Origins & Purpose
This was the main reason Jefferson and the Second Continental Congress drafted the Declaration in 1776.
What is to explain and justify the colonies’ decision to break away from Britain?
Which short phrase in the Declaration expresses the colonists’ belief in basic rights?
What is “All men are created equal”?
Name the primary author of the Declaration.
Who is Thomas Jefferson?
Jefferson’s original draft included a passage condemning this practice; it was removed.
What is the slave trade?
Loyalists circulated a response called the Declaration of Dependence. What did it mainly express?
What is continued allegiance to King George and opposition to the rebellion?
Name the official action, taken July 2, 1776, that preceded the Declaration's adoption and legally established independence.
What is the Lee Resolution approved on July 2, 1776?
The Declaration lists rights people have. Name two of them mentioned near the famous equality phrase.
What are life and liberty? (and the pursuit of happiness :)
Which Virginia document influenced Jefferson’s wording and ideas?
What is the Virginia Declaration of Rights?
Why was Jefferson’s anti–slave-trade passage removed from the final Declaration?
What is because slavery was a divisive issue and some colonies and delegates supported it?
How did the Declaration influence movements outside the United States?
What is it served as a model and inspiration for political movements and declarations in Europe and Latin America?
Besides stating grievances, the Declaration accuses the king of violating these; name one category of complaint Congress listed.
What are violations of the colonists’ rights or examples like taxation without representation, maintaining standing armies, cutting off trade?
Identify the slogan that summarized colonists’ objection to parliamentary taxation without their consent (not a line from the Declaration but related).
What is “No taxation without representation”?
Which body debated, edited, and adopted the Declaration in 1776?
What is the Second Continental Congress?
Name one reason delegates altered Jefferson’s original draft before adoption.
What is to remove overly partisan or regionally divisive language and to gain broader support among delegates?
Name one later American movement that used Declaration language about equality to press for rights.
What is the Abolitionist movement or the early women’s rights movement?
Explain why the Declaration was written as a public document rather than a private petition.
What is to inform both colonists and the world of the reasons for independence and to justify the action politically and diplomatically?
Explain how the Declaration links government legitimacy to people’s consent.
What is that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed?
Identify one member of the five-person committee (other than Jefferson) that helped draft the Declaration.
Who is John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, or Robert R. Livingston?
Describe how disagreements over slavery in 1776 reflect broader tensions among the colonies.
What is that northern and southern colonies had economic and social differences, making compromise necessary to maintain unity for independence?
Give one example of how the Declaration’s ideas were used in U.S. political debates in the 19th or 20th century.
What is appeals to equality in abolitionist speeches, Lincoln’s rhetoric in the Civil War, or suffragists’ arguments for women’s rights?
Describe two diplomatic purposes the Declaration served for the new United States in 1776.
What is to justify independence to European powers and to encourage foreign alliances or recognition, and to unify colonial support internally?
Analyze how the language “All men are created equal” was used later by reformers—name one movement that referenced it and how.
What is the Abolitionist movement or the early women’s rights movement used it to argue for expanded rights?)
Describe one reason John Adams thought a particular date would be remembered and why the public celebrates a different date
What is Adams thought July 2 (the vote for independence) would be celebrated, but because the final text and public celebrations became associated with July 4, that date became the popular holiday?
Evaluate how the deletion of the slavery passage affected the Declaration’s moral authority then and later.
What is that its removal allowed unanimous adoption but left a contradiction between ideals and practice that later reformers used to challenge the nation to live up to its principles?
Critically assess the Declaration as both a historic political document and an aspirational statement. List one strength and one limitation.
What is a strength: clearly articulated universal principles that justified revolution; limitation: failure to grant those principles fully to all people, notably enslaved people and women?