Declaration of Independence
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Rating |
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Title |
Declaration of Independence |
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Creator |
United States. Congress
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Date. Original |
1823 |
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Description |
John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, commissioned William J. Stone to create an exact copy of the Declaration of Independence. It took three years to engrave the copperplate from which the copies were made. After the engraving was completed in 1823, the State Department purchased the plate and had 200 parchment versions printed. These were distributed to surviving signers of the Declaration of Independence (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Charles Carroll), former President James Madison, various government officials, branches and departments of the government, the Marquis de Lafayette, governors of each state and territory, and colleges and universities in the United States. Stone kept one copy for himself, a common practice among engravers. At least thirty-one parchment printings are still in existence, including the example above. Some copies on paper are known to exist as well. These were most likely proofs printed by Stone for his own use. After the official copies were printed, Stone burnished out the identifying information from the upper left and upper right corners and added slightly different information in the lower left of the plate. All later copies bear this change. The Stone copperplate is now exhibited at the National Archives. An official copy seemed necessary given the deteriorating state of the engrossed copy. Adams blamed Binns’ engraver for its condition. However, in 1817, acting Secretary of State Richard Rush had noted the effects of the “hand of time” upon the Declaration. The engrossed copy had been regularly rolled and unrolled to show State Department visitors. Even Stone was accused of playing a role in the decline. In 1881, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences asserted the poor condition of the Declaration resulted from a wet copy technique. It was believed that this was the method used by Stone. However, there is no contemporary evidence to determine what technique Stone actually used though it is now thought that he employed some form of tracing. The original document hung on a wall opposite a window in the Patent Office from 1841-1876, subjecting it to years of sunlight. Given this damage, the image of the Declaration we are now most familiar with is Stone’s clear engraving rather than the faded original. |
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Subject--Names |
United States. Declaration of Independence
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Contributors |
Stone, William James, 1798-1865
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Format-Medium |
Ink on paper |
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Language |
eng |
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Publisher |
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation |
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Source |
Declaration of Independence. MS2001.23.001 |
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Relation |
Forms part of the Pat and Jerry B. Epstein History American Documents Collection: http://cdm15933.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15933coll4 |
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Type |
Still image |
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Format |
jp2 |
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Identifier |
http://cdm15933.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15933coll4/id/30/rec/25 |
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Image number |
TC2003-373 |
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Rights and Reproductions |
This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). For reproduction queries: http://research.history.org/JDRLibrary/Visual_Resources/VisualResourcePermission.cfm. Be sure to provide the image number with your order. |
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Date. Digital |
2001 |
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Title-Alternative |
MS2001.23.001 |
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