to publish it. So it's publishing it that matters. Everything else matters too. But it's appropriate we celebrate this on July 4th.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:04:14 - 00:04:22]

This is a very good comparison. The Emancipation Proclamation, by the way, John Adams is going to push for it to be July 2 that people revere and celebrate.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:04:22 - 00:04:25]

It's because he wants to be complicated and pedantic.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:04:25 -  00:04:26]

It feels very John Adams that he wants to.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:04:26 -  00:04:37]

I understand. Well, his case is that's the day Congress voted. It's the day the country declared their independence. But it's communicating that Declaration that is important, I think.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:04:37 -  00:04:38]

Because it's just a piece of paper until people hear about it.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:04:38 - 00:05:09]

I mean, it's sort of like we celebrate Constitution Day on September 17, because this day, the Constitution is announced formally. I mean, it's signed and sent to Congress to say, this is the Constitution we, the convention propose. There's something about announcing a thing publicly that's important, even though a lot of people would say, well, the Constitution's not really the Constitution until it's ratified a year later. Well, that's fine. But we still do celebrate it when it is made public and announced when it is proposed.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:05:09 - 00:05:09]

Yeah.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:05:09 - 00:05:14]

So I think that there is something natural about that, something appropriate.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:05:14 - 00:05:19]

This is funny. I feel like we're arguing with John Adams. Across 250 years, we're still arguing with the guy.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:05:19 - 00:05:24]

No one reads John Adams without arguing with him, but they do finally publish it.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:05:24 - 00:05:50]

And again, the job of publication is really hard, and you've actually got to get it out. So this Declaration means something. And that job, that task is given to the President of the Congress, who is John Hancock, who everyone knows because he has the biggest signature, which doesn't come to August 2, but the big signature on the Declaration. First, let's just put in context for people just how important John Hancock is as kind of the face of the Declaration. It's not Jefferson that's the face of the Declaration at first, it's John Hancock.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:05:50 - 00:07:35]

No, he's critical. The first copy of the Declaration, which we're going to talk about a bit, the Dunlap Declaration that Congress commissions only has Hancock's name on it. It does not have the other signers. It says, John Hancock, President. That's what it says at the bottom. It is, of course, at the top, says in Congress Assembled, but at the bottom, it's just his name and it's in big block letters. I mean, it was still big. I know he eventually signs it big, but his name's in big, bold letters at the bottom. And people do associate him with the Declaration. There's even a copy that's published in Great Britain that's sort of celebratory, actually. We don't know a lot about it, but it was published and sold and actually has a little portrait of John Hancock at the top with oak laurels underneath him and, you know, this sort of celebratory copy of it. So Hancock is definitely associated with it. He's also infamous. Hancock was almost certainly one of the most famous Americans in Great Britain. I mean, everybody knew Ben Franklin, though they had mixed feelings about him. Franklin had been well liked in England before the Revolution, but Hancock and Sam Adams are infamous to the British, beloved by some of the British public that would like to put their thumb in the eye of the British ministry. But deeply despised by the British ministry and Loyalists. In fact, the commander in chief in the colonies after the Olive Branch petition was rejected by the king. Their last petition in the fall of 1775, actually declared that anyone in the colonies, any American who would disclaim independence and declare loyalty to the Crown, would receive mercy for whatever previous rebellious acts they performed. Except it made two exceptions in writing, except Sam Adams and John Hancock.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:07:35 - 00:07:44]

The Sam Adams one makes sense because the man was basically a criminal. He's a rabble rousing, mob driving criminal.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:07:44 - 00:07:53]

But Hancock is the President of the Continental Congress. He's the man whose name is at the bottom of every document Congress publishes.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:07:53 - 00:08:03]

Well, and to go back to Benjamin Franklin's reported quote, we must all hang together. Almost assuredly, we shall all hang separately. At this point, it's really just Hancock hanging alone.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:08:03 - 00:08:03]

That's right.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:08:03 - 00:08:10]

It won't be until the Goddard Declaration, which we'll talk about a little bit later, where all the names will be printed.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:08:10 - 00:08:12]

So I think it'd be good to talk about this Dunlap copy.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:08:12 - 00:08:13]

Yes, yes.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:08:13 - 00:10:33]

