Five Things You Never Knew about the Declaration of Independence: The Engrossed Parchment

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The document most commonly associated with the Declaration of Independence is the engrossed parchment version. It’s the formal, beautifully handwritten copy that features the delegates’ signatures. Although it is not the earliest draft, it is the iconic one widely recognized as the “original.” How did this version come to be?

Our story begins on June 11, 1776, when the Continental Congress chose Thomas Jefferson, JohnAdams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston to draft the Declaration ofIndependence. In June 1776, the question of who would actually write the first version sparked a quiet but revealing exchange between Adams and Jefferson. Years later, the two men recalled the moment differently. Adams remembered a private subcommittee of just the two of them in which he urged Jefferson to take the pen, citing Virginia’s prominence, his own unpopularity inCongress, and Jefferson’s superior talent as a writer. Jefferson, by contrast, described aunanimous committee decision that placed the task squarely on his shoulders from the start, with no mention of a subcommittee or debate. These conflicting memories, written decades after the event, offer a glimpse into how even the authors of one of history’s most famous documents shaped their own roles in its creation, each quietly claiming a slightly different piece of the story. (1)

Over several weeks, history tells us that Jefferson, seated in a small room in Jacob Graff, Jr.’s house on High Street in Philadelphia, drafted the Declaration of Independence. He sat at a portable writing desk of his own design, revising the document to capture the core principles of American liberty. (2)

After completing his rough draft, he shared it with Franklin and Adams for feedback; they suggested several revisions. One notable change came from Franklin: Jefferson had written, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable...” Franklin revised this to “We hold these truths to be self-evident...” (3)

Here are two additional examples of changes made during this review:

Jefferson’s Original
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained...

Final Version
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...

Jefferson’s Original
We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness...

Final Version
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Beyond these committee edits, the full Continental Congress made further changes during debates from July 1 to 4, 1776. The most significant deletion was Jefferson’s lengthy condemnation of the slave trade, which appears on page 3 of the rough draft and constitutes the longest grievance in his original text. (4)

This condemnation of slavery survived the Committee of Five’s review. It also remained in the early stages of congressional debate, as evidenced by its inclusion in the printedJournals of the Continental Congress for the first reading on June 28, 1776. However, it was removed on July 2,1776. Jefferson later attributed this deletion to deference “in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia.” (5)

Is it a mere coincidence that, in the years that followed, South Carolina, the site of the Denmark Vesey slave revolt in Charleston in 1822, and Georgia experienced significant tensions over slavery? These same states were among the first to secede from the Union. In fact, the first shot sof the Civil War came at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.

The text of this removed paragraph from Jefferson’s rough draft (June 11–28, 1776) reads:

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom healso obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties ofone people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."

Note that “MEN” is capitalized in this grievance. This raises the question: when Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal,” did he intend to include enslaved people as well?

Finally, Congress added a concluding passage invoking divine authority: “We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States...” This statement also required the declaration to be printed. We’ll discuss that subject in our next blog post.

With the text finalized on July 4, 1776, Congress ordered on July 19, “That the Declaration passed on the 4th, be fairly engrossed on parchment... when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress.”

It was then that Timothy Mat lack, an assistant to the Congress secretary, engrossed(calligraphed) the document between July 19 and August 1. The majority of delegates, 49 of the56, signed on August 2, 1776. The remaining signers added their names later, over subsequent months.

One notable late signer was Thomas McKean of Delaware. His name is absent from MaryKatharine Goddard’s broadside, which was printed in January of 1777 and lists only 55 names. In later reprints, such as Francis Bailey’s 1782 edition of The Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which was printed six years after the August 2nd signing, all 56 names appear, including McKean’s. The dates of the printings are one way for historians to determine approximately when McKean signed the engrossed copy.

And, why did it take so long for him to sign the Declaration? He was actually in Philadelphia for the July 2 vote for independence, but he had to leave right after that. He was a colonel in the Pennsylvania militia and deeply involved in Delaware politics, so duty called him away before the official signing day on August 2. It took over a year before he could safely get back to Philadelphia and put his name on the document.

And here’s why it was so dangerous for him to return sooner. McKean later wrote to John Adams that during that time, he was being ‘hunted like a fox by the enemy.’ At the time, British forces were pushing through the Mid-Atlantic region, so he had to move his family five times in just a few months to stay one step ahead of capture. These constant relocations and the real threat hanging over him explain why he couldn’t risk going back to sign earlier. His delay wasn’t hesitation—it was survival. This illustrates how the Revolution’s chaos hit those who’d voted boldly for independence, forcing them to protect their families first. (6)

As an interesting side point, Francis Bailey, who printed the 1782 version of the Declaration, was a prominent Philadelphia printer during the Revolutionary era. His niece, Lydia Bailey, later became a notable printer herself. After her husband, Robert, died in 1808, she assumed his debt-ridden business, raised four children, trained numerous apprentices, shifted to job printing, and served as Philadelphia’s official city printer for decades, running a successful shop for over half a century until her death in 1869.

If you look closely at their portraits below, you’ll see Francis has a piece of movable type in his hand (the letter A), and Lydia has a composing stick in hers.

You can read more about Lydia in our blog post, “Women in Printing: Women Printers in the 19th Century”.

