Support for Ben Franklin's world and the Doing History to the Revolution series comes from the

Omaha Institute.

Proud Publishers of the William and Mary Quarterly, the leading journal of Early American

history since 1943. The critical debates on independence in the Second Continental Congress were in early June and for two days they debated it very seriously.

And then essentially they decided that although they seem to have a

majority for it they really needed to be unanimous and if they delayed the vote that they

thought they would be closer to unanimity. I mean you don't go out and

fight the greatest military power in the world unless you have your ducks in line so to speak.

What they approved on July 4th was the text and then they had

printed immediately the Dunlap broadside which people can see it's in

printed in block letters.

There is no signature except John Hancock's name appears on the bottom and Charles Thompson

attesting to the signature of John Hancock.

Who served as president of that that was the president of the Congress

but you don't see signatures all you see are the block letters because it's

printed okay I mean it's printed in block letters.

That was sent out.

That was sent out broadly.

So the text of the declaration was broadly disseminated.

This is why, you know, it's possible to say this is a press release and that's circulated largely

domestically they do send a copy to Silas Dean in France with orders to give it to the French

court but Congress doesn't do it, is done by a committee and they do it in the

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