Because a lot of people associate the Declaration with the big, fancy handwritten text that's in the rotunda of the National Archives. It's beautiful. It's under glass. It's next to the four. It's the one page Declaration next to the four pages of the Constitution. And that document is very important. Congress itself did create that document. We'll talk about how. But that's not the way that Americans encountered the text of the Declaration of Independence. It's almost certainly not the way anyone but someone who might have either been in Congress or worked in the State department in the 1790s would ever have seen before the 1820s, before we were approaching 50 years under the Declaration. So the way Americans would have actually encountered the Declaration of independence in 1776, and almost anybody else who read it would have been in one of these broadside forms, this big printed sheet of paper where you put some important document or essay all on one sheet. And the first version of this is commissioned by Congress with the local printer who actually printed all of Congress's stuff for them. This was normal. The legislature would sort of contract with a local person. Often they were a printer and postmaster for the Congress. And this was John Dunlap. Unfortunately, there's no artifact of Dunlap's printing shop still in Philadelphia. You can go find it. It's down the road, but there's something very nondescript there. There might be a plaque, but it's a very important location. Because this was the place that 200 copies ordered by Congress of the Declaration were printed on July 4th and distribute it. So that's how we start. We go from 200 printed copies. I mean, you have to think of this. You have a sheet of 200 sheets of paper with this document on it. And Congress thinks it's enough to print that and start handing it out. And that is all that Congress does in the short term to distribute and publish the Declaration of Independence. And as we're going to talk about in our next episode, actually it makes it to Russia. I mean, the Declaration went everywhere and in short order. It's really important to observe that because that means there was a functioning free press that could pick something like this up. It was the 18th century version of going viral. This was like a viral post. You just hand out 200 sheets of paper and the next thing you know it's printed in London newspapers.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:10:33 - 00:10:57]

So a couple things we should highlight here. One is that Dunlap doesn't leave the text the way he found it. He makes several changes to the text, mostly in spellings, deciding between the American version, like honor H O n o r vs h o n O U r. Sometimes he goes with the Americans, sometimes he does it. He capitalizes a bunch of things that Jefferson hadn't. So he kind of makes his own mark.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:10:57 - 00:11:47]

Well, we estimate it's weird because the Secretary of Congress actually doesn't keep the copy of the Declaration that they gave to Dunlap. If you look in the records of the Continental Congress, what is there? The Secretary actually took a copy of the Dunlap Declaration, one of those 200 copies, and pasted it into the Journal of the Continental Congress as the official version. And that's unfortunate because we do know, because there are variations. We know Congress gave that copy to Dunlap. He did a printing of them later. There are more. Congress transmits it to other people and you do get variations. So it's clear he's shifting things around. The weird thing is we don't actually know exactly what he changed because Congress actually regards the Dunlap Declaration as the official Declaration. That's what they stick in their record, right?

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:11:47 - 00:11:51]

There are versions sent by Jefferson off.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:11:51 - 00:12:03]

To friends, but those are hand copied versions by Jefferson that include his own emendations. He sends all these on July 8th to different people. When he complains that Congress had mangled.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:12:03 - 00:12:10]

His copy, it's actually really funny. He's so bitter about it. Like in this moment, this joyful moment, he's so bitter about what they did to his Declaration.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:12:10 - 00:14:21]

It is. We should not have confidence that what Jefferson copied out was, to the letter, the same thing that Congress officially did. But we're not really sure. We're trying to work that out. So you get the Dunlap copy. Here's the interesting thing. Everyone has this glorious sacred moment whenever they encounter the Declaration of Independence in the National Archives. And they see that the beautiful, engrossed copy, they call it engrossed copy. It's handwritten. It's very beautiful. Off to the left, there's a case with a whole bunch of other documents in it. And the archive sort of rotates what copies are in there and so forth. But there's almost always a Dunlap copy in it. And maybe more importantly, when you go to Independence hall in Philadelphia, the room where the Declaration and later, the Constitution are written there in that main chamber, there's a small building next door when you walk out of Independence hall into the courtyard. And then you can go next door, there's a little building next to it. Same. You know, it's all part of the same facility, but little building. And you go into it, and it has some exhibits. And one of the exhibits is a Dunlap copy of the Declaration sitting there. It also is under glass, but no guards. There's no guards. There's no high security. There's a park ranger sitting on a stool over to the side. And in fact, the interesting thing about this experience to me is whenever I go there with people, I usually tell them, this is actually not that thing in the archives, but this is the original Declaration. This is the Declaration Congress pasted into the journal. It's the Declaration that went to the printers and newspapers. It's the Declaration that Washington held in his hands for the first time and had read to his troops on Staten island just a few days later. So in a way, we should feel, in a sense, an even deeper reverence and awe for this printed broadsheet. And I think there's another important point to it, too, that I find inspiring, which is that beautiful, engrossed copy of the Declaration could not easily be duplicated. No one else could read it. The only people who saw the signed copy would have been Congress. And then later, we've all seen it because we took that copy which Congress had commissioned on, like, August 2nd, right?

