The Jefferson Library at Monticello provides access to information about every aspect of Thomas Jefferson’s life, times, and legacy. The interests and needs of students, scholars, citizens, and statesman from around the world are addressed through free Internet resources such as the Thomas Jefferson Portal and the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia. Treatment of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence is a primary focus of our collecting and dissemination of information relevant to Jefferson’s worldwide and perpetual legacy. The following is a brief selective list of published works and online resources that will serve every reader. Selected Sources on the Declaration of Independence The Declaration of Independence, its history ... / by John H. Hazelton. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1906. Links: View eBook Summary: A careful and intensive study of the Declaration and the circumstances of its creation; still useful. The Declaration of Independence: a study in the history of political ideas / by Carl Becker. New York: Vintage Books, c1970. Summary: Originally published in 1922, an important analysis of the premises underlying the Declaration and its evolution from Thomas Jefferson’s first draft. Considers also the literary qualities of the Declaration and its influence in the 18th century. A significant study which can be supplemented with but not replaced by Garry Wills’ Inventing America. The Declaration of Independence: the evolution of the text / by Julian P. Boyd; edited by Gerard W. Gawalt. Washington: Library of Congress in association with the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation ; Hanover, N.H. : Distributed by University Press of New England, 1999. Rev. ed. Summary: Analyzes facsimiles of all known drafts. Revised edition of Boyd’s 1943 work, which printed facsimiles of the mss. versions of the Declaration and the Dunlap broadside printing. This volume adds a preface by Gawalt and includes an additional manuscript fragment with an early version of text that appeared after the publication of the original edition of this book. A note explains its place in the sequence of texts. Declaring independence: Jefferson, natural language & the culture of performance / by Jay Fliegelman. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, c1993. Summary: Discusses the Declaration in the context of a new rhetorical ideal that emerged in the later eighteenth-century in which speakers were expected less narrowly to convince their audiences with their rational arguments than to engage their sympathy by performatively enacting thoughts and feelings as part of their delivery. Examines along the way Thomas Jefferson’s interest in contemporary rhetorical and oratorical theory, his interest in Ossian, his rivalry with Patrick Henry, and his interest in music. An engaging book, written as one long statement without separate chapter divisions, it imitates to some extent the form it describes. American scripture: making the Declaration of Independence / Pauline Maier. New York: Knopf: Distributed by Random House, Inc., 1997.

Summary: Study of the Declaration as an expression of the American mind and as the work not simply of a single author, Thomas Jefferson, but of a committee and of Congress as a whole. The contents and language of the Declaration are part of a tradition that included both the Declaration of Rights of 1689 and the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776. The Declaration of Independence began to assume its significance for the national imagination as we usually understand it in the years after 1789, and its interpretation is part of a continuing discussion and debate about its meaning and implications. A major book on the Declaration, and on Jefferson’s role in it. Harmonizing sentiments: the Declaration of Independence and the Jeffersonian idea of self-government / Hans L. Eicholtz. New York: P. Lang, ©2001. Summary: introduces the reader to the major issues concerning America's statement justifying independence. It covers the first controversy between loyalists and patriots, explores the document's intellectual sources, evaluates the degree to which the Declaration's ideals were fulfilled or rejected by the Constitution, and concludes by investigating its current political and legal implications. Readers will be intrigued by the author's argument for approaching the Declaration with an understanding of eighteenth-century political economy and ideas about a natural social order. The importance of Jefferson as a conduit through which these ideas were expressed is defended against recent attempts to de-emphasize the centrality of the Declaration's author Declaration of Independence [electronic resource] / United States. National Archives and Records Administration. [2007- ] Links: Go to web resource The stylistic artistry of the Declaration of Independence / by Stephen Lucas Summary: Part of the Charters of Freedom permanent exhibit at the National Archives, this website presents a detailed account of the Declaration of Independence from its drafting through to its preservation. Describes how the document traveled with the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War, and discusses the debate over its preservation from 1876-1921. The Declaration of Independence: a global history / by David Armitage. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007. Summary: Examines the American Declaration of Independence in a global context, as a political, legal, and intellectual document and product of the late eighteenth century. Looks at more than one hundred declarations of independence written since 1776 to show the influence and role the U.S. Declaration of Independence has played in creating a world of states out of a world of empires. Discusses why the framers' language of natural rights did not resonate in Britain, how the document was interpreted by the rest of the world, whether the Declaration established a new nation or a collection of states, and where and how the Declaration has had an overt influence on independence movements since then. Includes the text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and sample declarations from around the world. Declaring independence: the origin and influence of America's founding document: featuring the Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection / David G McCullough; Pauline Maier; Robert G Parkinson; Robert M S McDonald; David Armitage; Sandra Day O'Connor; Christian Yves Dupont; Peter S Onuf. Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Library, 2008. Summary: This volume asks us to reread and rethink our founding document. The Declaration of Independence as we now understand it - the stirring passages that define our democratic creed - is not the Declaration that Thomas Jefferson and his congressional colleagues drafted, nor the document that inspired or provoked contemporaneous readers and listeners at home and abroad. Essays by four of the Declaration's leading students make the historic text come alive, enabling us to hear what it had to say in its own time and what it might have to say to us today. Copiously illustrated with selections from the Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection at the University of Virginia and complemented by biographical sketches of the Declaration signers, this volume offers a rich resource for discovering the origin and influence of America's founding document.