Physical history of the United States Declaration of Independence Physical history of the United States Declaration of Independence The United States Declaration of Independence, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were no longer a part of the British Empire, exists in a number of drafts, handwritten copies, and published broadsides. The earliest known draft of the Declaration of Independence is a fragment known as the "Composition Draft." The draft, written in July 1776, is in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration. It was discovered in 1947 by historian Julian P. Boyd in the Jefferson papers at the Library
United States Declaration of Independence colonies. The orthodox British view, dating from the Glorious Revolution of 1688, was that Parliament was the supreme authority throughout the empire, and so, by definition, anything that Parliament did was constitutional. In the colonies, however, the idea had developed that the British Constitution recognized certain fundamental rights that no government could violate, not even Parliament. After the Townshend Acts, some essayists even began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all. Anticipating the arrangement of the British Commonwealth, by 1774 American writers such as Samuel Adams, James Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson were arguing that