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:14:21 - 00:14:21]

August 2nd.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:14:21 - 00:15:37]

Spent a lot of time collecting signatures. This was an afterthought. They thought maybe we should produce an official copy that kind of sits in the State Department for decades until in the 18 teens, a number of American administrations, Monroe's administration and others think we should really duplicate this before it was already starting to fade. So they actually had people do copperplate engraving. You couldn't photocopy anything. I mean, you couldn't run this fancy handwritten copy of the Declaration through the photocopy machine or the fax or scan it into a PDF. So the only way to permanently copy it was for a person to etch the image of the written text into a thin sheet of copper, which could then be filled. If you put ink on it in a thin layer, the ink would run into the voids, and then when you laid a sheet of paper over it, it would transfer the image. This is, in effect, how you made copies. But that's incredibly laborious. So there are a couple of these are made in the early 19th century. None of them. The copies struck off from them become popular in the early 1820s whenever we're approaching the sequicentennial of the Declaration, its 50th anniversary. So that fancy version becomes important to us later. But at the Founding, it's not the critical thing.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:37 - 00:15:38]

It's the Dunlap.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:38 - 00:16:11]

The critical thing about the Dunlap Declaration is it's only a printed text. It's only this technology, not that beautiful handwritten version, but this printed text that can actually be read by ordinary people, not just in America, but around the world. Had Congress insisted on just making, you know, 50 engrossed copies and sending these fancy copies off by courier to a bunch of different places, I think it would be far more difficult for people to quickly encounter it. It's only because of the free press and the technology of the press that you actually get this to happen.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:16:11 - 00:17:45]

There's actually something very democratic about the Dunlap broadsides. You're right. So, okay, so you get 200 copies of this, and they're gonna be sent by h, horseback and ships to colonial governments, to, of course, the military and to printers in other cities who are then going to reprint and sometimes reformat. So along with these copies of the Declaration, Hancock is going to send because he's in charge of distribution, he's going to send letters to the States and to Washington explaining the decision. I just want to read part of that letter from Hancock. It is a duty we owe ourselves and our posterity and all our public councils to decide in the best manner we are able and to trust the event. To that being who controls both causes and events, Congress decided it necessary to dissolve all connection between Great Britain and the American colonies and to declare them free and independent states, as you will perceive by the enclosed Declaration. And then the only other thing he says in this letter, basically he says, we thought this was necessary. Here's to hoping it works. And then says, I need you to publish this to everyone in your colonies. He doesn't tell them how to do so. He just says, proclaim it in your colony in some way or another. This is mostly going to be done via public readings of the text, which is one thing I like about the Declaration is it was written to be read out loud. This is how most people are getting it. Probably a couple of our most famous public readings. The first is going to be on July 8, 1776, at Independence hall, also the Pennsylvania State House. Same name by either Charles Thompson, who's that Secretary of the Congress you were talking about.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:17:45 - 00:17:46]

He's a terrible record keeper.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:46 - 00:19:59]

