Books and Manuscripts

(Force, Peter)
In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
Wash(ingto)n., (D.C.): W.J. Stone SC., (ca. 1833). Engraved broadside, printed by William J. Stone from his original 1823 copperplate, and still bound between pp. 1595/6 and 1597/8 of Volume I of the Fifth Series of Peter Force's monumental history of the United States, American Archives…A Documentary History of the United States of America (Washington: M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force, April, 1848). 28 1/2 x 25 1/2. Declaration with creasing from original folds; light offsetting; very small open tear in top center, two short separations along lower fold. Bound into contemporary three-quarter tan russia over marbled paper-covered boards, stamped in gilt, front and rear boards starting, spine dry and worn, boards and extremities rubbed and worn; all edges trimmed; marbled endpapers; scattered foxing to text.

A beautiful and scarce copy of Peter Force's American Archives edition of the Declaration of Independence.

In 1823, to commemorate the approaching 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned William J. Stone to create an exact copy of the original engrossed document. Stone spent three years copying the original document to a copperplate, carefully replicating Congressional Secretary Timothy Matlack's handwriting, as well as the signatures of the 56 Continental Congress delegates. His original copperplate was then left in the care of the State Department.

About a decade later, on March 2, 1833, printer, archivist, and mayor of Washington, D.C., Peter Force (1790-1868), was commissioned by Congress to create a history of the United States, subsequently titled, American Archives: A Documentary History of the United States of America. Force planned to publish a massive 20-volume anthology spanning America's colonial origins to the founding of the Federal government after the ratification of the Constitution. Using important Revolutionary-era documents, including correspondence and broadsides--many of which Force scoured the country collecting--Congress agreed to fund 1,500 sets. Force arranged with the State Department to have Stone print copies of the Declaration from his original copperplate. Only one change was made to Stone's copperplate: his original imprint along the top edge was burnished away and replaced with "W.J. STONE SC. WASHn.", below the signatures of the Georgia delegates at bottom left. By the 1850s, due to mounting costs and production delays, Force's American Archives had only reached nine published volumes, and not long after Congress cancelled the project.