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• An exceedingly rare July 1776 printing of the Declaration of Independence
• The prestigious Goodspeed’s-Sang-Streeter copy of Robert Luist Fowle’s Exeter broadside
• This Exeter printing is one of just thirteen contemporary broadsides of the Declaration of Independence issued
• We are aware of the existence of a total of ten copies of this broadside, two of which are known in the first state
• One of only two other copies of this printing to have appeared at auction in more than a century
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Resolved “that these United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
The text of the Declaration of Independence— which announced and justified America’s resolution of separation from Great Britain— was first printed on the evening of 4 July 1776, by John Dunlap. But when the Continental Congress convened for session in May of that year, the issuance of such a declaration was far from a foregone conclusion. A coalition of delegates from Mid-Atlantic states, led by Pennsylvania’s John Dickinson, advocated a cautious approach towards independence and may even have harbored hopes for an equitable reconciliation with Britain. The first step towards the Declaration was Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee’s resolution of 7 June, “that these United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” This provoked sharp debate in the chamber, with South Carolinian Edward Rutledge confiding to John Jay that “The Sensible part of the House opposed the Motion. ... They saw no Wisdom in a Declaration of Independence nor any other Purpose to be answer’d by it, but placing ourselves in the Power of those with whom we mean to treat. …” But firebrands like Boston’s John Adams carried the day, and on 11 June 1776 the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five members to draft a declaration endorsing Lee’s resolution. Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert R. Livingston of New York formed the committee.
Jefferson was chosen to write the Declaration, in recognition of his (in John Adams’s words) “peculiar felicity of expression.” His extensively reworked Rough Draft, as it is commonly known, is preserved in the Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. In addition to Lee’s resolution, Jefferson drew heavily on two other fundamental sources for his text: George Mason’s bill of rights, adopted by Virginia on 12 June 1776, and his own draft of a proposed constitution for Virginia. Jefferson felt great satisfaction for the rest of his life in having been privileged to serve as chief author of this greatest of American documents. Shortly before his death, Jefferson wrote to Richard Henry Lee, responding to the remarks of John Adams and others that the Declaration only stated what everyone at the t.mes believed. He had been concerned, he wrote, “not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not.mes rely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent ... it was intended to be an expression of the American mind.”
As is evident from their annotations on the Rough Draft, Adams and Franklin read and commented on Jefferson’s version, making relatively small changes. There is no direct evidence of revision from the hands of Sherman and Livingston. A (now-lost) fair copy, incorporating these changes, was submitted to the full body of the Continental Congress, which debated it for three days before approving it on 4 July 1776.
The most substantial modification made in Congressional discussion was that the final point of Jefferson’s charge against the British king, that of “violating [the] most sacred rights of life & liberty” by encouraging the slave trade, was struck out. Jefferson’s own Notes made at the t.mes of the debates state that this was done "in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it.” With that major change, Congress adopted the Declaration and authorized its printing, resolving “That the committee appointed to prepare the declaration superintend & correct the press; That copies of the declaration be sent to the several Assemblies, Conventions & Committees or Councils of Safety and to the several Commanding Officers of the Continental troops that it be proclaimed in each of the United States & at the head of the army.” In the final sentence of the Declaration, the phrase “with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence” was also added.
That same evening, a manuscript copy of the Declaration, evidently bearing the authorizing signature of John Hancock, president of the Congress, was taken to the shop of John Dunlap, official printer to Congress, who was located within walking distance of the Statehouse at 48 High Street and Market Street. Dunlap evidently spent the evening of 4 July 1776 setting the Declaration in type. At least one proof was taken, a fragment of which survives at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. It chiefly varies from the finished copies in putting many phrases within quotation marks which were afterward removed, in some cases leaving unusually large gaps between words. Finished copies were pulled and delivered to Congress the morning of 5 July, and the process of distribution began that very day. The number of copies printed is unknown, but it is likely that the Dunlap broadside was printed in substantial numbers, perhaps between 500 and 1,000 copies.
A July 1776 Exeter Broadside Printing of the Declaration of Independence
However many copies were printed, the Dunlap Broadside did not entirely fulfill the intense demand of thousands of Americans for copies of the Declaration of Independence. As copies of this first printing were distributed throughout the thirteen colonies, they were used as copy texts for other, local printers, who produced their own broadside editions to fulfill the public hunger for the Declaration. Including the Dunlap printing, thirteen broadside editions of the Declaration of Independence were printed during July and August 1776. Broadside editions were printed in Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Five of the broadside editions—including the present—did not identify their printer or place of publication, but were likely also produced within these six states.
At the same t.mes , the Declaration was being reprinted in many regional newspapers, appearing first in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on 6 July and subsequently in some thirty other newspapers before the end of the month. Newspaper printings of the Declaration appeared in three states that did not produce a broadside edition: Maryland, Connecticut, and Virginia.
Robert Luist Fowle, printer of the New Hampshire Gazette or Exeter Morning Chronicle, has been attributed as the printer of the present broadside. Most known examples in both the first and second state were found in southern New Hampshire. Additionally, the text corresponds closely to the Declaration's text as printed in Fowle's Gazette on 16 July 1776 (see: Goff, "A Contemporary Broadside Printing of the Declaration of Independence," in Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions [Washington: Library of Congress, November 1947], Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 12-16).