Yeah. Who you don't like. Or his senior clerk and penman, Timothy Matlak. And they're going to read it to a bunch of artisans and laborers and, like, fishermen who are unemployed and just, like, gather them to read this text out loud to them. So it's the common man who's going to hear this read out loud. Then there's some record that one of those two read it again that later that day at the courthouse. And also on July 8th, you're going to have it read in Trenton, New Jersey, and Easton, Pennsylvania. So that's our first big public reading. Then the second most famous public reading is Washington. Washington's going to receive this letter from John Hancock, and he is going to order his, I don't know, captains to each basically grab a copy and then to arrange the troops into their little formation that's like a square that's empty in the middle so that they can hear the reading of the Declaration of Independence from the Dunlap copy. And Washington says that he hopes that having it read to the soldiers in New York on July 9 would serve as a free incentive to every officer and soldier to act with fidelity and courage, knowing that now the peace and safety of his country depends under God solely on the success of our arms. And then later goes on to say, and also now that you have a government that can merit your bravery, et cetera, et cetera. So these readings are going to proceed across the colonies, in town squares, in courthouses. The Massachusetts state government asks every minister in Massachusetts to read it to their congregation. This feels very Massachusetts. It's read among the troops. I just want to talk for a moment about why it's important that this was read out Loud. Of course, it's also be reprinted in newspapers. But the primary way is it's read out loud in courthouses. Sheriffs are supposed to read it in courthouses. This is important, I think, first for those who were not yet literate. American society is increasingly literate at this point. African Americans, many women, are still unable to read it in newspapers. So the oral tradition of the Declaration is really significant to mobilizing these groups.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:19:59 - 00:20:30]

When Jefferson was writing the document, he actually, on some of the handwritten drafts, he had the marks that you would include as a cue to a public speaker. There were marks for emphasis and so forth. I don't know what they're all called. We don't do this anymore. But there were conventions in the 18th century for how you would mark up a text to cue to a person who was going to read it publicly, where their emphasis and pauses should be. So people were thinking about this, Congress were writing it, that it was important that this be a text that was easily read.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:30 - 00:20:31]

Proclaimed.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:20:31 - 00:20:32

Proclaimed.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:32 - 00:20:33]

Proclaimed. In an oral sense.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:20:33 - 00:20:33]

Declared.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:33 - 00:21:08]

Declared. Right. In an oral sense. Actually do think this helps spread the ideas of the Declaration even further right into these kind of marginalized groups. So it's also going to be spread in print. As we've said, the first newspaper to print it is the Pennsylvania evening post on July 6th. And then there will be 30 other newspapers within the month will reprint it. So to your point, this shows how robust the free press is in the United States at this point. I mean, they're just taking it, they're reprinting it, they're reformatting it, they're emphasizing certain parts, are only printing certain parts, and they can kind of do whatever they want with it.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:08 - 00:22:28]

And that's the first newspaper to print it. In toto. There's a really interesting. If you want to see how this happens, there's an outfit called the Declaration Resources Project that Danielle Allen started at Harvard some years ago. And their objective was to gather every printed copy of the Declaration that they could find between 1776 and 1826. So everywhere the Declaration was reprinted in its first 50 years. And you can actually get. They have a database. You can go to their website, print off this little document with this database. They have it organized by years, and interestingly, they sort of divide this up. All these manuscript editions come in the forms of books, periodicals, broadsides, which we talked about being the single printed sheet graphics. Sometimes there were. I actually want to explain what that is. There were special copies of the Declaration for the sequicentennial and even later in the. A number of years later. There's one in particular that's really interesting. They actually took the words of the Declaration and some artistic printer or I guess copper plate engraver engraved the words in an oval, in the shape of an oval and by giving them emphasis, made the text into a portrait of George Washington.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:22:28 - 00:22:31]

Oh, I love this. This is very cool.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:22:31 - 00:22:35]

You know. And then sold them. This was something that was offered for sale.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:22:35 - 00:22:36]

I want one of these.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:22:36 - 00:24:12]