The Signatures are not Random

Upon examination of the engrossed copy, the signatures appear to be placed at random; however, this is not the case. John Hancock, as President of the Continental Congress, signed first and most prominently in the center. The remaining signatures were organized by state, grouped geographically from north to south (starting with New Hampshire on the right and proceeding to Georgia on the left), and arranged in columns from right to left. This mirrored the order in which Congress conducted roll-call votes: by state, from north to south. Within each state's group, names were generally arranged in order of seniority, proceeding from the most senior delegate to the others. This geographical arrangement helped avoid potential disputes over perceived importance among the colonies. (7)

And here’s one more thought about those signatures, this one more sobering. The act of signing the Declaration of Independence was, in the eyes of the British Crown, high treason. Every name that appeared on that document understood exactly what was at stake. If GeneralWashington and the Continental Army were defeated, the king’s forces would almost certainly hunt them down. Capture would mean trial, conviction, and execution, most probably by hanging. Yet they signed anyway, fully aware that their names on that parchment could one day serve as their own death warrant.

Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
When people picture the signing of the Declaration of Independence, they often think of JohnTrumbull’s famous painting, The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, with the dignified founders gathered in a grand room, looking united and purposeful. But here’s the thing: that dramatic scene never actually happened, and it doesn’t depict the signing. It captures the moment when the drafting committee presents Jefferson’s draft to Congress on June 28, 1776, not the approval on July 4 or the later signings in August. In reality, as we learned earlier, the delegates weren’t all there at once. We’ve discussed how the process was messy, spread out over days or even months. Trumbull deliberately compressed time and events into a single symbolic image, like a class photo of the Revolution, to honor the collective spirit rather than adhere to strict facts. Trumbull set out to include all 56 signers of the Declaration, but he could only secure reliable likenesses for 42 of them, so the final painting shows 48 figures in total. He also included a few non-signers who were present for parts of the debates, and he deliberately placed everyone in a single symbolic scene, even though many delegates weren’t present on June 28 when the draft was presented, and some never signed at all. His real aim was to preserve the faces and spirit of the revolutionary generation for posterity, not to create a strictly factual snapshot of a single moment.

Thomas Jefferson played a key role in shaping this vision. While Trumbull was in Paris in 1785, Jefferson, impressed by the artist’s plans for a series of Revolutionary War paintings, invited him to stay and helped kickstart the composition. Jefferson sketched the layout of the assembly room in Independence Hall and advised on the details, insisting that the painting include the full committee, Adams, Sherman, Livingston, Franklin, and himself, handing the document toJohn Hancock. Historically, we know the committee submitted the document, and Jefferson, who had written it, reported it to the House.

The Declaration of Independence Artist: John Trumbull (American, 1756–1843)

During Trumbull’s discussions with both Jefferson and Adams, they urged him to include as many delegates as possible in the scene, even those who were absent on the day the draft was presented or who never signed the Declaration, because they wanted the painting to serve as a lasting tribute to the full range of men who risked their lives and fortunes for independence. This artistic liberty turned the painting into an idealized tribute to unity and sacrifice, far from the fragmented reality of debates, revisions, and staggered attendance.

Trumbull devoted more than three decades to the work, beginning in 1786, shortly after theRevolution, and not finishing until around 1820. He traveled extensively to paint 36 figures from life, copying others from existing portraits or even using sons as stand-ins when he couldn’t get the originals. His dedication to accuracy in likenesses, if not in events, made it a lasting icon. The painting reminds us that history is often more about inspiration than precision, blending fact with a touch of myth to define a nation’s birth.

Trumbull’s painting has permeated popular culture far beyond history books, perhaps most notably on the Two-Dollar Bill. Since the 1976 redesign, which coincided with the nation’sBicentennial, the reverse side of the two-dollar bill features an engraving based on the work, depicting the Committee of Five presenting the Declaration to Congress, with John Hancock presiding at the table.

This vignette, while not an exact reproduction of Trumbull’s full composition (it omits some figures and rearranges others to fit the note’s format), has made the scene one of the most recognized images of American founding history, even on a bill that remains relatively uncommon in circulation.

The Engrossed Parchment and What It Cost

The engrossed parchment of the Declaration of Independence stands as the final, formal product of a deeply human process. When the fifty-six men signed it, they were ready to risk everything, as they mutually pledged “to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The parchment itself, now faded and fragile, still carries those signatures as both a promise and a warning: liberty was declared not just in words, but in the willingness to stake everything on them. That willingness, more than any single sentence or flourish of ink, is what makes this document enduring.

As we reflect on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, remember the late nights, painful compromises, delayed signatures, and the myths we’ve built around it. We need to appreciate that the Declaration isn’t just a document; it’s a story written in courage, conflict, and ink.

As we wrap up the first part of our five-part series on the Declaration of Independence, we’ve learned how the engrossed copy came into being. But what if I told you this document wasn’t the “Original” declaration? Join us in our next blog post to learn about the first, the original Declaration of Independence.

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Sources

1. The Declaration of Independence: A History https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-history

2. A Closer Look at Jefferson's Declaration https://www.nypl.org/blog/2012/07/02/closer-look-jeffersons-declaration

3. 1776: Declaration of Independence (various drafts) https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1776-declaration-of-independence-various-drafts#lf0034_footnote_nt073

4. Image 3 of Thomas Jefferson, June 1776, Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtjx.mtjbib000156/?sp=3

5. Extract from Thomas Jefferson’s Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress https://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/54

6. University of Virginia Press.(n.d.). Founders online: Thomas McKean to John Adams, 8 November 1779. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-08-02-0172

7. March Highlight: Mary Katherine Goddard https://declaration.fas.harvard.edu/blog/march-goddard

8. The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 Artist: John Trumbull (American, 1756 –1843) https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/69