In commemoration of the Fourth of July: The Declaration of Independence

WILLITS, 7/4/20 — Two-hundred and forty-four years ago today, in Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence was signed and sent to the printers for publication, and so we are reproducing here in its entirety. If you have never read it, it’s well worth a few minutes and is a fairly short document, at only about 1330 words.

By July of 1776 fighting had been ongoing for more than a year, since at least the Battle of Lexington and Concord, in April of 1775, and no legal act of separation had been made. Demands had been made of the king and of parliament, but as the fighting continued support for formal independence increased.