Who Signed the Declaration of Independence

Fifty-six men affixed their names to the engrossed parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence, most of them on August 2, 1776. Their signatures constituted an act of treason under British law, punishable by death. The popular image of the signers as a unified band of patriots who signed without hesitation obscures a more complicated reality: the signers were a diverse group with varying degrees of commitment to independence, different personal motivations, and divergent fates during the Revolutionary War that followed.

The Signing Process

July 2, July 4, and August 2

The common belief that the Declaration was signed on July 4, 1776, is a misconception. On July 2, the Continental Congress voted for independence. On July 4, Congress approved the final text of the Declaration and ordered it printed. The actual signing of the engrossed parchment copy occurred on August 2, when most delegates present signed their names. Several delegates who were absent on August 2 signed at later dates, and some who voted for independence never signed at all.

John Hancock, president of the Congress, signed first, his large signature centered beneath the text. The remaining signers signed in geographic order, from north to south, beginning with the New Hampshire delegation and ending with Georgia. The engrossed copy was prepared by Timothy Matlack, a clerk in the office of the Secretary of Congress, on parchment measuring approximately 24 by 30 inches.

Who Did Not Sign

Several notable delegates who participated in the debates on independence did not sign the Declaration. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, who believed independence was premature and that reconciliation with Britain was still possible, refused to sign, though he subsequently served in the Continental Army. Robert R. Livingston of New York, a member of the Committee of Five, was recalled to New York before the signing and never affixed his name.

George Clinton, John Jay, and several other New York delegates were not present for the signing. The New York delegation had abstained from the July 2 vote and did not receive authorization from the provincial convention to support independence until July 9.

The Signers’ Backgrounds

Age and Experience

The signers ranged in age from twenty-six (Edward Rutledge of South Carolina) to seventy (Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania). The average age was approximately forty-four. Most were in their thirties or forties, reflecting the relative youth of colonial political leadership. Several of the youngest signers, including Thomas Lynch Jr. of South Carolina and Thomas Heyward Jr. of South Carolina, were in their late twenties.

The signers were not, as a group, political novices. Many had served in colonial legislatures for years and had been active in the resistance to British policies since the Stamp Act crisis of 1765. John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Patrick Henry (who was not a delegate to the Continental Congress at the time of signing) had been at the forefront of colonial resistance for more than a decade.

Education and Profession

The signers were, by the standards of their time, an exceptionally well-educated group. Twenty-four were lawyers or had studied law. Several had attended the leading colonial colleges: Harvard, Yale, the College of New Jersey (Princeton), the College of William and Mary, and King’s College (Columbia). Thomas Jefferson had studied at William and Mary; John Adams at Harvard; Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania at the College of New Jersey and at the University of Edinburgh.

The remaining signers were merchants, planters, physicians, and farmers. The commercial interests of the merchant signers—men like John Hancock of Massachusetts and George Clymer of Pennsylvania—meant that their support for independence carried substantial economic risk. The planter signers, including Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison of Virginia, and the South Carolina delegates, owned large estates and, in most cases, significant numbers of enslaved people.

Wealth and Social Standing

The signers were predominantly wealthy or at least comfortable. Hancock was the richest man in New England. Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic signer, was one of the wealthiest men in Maryland. Several signers, including George Wythe of Virginia and James Wilson of Pennsylvania, were less wealthy but occupied respected professional positions.

The social standing of the signers reflected the hierarchical structure of colonial American society. Most came from families of means and influence, and their political positions were in many cases a reflection of their social status as much as their personal abilities. The Revolution did produce a degree of social mobility, but the signers of the Declaration were, on the whole, members of the colonial elite.

The Risks of Signing

Treason Under British Law

The signers were acutely aware that they were committing treason. Under the English Treason Act of 1351, which remained in force, treason included “levying war against the king” and “adhering to the king’s enemies.” The penalty was death by hanging, drawing, and quartering—a punishment that, while rarely carried out in full by the eighteenth century, remained on the statute books. The signers’ pledge of “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” was not merely rhetorical.

The practical risk depended on the outcome of the war. If the colonies won their independence, the signers would be celebrated as founders. If Britain prevailed, they would face prosecution, confiscation of property, and potentially execution. This calculation—that the outcome of the war would determine whether signing was an act of heroism or an act of folly—was explicit in the deliberations of many delegates.