Yeah. You can find stories about texts like this, by the way, on a scholar named Emily Sneff, who on social media is the Declaration lady. It's great stuff. But she started a website this year called Declaration Stories. Every week she's got a different story about a copy of the Declaration. And she actually has one about one of these sort of text portraits. You just have to look at it. You've got to go see it, but go check it out. Declaration Stories has a whole write up on it and what it was. So this came in a lot of different forms and of course there are manuscript editions too, actually booklet forms. And it gets printed quite frequently and eventually in primers, things like the New England Primer and these sorts of school books and collections, the Columbian Orator later and all that sort of thing. So the Declaration is getting reprinted in all sorts of forms. It is interesting you mentioned the first copy or the first newspaper publication is July 6th. Of course, Dunlap's had been printed overnight on July 4th. It moved fast enough that there were broadside declarations being printed and distributed in Boston. By the sixth a day somebody jumped, you know, some courier jumped on a horse and ran a Dunlap copy to Boston. And I think it's Eads and Gill or something of that kind as the first printer in Boston to reprint this. So it's very rapid. This is making its way everywhere you can find these copies. But if you want to see where all you can look at, the Declaration database has a document you can look at a list of every printed copy of the Declaration we can find in that period. And there were tons of them in 1776. And rapidly.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:12 - 00:24:13]

Oh, that's so cool.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:24:13 - 00:24:20]

So it is really a picture, sort of seeing all of these platted out is a picture of the operation of a free press.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:20 - 00:26:46]

One thing we should also highlight is what a massive success this is. Something like 9 out of 10 of Americans at this point live in rural areas. And yet you are having copies of the Declaration printed in rural newspapers and read in courthouses in, you know, middle of Massachusetts, wherever it's A massive success. And now we want to talk about the reactions in the colonies. In the next episode, we'll talk about the international reaction. But first, let's talk about the reaction in the colonies because there's some great stories here. So after it's read to the troops in New York on July 8, it's also read to crowds in New York who then mobilized to pull down a £4,000 equestrian statue of King George. Newspaper will later say the image of the beast was thrown down and his head severed from his body, which is so good. And women in Connecticut will then melt it down into 42,000 musket balls, or so says tradition. Apparently that number can fluctuate, but they melt it down into musket balls, which we've been tearing down statues since the very beginning. This is fun. So they tear it down. These crowds do. Then effigies. There's lots of effigy burning on both sides, mostly by American revolutionaries who are burning effigies of the king. The king's coat of arms is going to be taken off public buildings and pictures of the king or the crown will be removed from all public spaces in Philadelphia and New York and Providence, in Boston, Baltimore, Wooster, and will be thrown into these massive public bombs. Houses will be illuminated with candles, which was previously done to celebrate the king's birthday in Philadelphia. So kind of a send off to the king there. Now we're celebrating not your birthday, but being rid of you. Cannons are discharged and 13 musket rounds fired in Georgia. So Georgia will do four public readings of it and after each one, a new like celebration will happen. There'll be, you know, muskets fired 13 rounds and then 13 cannons fired. 13 colonies. Here we go, 13 rounds of toasts kind of stuff. But actually, my favorite story of all of these is Georgia, which apparently you informed me before this podcast episode was majority Anglican at this point. So that that adds some importance here. Maybe we're going to say you're right. If we're not right, tell, don't, don't.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:26:46 - 00:26:48]

Cite me in anything you plan to have peer reviewed.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:26:48 - 00:27:36]

Yeah, tell Matthew he's not right in the comments if it's not correct. When the Declaration was read In Georgia on August 10, 1776, the crowd organized to parody the Church of England's Anglican service for the burial of the dead for King George and the tyranny that thought he represented. And here's the quote for it. This is so good. For as much as George III hath most flagrantly violated his coronation oath, and trampled upon the constitution of our country and the acred rights of mankind. The sacred rights of mankind. We therefore commit his political existence to the ground, corruption to corruption, tyranny to the grave, and oppression to eternal infamy. And sure and certain hope that he will never obtain a resurrection to rule again over these United States of America. Isn't that so good?

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:27:36 - 00:27:45]

It is. It's a glorious thing. I think that. And the musket balls are almost certainly the best examples of how to respond.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:27:45 - 00:27:49]

It just feels deeply American, this response.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:27:49 - 00:28:12]

If I were willing, and I'm not willing to lie to my children, if I were, I would obtain a musket ball and tell them all that it was one of these 42,000 that had been cast out of George III statue. But I would never. I would never tell this falsehood to my children. If, on the other hand, someone were to give me a musket ball and say, this is One of the 42,000 that came, I would readily believe this.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:28:12 - 00:28:13]

You would be happy to believe.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:28:13 - 00:28:15]

Yes, I would be happy to believe it. Display it prominently in my home.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:28:15 - 00:28:16]

