But that all changed following the War of 1812. The Declaration of Independence took upon new meaning in a nation that had just been rudely reminded of the fragility of its republic. A new generation of Americans had come of age and they made preservation of the nation’s revolutionary history their mission. Those efforts, and their reverential attitude toward the revolutionaries and their works, helped establish the Declaration of Independence as an important icon of American identity.
One of the reasons for this change can be attributed to the artist, John Trumbull. In 1817, Congress commissioned Trumbull to produce four large paintings commemorating the Revolution, which were to hang in the rotunda of the new American Capitol. For Trumbull, the most important of the series, and the one to which he first turned, was the Declaration of Independence. When the new twelve-by-eighteen-foot canvas was completed in 1818, Trumbull exhibited it to large crowds in Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore before delivering it to Washington; indeed, The Declaration of Independence was the most popular of all the paintings Trumbull did for the Capitol.
Because of this renewed interest, copies of the declaration were published and sold briskly, giving the document new life, and were distributed around the country.
Postwar efforts to preserve the memories and records of the Revolution were undertaken in a mood of near panic. Many documents remained in private hands, where they were gradually separated from one another and lost. Even worse, many revolutionaries had died, taking with them precious memories that were gone forever. The presence of living remnants of the revolutionary generation seemed so important in preserving its tradition that Americans watched anxiously as their numbers declined. These attitudes first appeared in the decade before 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of independence, but they persisted on into the Civil War.
This new passion for the past and the men who were instrumental in founding this country reached its pinnacle in the early 1820s. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were still alive, and as the only surviving members of the committee that had drafted the Declaration of Independence, they attracted an extraordinary outpouring of attention. Pilgrims, invited and uninvited, flocked particularly to Monticello, hoping to catch a glimpse of the author of the Declaration and making nuisances of themselves. One woman, it is said, even smashed a window to get a better view of the old man. As a eulogist noted after the deaths of both Adams and Jefferson on, miraculously, July 4, 1826, the world had not waited for death to “sanctify” their names. Even while they remained alive, their homes became “shrines” to which lovers of liberty and admirers of genius flocked “from every land.”
Abraham Lincoln, a little-known lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, grew up idealizing the men of the American Revolution, who were for him “a forest of giant oaks,” “a fortress of strength,” “iron men.” He also shared the deep concern of his contemporaries as the “silent artillery of time” removed them and the “ living history ” they embodied from this world.
Years later we can see the impact of the Declaration of Independence by simply studying Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Lincoln stated briefly and eloquently convictions he had developed over the previous decade, convictions that on point after point had been instrumental in calling men and women to fight and sacrifice for the independence of this country. Lincoln called reverently upon the ghosts of our past to remind us of our glorious future. “We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this . . . but it is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced . . . we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
The Declaration of Independence remains an “expression of the American mind,” not, of course, what all Americans may think but what many have come to accept. It is a force of creation, a document designed to inspire thoughts and ideas, meant to culminate in dreams and actions, to spur men to great and mighty things. And even thought the Declaration of Independence is not and has never been legally binding, its power resides in deeper waters, in its capacity to transform America into the country that its citizens dream it should be.
On Independence Day, then, Americans celebrate not simply the birth of their nation or the legacy of a few great men. They also commemorate a Declaration of Independence that is their own collective work now and through time. And that makes July 4th a special day to celebrate.
Interesting historical note: Click HERE to view Thomas Jefferson's rough draft of the Declaration of Independence.
