The Immediate Impact and Enduring Importance of the Declaration of Independence

Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence on the afternoon of July 4, 1776. What happened next? A little-known sequence of events tells the story. It speaks volumes about the leadership and direction of a new nation at the dawn of its creation.

Long before the internet, TV, or radio, the slow-moving wheels of just about all long-distance, 18th-century communications sprang into sudden and decisive action, spreading the words of this historic and thrilling document far and wide. Soon, thousands of people here and abroad were reading the document. The Declaration informed them that the 13 British colonies in America had united to form a new political entity that was eager to join “the powers of the earth.” This new country would no longer be bound by British restrictions against free trade with other countries. Still more, it welcomed those who longed for freedom, opportunity, and the right to govern themselves. 

After the delegates unanimously ratified the Declaration, they sent a handwritten copy of the text to John Dunlap, a printer in Philadelphia. Working late into the night, Dunlap set it into type and produced 200 identical copies. Inside the United States, distribution commenced the next day. More copies were loaded on the first ship bound for Europe on July 8. One set of copies went to France, intended for the eyes of King Louis XVI and the French people. Another set went to Spain and King Carlos III. Before the end of August, other printers in the newborn United States churned out more copies, including many that were translated into other languages. They were sent to government officials and publishers in Austria, Denmark, the Dutch Republic, Italy, Poland, and Switzerland. 

Early Leadership and Direction

The widespread dissemination of the Declaration to other countries served a definite strategic purpose. As Richard Bell, a professor of history at the University of Maryland, observes in a fascinating new history (The American Revolution and the Fate of the World), the Declaration of Independence was also “a declaration of interdependence.” He explained it in this way:

The delegates knew that they would need hard cash and generous credit from deep-pocketed partners as well as more boots on the ground and massive naval support to defeat Britain. Just weeks earlier, Richard Henry Lee, the Virginian who first proposed separate nationhood, had reminded his colleagues in Congress that “no state in Europe will either Treat or Trade with us [if we continue to be] Subjects of Great Britain.” Lee was convinced that a global declaration of the patriots’ sincere ambition for independence was “the only means by which foreign alliances can be obtained.”

The founders had planned a series of diplomatic initiatives to capitalize on the expected impact of the powerful words in the document. As Bell puts it, “[This] explains why John Adams drew up talking points for treaty negotiations with France and Spain” just 10 days after the ship set sail for Europe. Still more, “it explains why Congress dispatched Benjamin Franklin to Paris that fall.” 

Indicting King George III

As the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson took up Lee’s call for a “sincere ambition for independence.” This ambition is evident in the eloquence of the Introduction, the Preamble, and the stirring words found at the very end of the document. The signers knew they were committing an act of treason against the British crown, a crime punishable by death under British law. In the face of that danger, they made a solemn promise to each other in the closing words of document. This one sentence brought everything before it to a ringing conclusion:

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.

By far the longest section of the Declaration of Independence — accounting for nearly half of the total word count — comes in the middle of the document. It is the signers’ one and only defense against the charge of treason. The gist of what they had to say, in what is known as the indictment/grievances section, comes down to this: It was not the colonists who had been disloyal; it was King George who subverted and violated English law through his tyrannical acts. The Declaration states:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let the Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Here the language is harsh and accusatory, as befits an indictment in a court of law. The “Facts submitted” included a lengthy list of restrictions on civil liberties and powers of self-government that had long been granted to the American colonies. It hardly needs to be said that no court of law in Britain took up the case. But the founders’ words did have a profound effect where it mattered most: in the court of world opinion. 

Winning the War of Independence

The great European powers did not rush to strike alliances with the United States immediately after the publication of the Declaration of Independence. As Bell notes, “It would take Franklin [as the U.S. Ambassador to France] and his fellow envoys many months of lobbying” to make that happen. France was the first to do so in February 1778. Spain, through an alliance with France, supported the revolutionary cause beginning in 1779.

But even before de jure alliances with European nations were formed, Franklin and his team “quickly secured their covert support in the form of money and supplies. As a result, the Continental Army soon received much-needed shipments of muskets and gunpowder sourced from arsenals in the French and Dutch Caribbean and loans to pay soldiers’ wages from donors in Spanish Cuba.”

The international support for American independence proved decisive in the end. With the assistance of French naval and ground forces, George Washington and the Continental Army won a decisive victory in the siege of Yorktown, which led to the surrender of nearly 8,000 British troops to American and French forces in Virginia in late 1781. Following this defeat, the British government sought peace negotiations. At the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Britain formally recognized the sovereignty of the United States of America and gave up any claims to territory it had once held in the 13 states.

The war had been won. The people in the 13 colonies secured the independence they had sought for seven years. They won it by force of arms, but the victory would not have been possible without the moral force of the Declaration, along with the courage and foresight of the men who signed it.

Rex Sinquefield is president of the Show-Me Institute. Andrew B. Wilson is a senior fellow at the Institute and has been a long-time contributor to The American Spectator.