When you imagine the Declaration of Independence, you tend to envision old paper, the curly handwriting, and wigged men. Fair enough. The document is more relatable, however, in its essence. It is a break up letter. A highly official, very public, and very perilous letter of separation with King George III and Great Britain.

The conflict started long before July 4, 1776. Britain was heavily indebted by the conclusion of the French and Indian War in 1763. Taxes such as Stamp Act 1765 and the Townshend Acts 1767 were passed by parliament to have the colonies contribute. Parliament had no representatives of colonists. Their motto was no taxation without representation. Britain failed to back down. The Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773 transformed protest into a defiance. By April 1775, fighting broke out at Lexington and Concord. The colonies had been at war, but were not yet proclaimed a separate country.

It was different in June 1776. A resolution was presented to the Second Continental Congress by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia: the United States should be free and independent. A Committee of Five appointed by Congress to write a statement explaining why. This team comprised of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman. They decided to have Jefferson write the original draft since he had a reputation of writing straight-forward, hard prose. He was 33 and spent about 17 days working in a rented room in Philadelphia.

Jefferson drew on pre-existing ideas. He relied on Enlightenment philosophers, in particular, John Locke. According to Locke, the rights of people to life, liberty, and property were natural, and governments are the products of consent among the ruled. Jefferson rephrased that to his famous quote: We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that of these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The philosophy was followed by the receipts. The Declaration lists 27 complaints against King George III. It charged him with the dissolution of colonial legislatures, maintaining peacetime standing armies, terminating trade, levying taxes without approval, and depriving the rights to trial by jury. The transatlantic slave trade was also condemned in the original draft that Jefferson wrote. Delegates of Georgia and South Carolina cut that section, which they feared would divide the vote.

Jefferson wrote a draft which was edited by the committee. Changes were proposed by Franklin and Adams. Then two days were spent debating it by Congress and 86 further edits were made. They trimmed about a quarter of what Jefferson wrote. He even confessed that he writhed a little to see his words being cut. The last version was adopted on July 4, 1776. The majority of the delegates did not sign until August 2. John Hancock was the first to sign and he allegedly did not want King George to read his name with glasses.

In legal terms, the proclamation stated that the thirteen colonies had been transformed into free and independent states and was now able to wage war, form alliances and trade. It informed the world that the colonists regarded themselves as a new nation. It also provided the soldiers with a reason bigger than outrage at taxes. It was published as broadsides and read out in town squares. The people shouted, but they knew what was at stake. Signing was treason. In case the Revolution was not successful, the signers risked to be hanged.

The Declaration was not perfect. Its equality was not extended to the enslaved people, women or Native Americans. Those contradictions propelled subsequent struggles to civil rights. In 1852, Frederick Douglass objected to this, posing the question of what the fourth of July was to a slave. Nevertheless, the statements of Jefferson established a norm. In 1863 at Gettysburg, Lincoln referred to them. In 1963, the same was done by Martin Luther King Jr.

The original parchment is today in the National Archives at Washington. The handwriting is difficult to read and the ink is fading. Still it is clear what the idea is. A number of individuals determined that they would not tolerate any longer a government that failed to represent them, and they put it in writing. They published the letter of separation and they had their names signed and put their lives at risk.