A Famous Exchange

A story, possibly apocryphal, recounts that as the delegates signed, Benjamin Franklin remarked: “We must, indeed, all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Whether or not Franklin actually said these words, the anecdote captures the signers’ awareness of their shared peril. The story first appeared in print decades after the event and may be a later invention, but it reflects a genuine sentiment.

What Happened to the Signers

During the War

The war exacted a heavy price from many signers. Nine signers died during the Revolutionary War, though not all as a direct result of military action. Five were captured by the British: George Walton of Georgia was taken prisoner at the Battle of Savannah in 1778; Thomas Heyward Jr., Arthur Middleton, and Edward Rutledge of South Carolina were captured at the Siege of Charleston in 1780; and Richard Stockton of New Jersey was seized by Loyalists in his own home and imprisoned in New York. All five survived their captivity, though Stockton’s health was permanently damaged by his imprisonment.

Several signers suffered material losses. The British occupied and damaged the estates of Philip Livingston of New York and Lewis Morris of New York. Carter Braxton of Virginia lost much of his fortune financing the war effort and through the disruption of his commercial interests. George Taylor of Pennsylvania died in 1781, reportedly in financial distress.

The homes and properties of several signers were used as military headquarters, hospitals, or barracks by both American and British forces. The destruction was not always deliberate; the movement of armies through the countryside inevitably caused damage to farms and estates.

After the War

The postwar careers of the signers varied widely. Several went on to prominent roles in the new nation. John Adams served as vice president and then president. Thomas Jefferson served as secretary of state, vice president, and president. Benjamin Franklin negotiated the Treaty of Paris and served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Roger Sherman of Connecticut served in the Confederation Congress and the Constitutional Convention and was the only person to sign all four great founding documents.

Others faded from public life or experienced postwar difficulties. Thomas McKean of Delaware served as governor of Pennsylvania but faced political opposition. Samuel Chase of Maryland was impeached as a Supreme Court justice in 1804, though he was acquitted by the Senate. Charles Carroll of Carrollton served in the United States Senate and lived until 1832, becoming the last surviving signer.

The Last Survivors

The last three surviving signers were John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Carroll. Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826—the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration’s adoption. The coincidence was widely noted and interpreted as providential. Carroll survived until 1832, dying at the age of ninety-five.

The Signers and Slavery

The relationship between the signers and slavery is one of the most uncomfortable aspects of the Declaration’s history. Of the fifty-six signers, approximately forty-one were slaveholders or came from slaveholding families. Jefferson, who wrote that “all men are created equal,” owned more than six hundred enslaved people over the course of his life. George Wythe, who signed the Declaration and later taught law to John Marshall, freed his enslaved people in his will—a step that Jefferson never took.

The only signer who appears to have consistently opposed slavery on principle was Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania, who wrote against the institution and helped found the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Benjamin Franklin, who had owned enslaved people earlier in his life, became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in 1787 and petitioned Congress for the abolition of slavery in 1790.

The contradiction between the Declaration’s universal principles and the reality of slavery among its signers has been the subject of extensive historical analysis. Some historians argue that the signers understood the contradiction but were unable or unwilling to act on it. Others argue that the signers’ failure to confront slavery directly was a moral failure that compromised the Declaration’s principles from the outset. The Revolution’s relationship with slavery remains one of the most debated topics in American historiography.

Myths and Misconceptions

Several popular myths about the signers deserve correction. The claim that the signers suffered uniformly horrific fates—torture, impoverishment, and death—is an exaggeration popularized by a widely circulated radio broadcast from the 1950s. While some signers suffered materially during the war, most survived and prospered in the postwar period. The claim that Hancock signed his name large so the king could read it without spectacles is unsupported by contemporary evidence. The assertion that all signers were present on July 4 and signed the document on that date is incorrect, as the signing occurred primarily on August 2.

The signers of the Declaration were neither saints nor villains but complex individuals who made a consequential decision under conditions of uncertainty. Their signatures committed them to a course of action whose outcome was far from certain, and their subsequent lives reflected the full range of human experience—achievement and failure, courage and compromise, principle and expediency. The Declaration of Independence that they produced and endorsed was, like its signers, a product of its time—simultaneously radical and limited, universal in aspiration and particular in application.

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