Let the sin be on there.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:28:16 - 00:28:19]

Make it. Yes, that's right. Make it an heirloom to my children.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:28:19 - 00:28:34]

Okay, so this is the revolutionary reaction. Cheers. And effigies and all of the things. But there is also a loyalist reaction. We, especially in the 21st century, we kind of forget that a good chunk of the colonies were Loyalists.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:28:34 - 00:28:42]

We sort of picture loyalists sitting around in a. You know, in a. In a sitting room doing needlepoint and quietly complaining.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:28:42 - 00:28:50]

Yeah, and that's not how it was. So, for example, there are effigies of John Hancock and George Washington burned as well by the Loyalists.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:28:50 - 00:28:52]

But not the last time George Washington burned an effigy.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:28:52 -00:29:01]

No. It's a great honor for him. So why don't you give us some examples of the loyalist reaction to the readings? And that's the key to the readings of the Declaration of Independence.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:29:01 - 00:29:07]

Yeah, this was pretty good. Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson, who's a clever.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:29:07 - 00:29:09]

Guy and deeply unpopular.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:29:09 - 00:30:17]

And he is deeply unpopular, though he had been well respected at one point by Adams and other eventual revolutionaries. Hutchinson writes a rebuttal to the Declaration, which he calls strictures upon the Declaration of the Congress at Philadelphia. And in particular, he sort of took the grievances very academic. He had some points, but on the whole, you know, it was a lot of quibbling. Well, we didn't exactly. Actually, he does say one funny thing. At one point in picking up on the grievances, one of the grievances is that the king had convened legislatures at places inconvenient and far from where their records were held. Obviously, if you're deliberating as a legislature, you need access to public records to make accurate decisions. Hutchinson points out that this had happened once, and it occurred at an inn that was something like 12 miles from the usual meeting place. He said, half a day's ride by horse. You know, this is at best an inconvenience. I'm not sure this is a ground for revolution or quite amounts to the dissolution of representative government, but it happened.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:30:17 - 00:30:18]

Once and we were.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:30:18 - 00:30:21]

It did happen and we were not going to let it go unnoticed.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:30:21 - 00:30:26]

By the way, you said that it was boring or. Sorry, you said it was academic, which we should interpret as it was boring.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:30:26 - 00:30:28]

It was boring. Yes, it was boring.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:30:28 -00:30:29]

His rebuttal is boring.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:30:29 - 00:30:30]

It was boring.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:30:30 - 00:30:40]

He does point out slavery. We should point that out. He's like, look, this is fancy theoretical talk for a bunch of Southerners who own slaves. Sure, right. Which as a man of Massachusetts, maybe it's easier for him to say it.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:30:40 - 00:30:43]

Was always easy for New Englanders to.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:30:43 - 00:30:52]

Cry this up and to look down their noses. My father in law says that the spirit of New England is New Englanders thinking that they know what's best for the rest of the country.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:30:52 - 00:31:00]

Oh, sure, absolutely. But then participating in all of the various, you know, sins and just listen.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:31:00 - 00:31:01]

To us, we know best.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:31:01 - 00:30:06]

Yeah. I mean, the largest slave trading port in America was Providence, Rhode Island.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:31:06 - 00:31:12]

Well, Rhode island doesn't get enough crap for being the worst state in the Union for a very long time before South Carolina took that crown.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:31:12 - 00:31:19]

It was kind of an awful place. It was so lovely now that, I mean, you know, Rhode Island's got lovely.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:31:19 - 00:31:22]

I worked for the senator from Rhode Island. Nice guy. Yeah, yeah, Lovely place.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:31:22 - 00:31:24]

Now, I've never actually been there.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:31:24 - 00:31:25]

Give us some more.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:31:25 - 00:33:27]