Additionally, Exeter, then the capital of New Hampshire, would have had precedence in receiving a copy of the Dunlap printing. A congressional resolve of 4 July 1776 directed "That copies of the declaration be sent to the several Assemblies, Conventions & Committees or Councils of Safety and & that it be proclaimed in each of the United States." On 15 June, the New Hampshire Assembly had approved a resolve urging a declaration of independence. On 1 July, congressional delegate and signer of the Declaration Josiah Bartlett referred to this resolve in a letter to Nathaniel Folsom, who was a member of the state legislature meeting at Exeter: "The Resolve of our Colony with regard to our Conduct in the affair of Independency Came to hand on Saturday, very Seasonably, as that Question was agreeable to order this day taken up in a Committe of the whole House & every Colony fully represented; This much I can inform you that it was agreed to in Committe & I make no Doubt but that by next post I shall be able to send you a formal Declaration of Independency Setting forth the reasons &c." (Letters of Delegates, ed. Smith, 4:349).
We are aware of the existence of a total of ten copies of this broadside, two of which are known in the first state. Since Bartlett's copy was sold more than a century ago, only two other copies of Fowle’s printing have appeared at auction.
This Exeter printing is one of seven of the thirteen contemporary broadsides to have the Declaration set in two columns (there is also one edition set in four columns). Despite this difference in design, the Exeter broadside follows the text of the Dunlap broadside very closely, and it can be assumed that Robert Luist Fowle used a copy of Dunlap’s printing as his copy text.
The five lines of headline are the same in both versions, including the relative size of the types used. (The type fonts, of course, are not identical, and the Exeter printing employs italic in the headline, which Dunlap did not.) Indeed, the text of the Declaration itself is set quite carefully, although it also contains numerous differences with the Dunlap printing in capitalization and, to lesser extents, in punctuation and spelling.
Even more than the Dunlap first broadside, the contemporary regional printings of the Declaration of Independence provide a tangible link to the birth of the United States. Utilitarian and intrinsically ephemeral productions, all of the 1776 broadside Declarations are scarce, and in the marketplace they are increasingly rare. Of all the thirteen known 1776 broadside editions combined, it is estimated that perhaps as few as one hundred copies survive, with, ironically, the Dunlap first printing accounting for more than a quarter of all known survivals. The vast majority of all the 1776 declaration broadsides—at least seventy-nine—are in public institutions.
When Congress had a second official broadside of the Declaration printed in January 1777, President of Congress John Hancock sent copies to the respective state governments with this admonition: “As there is not a more distinguished Event in the History of America, than the Declaration of her Independence—nor any that in all Probability, will so much excite the Attention of future Ages, it is highly proper that the Memory of that Transaction, together with the Causes that gave Rise to it, should be preserved in the most careful Manner that can be devised. I am therefore commanded by Congress to transmit you the enclosed Copy of the Act of Independence with the List of the several Members of Congress subscribed thereto and to request, that you will cause the same to be put upon Record, that it may henceforth form a Part of the Archives of your State, and remain a lasting Testimony of your approbation of that necessary & important.mes asure.” Thanks to enterprising printers like Robert Luist Fowle, and others throughout the newly independent United States, patriots were able to anticipate this congressional resolution and preserve their own copies of this “necessary & important.mes asure.”
"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."
Only two other copies of Fowle’s printing have appeared at auction since Bartlett’s copy was sold more than a century ago.
BROADSIDE
In Congress, July 4, 1776. A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. …
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 the 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, that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is, and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of Right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Signed by Order and in Behalf of the Congress, John Hancock, President. Attest. Charles Thompson [sic], Secretary. [Exeter: Robert Luist Fowle, ca. 16 July 1776]
Folio broadside printed on paper (495 x 392 mm). Text in two columns, numerous arit.mes tical calculations and pen trials on verso; minor marginal loss at left, other areas of loss primarily along creases costing a few letters, some soiling and scuff marks, predominantly at to top right, tissue repairs to folds.
The edition has two states: in the first, John Hancock's name is misspelt "Hacock"; in the second, the final three lines have been reset, including the correction to "Hancock." In both states, Secretary Thomson's name is misspelt "Thompson."
ONE OF ONLY TEN COPIES EXTANT AND ONE OF ONLY TWO TO APPEAR AT AUCTION IN THE LAST CENTURY.
PROVENANCE
Goodspeed's, 1964
Thomas W. Streeter (his sale, Replica Shoes Parke Bernet, 19 April 1967), lot 784
Phillip Sang (his sale, Replica Shoes 's, New York, 26 April 1978, lot 83, miscatalogued as Walsh 14)
Christie's, New York, 22 April 2021, lot 6
REFERENCES
Sotheby's checklist 12; Walsh 15; Bristol 4408; Streeter sale 2:184; cf. Goff, "A Contemporary Broadside Printing of the Declaration of Independence," in Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 5 (1947): 12-16
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