The Declaration was a formal explanation of why Congress had voted to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. John Adams, a leader in pushing for independence, had persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which Congress edited to produce the final version. The Committee of Five had drafted the Declaration to be ready when Congress voted on independence. The Lee Resolution for independence was passed by the Second Continental Congress on July 2 with no opposing votes. The Declaration became one of the most circulated and widely reprinted documents in early American history. The declaration was signed by 56 of America's Founding Fathers, congressional representatives from New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. With the Declaration, these new states took a collective first step in forming the United States of America. Enacted during the American Revolution, the Declaration explains why the Thirteen Colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain regarded themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule.
The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, is the pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776.