 Greetings from the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States and head of the National Archives and Records Administration. Fourth of July is a special occasion here at the National Archives. We're the home to the original 1776 Declaration of Independence. We like to say that July 4th starts here. And for the past 50 years we've had a ceremony here in this building to honor the Declaration of Independence. But this year is different. Because of COVID-19, we had to find a new way to celebrate. So we are doing our first virtual Declaration of Independence reading. You'll see highlights of past Fourth of July celebrations at the National Archives during this program. Even though we can't be together this year, we can focus on the future. In 2026, six short years from now, we will be celebrating America's 250th. 250 years since our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, jeopardizing their lives, committing treason, and risking everything for American independence. We have the signers to thank for the freedoms we enjoy today. Even though this year's celebration will not look like our usual Fourth of July festivities, we can look forward to marking the 250th anniversary of the United States as a healthier, stronger, and more perfect union. Before we start, I would like to thank you for joining our virtual ceremony. I hope to see you in person at the National Archives in the near future. Have a safe, healthy, and enjoyable Independence Day. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people. This phrase is where it began more than 240 years ago. The desires of one people to unite together, forming a new nation to break free from the tyranny of a king, a nation based on the principles that all men are created equal and have the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This radical notion shook the world and became a compelling testament to the strength and spirit of what it means to be united and free. This is our Declaration of Independence. If the Constitution is the roadmap for democracy, the Declaration of Independence is the road on which we all travel. Abraham Lincoln called it a rebuke and a stumbling block to tyranny and oppression. It declares our liberation from dictatorship, our foundations for democracy, and our formal pledge to abide by these terms at any cost. Over the centuries, the powerful ideas of this document continue to inspire not only our country, but countries around the world to fight for freedom, justice, and equality. It sounds like a dream. And in a way, it is. It's the American dream. We are the only country with the word dream attached to it. It is a dream in which people from all over the world arrive as immigrants and create the mosaic that makes us stronger. In America, you can start with nothing and build an industry. In America, you can turn a spark of an idea into a lasting legacy. This is more than just a dream. It is our way of life. At our best, we embrace our differences and allow all to flourish. When we fail to include all, we find the courage to face our shortcomings and work together to continue building a more perfect union. It took Thomas Jefferson three weeks to pen the Declaration of Independence with the hope that his words would serve as an expression of the American mind. We still stand by those words today. The permanent home of the Declaration of Independence is in the National Archives, right here in our nation's capital. The Archives preserves and protects all sides of the American story. And like the principal idea in our country's proclamation, the information it contains is free, accessible to all who seek it. A walk through its main rotunda is to exalt in the story of America. It is, as journalist Koki Roberts once described, America's Cathedral to Democracy. For 50 years, the National Archives has held a July 4 celebration of the Declaration of Independence on its grand front steps. It is the traditional kickoff event for all of the patriotic activities in our nation's capital. Circumstances have made it difficult for all who wish to celebrate with us in Washington, D.C. to do so this year. But that should not mute our collective spirit to celebrate our independence. So wherever you are and whomever you are with, please wave your flags and join us in our celebration of the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives. July 4 begins here. We begin our celebration with the presentation of the colors by the 3rd United States Infantry Old Guard Continental Color Guard and the singing of the National Anthem by retired Army Master Sergeant Caleb Green. What so proud at the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming And that our flag was still oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave Circumstance artifacts, photographs and films in the holdings of the National Archives tell the story of America. And the mission of the National Archives is to protect, preserve and make these documents available to you, the American people. Here now is the person to whom our nation has entrusted the care of our documented history. Vietnam veteran and 10th Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero. Good morning, thanks to all of you for joining us in this 241st celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And greetings to the folks in 10 of our Presidential Libraries who are live streaming this ceremony this morning. I'm originally from Beverly, Massachusetts, the birthplace of the American Navy. In Beverly, the 4th of July meant a real bonfire built of kerosene-soaked barrels, fireworks at West Beach or a trip to Boston for the Boston Pops on the Esplanade, performing the 1812 overture and fireworks over the Charles River. And you all have your own 4th of July commemorations, a time for friends and family to gather and celebrate summer. My own view of this day changed when I became Archivist of the United States. I realized that we own this day. The 4th of July starts here, here at the National Archives building. We are the keeper of the original Declaration of Independence. This seminal document signed by our founding fathers. It is enshrined in the rotunda of the National Archives behind me. Just think of the courage it took to sign the Declaration and how important independence from England meant for them to risk their lives. It was an act of treason for those who signed. They became wanted men, traitors to the King. By the end of