United States Declaration of Independence about. In the campaign to revise Congressional instructions, many Americans formally expressed their support for separation from Great Britain in what were effectively state and local declarations of independence. Historian Pauline Maier identifies more than ninety such declarations that were issued throughout the Thirteen Colonies from April to July 1776. These "declarations" took a variety of forms. Some were formal written instructions for Congressional delegations, such as the Halifax Resolves of April 12, with which North Carolina became the first colony to explicitly authorize its delegates to vote for independence. Others were legislative acts that officially ended British rule in
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20. In 1847, the complete text of these Mecklenburg Resolves was found in a South Carolina newspaper published in June 1775. Unlike the Mecklenburg Declaration that had appeared in the "Raleigh Register" in 1819, the Mecklenburg Resolves fell short of an outright declaration of independence, and did not contain language that was parallel to Jefferson's 1776 Declaration of Independence. The Resolves, though radical, were similar to other local resolutions that were adopted in the colonies in 1774 and 1775. The controversy over the Mecklenburg Declaration entered a new phase with the discovery of the Mecklenburg Resolves.