The Jefferson Library at Monticello provides access to information about every aspect of Thomas
Jefferson’s life, times, and legacy. The interests and needs of students, scholars, citizens, and statesman
from around the world are addressed through free Internet resources such as the Thomas Jefferson Portal
and the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia. Treatment of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence is a
primary focus of our collecting and dissemination of information relevant to Jefferson’s worldwide and
perpetual legacy. The following is a brief selective list of published works and online resources that will
serve every reader.
Selected Sources on the Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence, its history ... / by John H. Hazelton. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co.,
1906.
Links: View eBook
Summary: A careful and intensive study of the Declaration and the circumstances of its creation; still
useful.
The Declaration of Independence: a study in the history of political ideas / by Carl Becker. New York:
Vintage Books, c1970.
Summary: Originally published in 1922, an important analysis of the premises underlying the
Declaration and its evolution from Thomas Jefferson’s first draft. Considers also the literary qualities of
the Declaration and its influence in the 18th century. A significant study which can be supplemented
with but not replaced by Garry Wills’ Inventing America.
The Declaration of Independence: the evolution of the text / by Julian P. Boyd; edited by Gerard W.
Gawalt. Washington: Library of Congress in association with the Thomas Jefferson Memorial
Foundation ; Hanover, N.H. : Distributed by University Press of New England, 1999. Rev. ed.
Summary: Analyzes facsimiles of all known drafts. Revised edition of Boyd’s 1943 work, which
printed facsimiles of the mss. versions of the Declaration and the Dunlap broadside printing. This
volume adds a preface by Gawalt and includes an additional manuscript fragment with an early version
of text that appeared after the publication of the original edition of this book. A note explains its place in
the sequence of texts.
Declaring independence: Jefferson, natural language & the culture of performance / by Jay Fliegelman.
Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, c1993.
Summary: Discusses the Declaration in the context of a new rhetorical ideal that emerged in the later
eighteenth-century in which speakers were expected less narrowly to convince their audiences with their
rational arguments than to engage their sympathy by performatively enacting thoughts and feelings as
part of their delivery. Examines along the way Thomas Jefferson’s interest in contemporary rhetorical
and oratorical theory, his interest in Ossian, his rivalry with Patrick Henry, and his interest in music. An
engaging book, written as one long statement without separate chapter divisions, it imitates to some
extent the form it describes.
American scripture: making the Declaration of Independence / Pauline Maier. New York: Knopf:
Distributed by Random House, Inc., 1997.
Summary: Study of the Declaration as an expression of the American mind and as the work not simply
of a single author, Thomas Jefferson, but of a committee and of Congress as a whole. The contents and
language of the Declaration are part of a tradition that included both the Declaration of Rights of 1689
and the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776. The Declaration of Independence began to assume its
significance for the national imagination as we usually understand it in the years after 1789, and its
interpretation is part of a continuing discussion and debate about its meaning and implications. A major
book on the Declaration, and on Jefferson’s role in it.
Harmonizing sentiments: the Declaration of Independence and the Jeffersonian idea of self-government
/ Hans L. Eicholtz. New York: P. Lang, ©2001.
Summary: introduces the reader to the major issues concerning America's statement justifying
independence. It covers the first controversy between loyalists and patriots, explores the document's
intellectual sources, evaluates the degree to which the Declaration's ideals were fulfilled or rejected by
the Constitution, and concludes by investigating its current political and legal implications. Readers will
be intrigued by the author's argument for approaching the Declaration with an understanding of
eighteenth-century political economy and ideas about a natural social order. The importance of Jefferson
as a conduit through which these ideas were expressed is defended against recent attempts to deemphasize the centrality of the Declaration's author
Declaration of Independence [electronic resource] / United States. National Archives and Records
Administration. [2007- ]
Links: Go to web resource
The stylistic artistry of the Declaration of Independence / by Stephen Lucas
Summary: Part of the Charters of Freedom permanent exhibit at the National Archives, this website
presents a detailed account of the Declaration of Independence from its drafting through to its
preservation. Describes how the document traveled with the Continental Congress during the
Revolutionary War, and discusses the debate over its preservation from 1876-1921.
The Declaration of Independence: a global history / by David Armitage. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2007.
Summary: Examines the American Declaration of Independence in a global context, as a political, legal,
and intellectual document and product of the late eighteenth century. Looks at more than one hundred
declarations of independence written since 1776 to show the influence and role the U.S. Declaration of
Independence has played in creating a world of states out of a world of empires. Discusses why the
framers' language of natural rights did not resonate in Britain, how the document was interpreted by the
rest of the world, whether the Declaration established a new nation or a collection of states, and where
and how the Declaration has had an overt influence on independence movements since then. Includes
the text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and sample declarations from around the world.
Declaring independence: the origin and influence of America's founding document: featuring the Albert
H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection / David G McCullough; Pauline Maier; Robert G
Parkinson; Robert M S McDonald; David Armitage; Sandra Day O'Connor; Christian Yves Dupont;
Peter S Onuf. Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Library, 2008.
Summary: This volume asks us to reread and rethink our founding document. The Declaration of
Independence as we now understand it - the stirring passages that define our democratic creed - is not
the Declaration that Thomas Jefferson and his congressional colleagues drafted, nor the document that
inspired or provoked contemporaneous readers and listeners at home and abroad. Essays by four of the
Declaration's leading students make the historic text come alive, enabling us to hear what it had to say in
its own time and what it might have to say to us today. Copiously illustrated with selections from the
Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection at the University of Virginia and complemented
by biographical sketches of the Declaration signers, this volume offers a rich resource for discovering
the origin and influence of America's founding document.