What Did The Continental Congress Do With The Declaration Once They Had Signed It?

Once the Second Continental Congress signed in the Declaration of Independence, they sent it to a printer, named John Dunlap.

Evening on July 4th, 1776, the Continental Congress’ president John Hancock ordered John Dunlap to print broadside copies of the document.

He printed around 200 copies of the historical document at his printing shop in Philadelphia.

These first 200 copies are still popularly known as Dunlap Broadsides.

Although, today only 26 copies of it are left behind in the United States; some are in museums and others are in library collections.

[Did You Know? At present, in the United States of America, the value of one single Dunlap Broadsides’ copy is worth more than 10 million dollars]

What Did The Continental Congress Do With The 200 Copies?

After producing document copies, the Continental Congress decided to send them to the 13 colonies’ local newspapers, local officials, and military officials of the Continental army.

On July 5th, all the documents were dispatched for the purpose.

Congress ordered the Committee of Five to look after the task.

Why Only Dunlap Was Given The Responsibility To Print Copies of The Document?

Congress gave responsibility to Dunlap because they had full faith in him.

They knew that he was an intelligent person and a patriot, who was already fighting the Revolutionary War against the British forces.

Therefore, in 1776, when he offered an advantageous printing contract to the Congress, delegates were almost obligated to accept it.

Who Was John Dunlap?

Dunlap was an Irish immigrant to America.

He was a printer and his life is especially remembered for printing duplicate copies of the Declaration of Independence.

Apart from printing, he also participated in the American Revolutionary War as a patriot.

In the battles of Trenton and Princeton, he showed tremendous work with General George Washington.

During wartime, his ranking rose from an ordinary soldier to a major.