Signing of the United States Declaration of Independence

The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence occurred (primarily) on August 2, 1776, at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, when 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress, representing the thirteen self-declared "United States of America," endorsed the Declaration of Independence that the Congress had approved on July 4, 1776. The Declaration proclaimed that the thirteen former British colonies then at war with Great Britain were now sovereign states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. The signers’ names are, with the exception of Congress President John Hancock, grouped by state, with the listing of states arraigned geographically, from north to south.

Although the final draft of the Declaration was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, the date of its signing has long been disputed. Most historians have concluded that it was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is commonly believed.

The date that the Declaration was signed has long been the subject of debate. Within a decade after the event, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams all wrote that the Declaration had been signed by Congress on July 4, 1776; an assertion seemingly confirmed by the signed copy of the Declaration, which is dated July 4. Additional support for the July 4 date is provided by the Journals of Congress, the official public record of the Continental Congress. When the proceedings for 1776 were first published in 1777, the entry for July 4, 1776, stated that the Declaration was engrossed (the official copy was handwritten) and signed on that date.

In 1796, signer Thomas McKean disputed that the Declaration had been signed on July 4, pointing out that some signers were not then present, including several who were not even elected to Congress until after that date. "[N]o person signed it on that day nor for many days after", he later wrote. His claim gained support when the Secret Journals of Congress were published in 1821. The Secret Journals contained two previously unpublished entries about the Declaration. The entry for July 19 reads:

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