the Revolutionary War, more than half of the signers suffered direct personal consequences for their support of American independence. We have the signers to thank for the freedom and celebrations we enjoy today. The Declaration of Independence has had an amazing journey since it was signed on August 2nd, 1776. During the Revolutionary War, the Declaration was rolled up and moved from city to city as Congress moved to avoid capture by the British. When the British were burning Washington during the War of 1812, Secretary of State James Monroe directed State Department clerks to gather up the important documents and get them out of town. They wrapped the Declaration and other precious documents in bags of linen, commandeered wagons on the street, and in the dead of night, headed for Virginia with the records of the country. First, they hid the Declaration in an unused grist mill near Chain Bridge in Virginia, then in a private home in Leesburg until the war was over. During the 1800s, the Declaration was on exhibit for long periods at several locations in Washington where it was exposed to sunlight, fluctuating temperatures and humidity, all of which took their toll on the document. Finally, officials took note of these effects of aging and wrapped the Declaration and stored it flat at the State Department where it joined the Constitution until 1921 when President Harding signed in order to transfer both of these documents to the Library of Congress. Just before Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entrance into World War II, the Library sent the Declaration and the Constitution to Fort Knox for safekeeping, where they remained until September 1944 when they came back to the Library of Congress. Finally, the documents came to their rightful home here at the National Archives. The transfer occurred on December 13, 1952 with great pomp and circumstance and security as the newly encased Declaration of Independence was carried up these steps with a military procession into the Rotunda. And the Declaration of Independence was safe until 2004 when a good treasure hunter, Nicholas Cage, cleverly stole it during a party in this building to protect it from an evil treasure hunter. And our national treasure was miraculously and circuitously restored to its rightful place and now poses the most often question in the Rotunda, can we see the back? And I can tell you for certain that the only thing on the back of the Declaration are the words original Declaration of Independence dated 4 July 1776. So thanks for coming out today. The National Archives is home of the Declaration of Independence and July 4th starts here. Now let's take a trip back to the era of our independence with the colonial uniforms and music of the 3rd United States Infantry Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, the United States Army Military District of Washington under the command of Brigadier General Omar Jones is proud to present the United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps. The 3rd United States Infantry Regiment, the Old Guard traces its lineage back to George Washington's original Continental Army and today serves as the Army's official escort to the President of the United States. In 1960, the Fife and Drum Corps was organized to participate in official ceremonies and to revive our country's musical heritage. From the days of the American Revolution through the 19th century, fives, drums, and bugles were vital to military order and discipline. Field musicians were used to issue commands during battle and to regulate the duty day, signaling when to rise, when to eat, and when the day ends. This morning's show paints a series of pictures from the life of a Continental soldier musician. We open at the beginning of the duty day with a training scene. In the 18th century, signals like a tension and breakfast call would have sent the soldiers into action. Here, we begin with those signals and accompany their daily training with marching tunes including drums and guns and simple jasha. Declaration of Independence was our first act of unity as a nation. With a vision for a better way of life, we persevered against an unimaginable force at the threat of personal peril and impossible odds of success. That unifying moment established the two pillars of our national character, service and sacrifice. Over time, our character has been tested in many ways, from hurricanes and tornadoes to wildfires and floods. We have weathered the fiercest of natural disasters to help our communities heal and get back on their feet. During two world wars and several regional conflicts, we helped our allies on foreign fronts while we rolled up our sleeves, rationed, and sacrificed at home. We lifted ourselves from the depths of the Great Depression with the tenacity of public works programs, Social Security, and Medicare to ensure every American gets help when they need it. We fought back and stood strong against acts and threats of terrorism. And we continue to take strides towards creating a more perfect union and equality for all by seeking to right wrongs and provide justice to the oppressed. Americans respond in times of crisis, and we do not stop until the work is done. With service and sacrifice, we have overcome the monumental challenges of our past. And as was set forth so many years ago in the Declaration of Independence, it is these principles upon which we will persevere against the challenges we face now and in the future. This is who we are. This is America. The soldiers of the United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps wear uniforms patterned after those of General Washington's Continental Army. In order to be easily identified, military musicians wore the reverse colors of the regiment to which they were assigned. At that time, American infantry soldiers wore blue coats with red facings. Thus the musicians wore red coats with blue facings. At the end of the day, troops would often gather around the campfire to relax, and the musicians would provide entertainment. Picture yourselves in such a setting now as we feature the Fife and Bugle groups in a scene reminiscent of the soldier's respite following a challenging day. National Archives tradition for over 50 years. Join us now for a reading of the Declaration of Independence by our distinguished group of guests. General George Washington, Mr. John Hancock, and Mrs. Abigail Adams. In Congress, July 4th, 1776, the unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. And that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, and accordingly all experience hath soon that mankind are more disposed to suffer. While evils are sufferable, then to write themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object and visions are designed to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off government and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient's sufferance of these colonies and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations. All having indirect object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. Now to read the grievances against King George III, we have three of the leaders of the Second Continental Congress. Mr. Thomas Jefferson, Mr. John Adams and Dr. Benjamin Franklin. These gentlemen know the words of the declaration better than anyone else. All three served on the committee to draft the declaration. And Mr. Jefferson was the primary author. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operations till his assent should be obtained. And when so suspended he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature. A right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has repeatedly dissolved representative houses for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected whereby the legislative powers incapable of annihilation have returned to the people at large for their exercise. The state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and confusions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. The judge is dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to Randa the military independent of and superior to the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us for protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world for imposing taxes on us without our consent for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province establishing there in an arbitrary government and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies for taking away our charges, abolishing our most valuable laws and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments for suspending our legislatures and declaring themselves invested with the power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us He has plundered our seas ravaged our coasts He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country to become the executioners of their friends and brethren or to fall themselves by their hands He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions Mr. Adams In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren We have warned them from time to time of attempt by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us We have reminded them of their circumstances of emigration and settlement here We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and our correspondence They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and as we hold the rest of mankind enemies in war in peace, friends We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America and General Congress assembled appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions due in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are and have right ought to be free and independent states Allegiance to the British Crown political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally and that as free and independent states they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do And for the support of this declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence we humbly pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor 56 signers of the declaration these names will be read by private Edward Ned Hector of the Third Pennsylvania Artillery Company a free black colonial soldier, patriot and an American hero Which one of you out here has courage? Which one of you would be willing to sign your own death warrants? These people were willing to sign their own death warrant Attend now as I read their names The Honorable President of the Continental Congress John of Carrollton, Topkinson document is the secretary of the Continental Congress willing to sign this document Let us give them United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps drum line in a battle feature Please welcome the veterans and active duty service members of Voices of Service and their moving rendition of America the Beautiful for joining the National Archives July 4th celebration The ceremony is coming to a close but the spirit of our independence lives on Our national characteristics of service, sacrifice and unity will help us through these challenging times and for whatever challenges we face in the future The National Archives is honored to continue its mission to protect, preserve and make public the entirety of the American story Please visit archives.gov to learn more about the American story and how you are part of it We are one people, we are united, we are America Happy 4th of July from the National Archives The audience, did you hear how the people were behind what was read? Did you hear the spirit? We felt it and it was quite an electrifying time to be up there and to hear their response So this is the first one where I really get to see the expanse of the parade and really get to enjoy the portico and all the National Archives has to offer for the 4th of July Really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it and gives me a real good sense of history now The music was fantastic from the opening band all the way through to the Drum and Fife Corps It's the energy, the people Everybody's celebrating what a great country we have You can't get a better feeling for loving your country than being right here where it all started So this is the best place We're in the greatest city in the greatest country in the world and I just feel honored to be a part of it The festive atmosphere, everybody is having a great time It's a very American patriotic feel And check out the Declaration of Independence I see the Declaration of Independence on 4th of July I mean there's nothing better We're here to celebrate our nation's capital 4th of July with you guys and visit all the great monuments and all the festivities One reason where the archives exist is to show our founding documents and tell the American story Very special experience It's really special It's been wonderful Also patriotic Happy 4th of July Happy 4th of July