The Declaration of Independence: A Discourse on Its Meaning This volume include the following works: The Declaration of Independence (1901) By Herbert Friedenwald & The Other Side of the Declaration of Independence. A Lecture by Frank Bergen (1898) By Frank Bergen THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE HERBERT FRIEDENWALD. The Declaration of Independence marks the climax of the Revolutionary movement in America. It announced to the world that Great Britain and her colonies, after a journey in company along the same road for a hundred and fifty years, had come to the parting of the ways. It is a brief but eloquent and comprehensive summary of the reasons that made the separation inevitable. Within those few terse and masterly lines are contained the history of the great controversy that peacefully assumed definite shape, in 1763, and came to an end only after bitter war. By no mere chance was Jefferson called on to write the document that has been termed "the best known paper that ever came from the pen of an individual." Many persons throughout the colonies had produced pamphlets innumerable upon the rights of the colonies and the wrongs they had suffered. But none had so wrought as Jefferson. His "Summary View," written in 1774 and designed to serve as articles of instructions to the Virginia delegates to the Continental Congress, showed him to have a scholarly knowledge of the history of the colonies, a philosophic insight into the essentials of the controversy, and withal a facility of expression that were possessed by none of his contemporaries. The sentiment of Congress, therefore, irresistibly turned to him as the fittest person to draw up a declaration of the character desired. The event proved the wisdom of the choice.