547 loyalists, I like this, in New York, signed a Declaration of Dependence. I'm trying to imagine signing my name to something that says I am dependent, affirming their loyalty to the British Empire. And this did include a lot of different people. I mean, it was quite a diverse group of signers, tradesmen, merchants, farmers, even some free people of color living in the country. So there's a bit of a reaction. We'll see a lot more of a reaction, a much more varied one, whenever we get to the international reception of the Declaration. The next episode. So why do we have this fancy version of the Declaration? Actually, we started off talking about the text, we talked about the fact that only John Hancock's signature appears on the first version of it, that's true. But then Congress on August 2, says we should do something official with this. And they create this engrossed parchment version, which we hold on to. It sort of gets carried around in somebody's saddlebag in the Revolution, at some point, goes around with Congress and then winds up in the State Department. And then finally, like we talked about, you get these engravings. But when did people actually learn who else signed the Declaration? That's a bit important, too. And Hancock's sort of out there hanging all by himself. And if they're going to put any proof to Franklin's words that they must all hang together or they would most assuredly hang separately, they needed to actually publish their name. So they do this after they fled Philadelphia In December of 1776, the British actually threatened Philadelphia. Congress has to flee. They wind up fleeing to Baltimore. So the Continental Congress, during the Revolution, actually meets in Baltimore for a time. And in January 1777, Congress decides it'd be appropriate to put all of our names to this Declaration. So they ask a local printer in Baltimore, Mary Catherine Goddard, who is both printer and postmaster to Congress at this point. She's responsible for all their correspondence and their printing. Mary Catherine Goddard.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:33:27 - 00:33:33]

Can we just pause here? It's very notable that she's a female postmaster during this period. She is very unusual. So she's.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:33:33 - 00:34:58]

It was uncommon. She had sort of inherited the business from her brother, who I think had passed away and became a very successful printer in the area. Usually had typically signed. Anytime you see these broadsides and things, you will see the printer print their name at the bottom, and it'll usually be just last names like Eadsingill in Boston or Dunlap in Philadelphia. In the case of Goddard, for the printing of the Declaration, which she is asked to do by Congress on January 18, she prints a copy with all of the members of Congress that had so far signed the engrossed copy which Congress provides her. So this is the first printed copy with all the names on it. And she prints her full name at the bottom. So if you get a hold of a Goddard Declaration, it will say, mary Catherine Goddard, printer, Baltimore, Maryland. So it's quite significant. Quite often you will find, if you go to the archives in the rotunda, that case to the left with all the artifacts, will sometimes have a Goddard Declaration in it. So keep an eye out for that. Anytime you go somewhere, you know, ask yourself, am I looking at a Dunlap Declaration from Philadelphia Am I looking at Goddard Declaration? And then you can sound very, very sharp for all your friends. That's actually the Goddard Declaration. That's the first one that had all of the signers names on it and printed by this very distinctive, very important female printer.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:34:58 - 00:35:01]

Yeah, Symbolically signing on for all the women of America.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:35:01 -00:35:02]

That's right.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:35:02 - 00:35:48]

Good stuff. Okay, so we had said that the Declaration has this big task ahead of it. It's written, it's signed all the things it's voted on, but it doesn't mean anything until it's announced, until it receives kind of public acclamation and people are on board. And you've got to unite the colonies. You've got to make this big foreign policy statement to the rest of the world. This is a really big task. And it's only made possible this successful announcing of the Declaration because of this robust free press in America. The Declaration of Independence announcement is a testament and a victory of the American Free Press. It's a kind of beautiful testament to what we'll later declare as one of the fundamental rights of humans.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:35:48 - 00:36:41]

That's right. And we do declare it. It has its effect, makes a big splash, and then it sort of gets tucked away because then we have to do the business of forming a union, setting up governments, forming alliances, winning a war. And in the midst of all that, this text does get read. It does become an American tradition very quickly. The Declaration of Independence is read aloud at Independence Day ceremonies, especially in certain cities. Boston and others often do this. But it's not really a visible part of daily American life the way it will eventually become right. It will eventually, in the Jeffersonian era, sort of as we approach the 50th anniversary of the document, it will take on much greater significance as this sort of statement of the principles of the men and women who secured American independence. 

Outro:

[00:36:41 - 00:37:22]

The Constitution is more than parchment under glass at the National Archives. It's a blueprint for American self-government that shapes every part of our civic life, from the rights we cherish to the laws we live under. We explore the ongoing battle over the meaning and relevance of America's founding document. This Constitution will equip you to engage the most pressing political questions of our time. Join us every two weeks as we hash out constitutional questions together. This podcast is ordained and established by the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, the home of Utah's Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative.