The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America. [The Force Declaration of Independence].

$25,000.00

Item Number: 143242

Washington, D.C: Engraved by William J. Stone for Peter Force, [1833].

Rare engraved copy of Peter Force’s 1833 printing of the Declaration of Independence, from William J. Stone’s 1823 plate. One page, folio broadside. In 1823, with the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approaching, Congress commissioned Stone to produce a high-quality, actual-size replica of the original engrossed Declaration. The signatures of the 56 delegates were to be carefully copied. Stone spent two years perfecting the plate and after he had printed the 200 copies ordered, his original engraved plate remained with the Department of State. A decade later, Peter Force (1790-1868), historian, publisher and mayor of Washington D.C., conceived a massive 20-volume anthology entitled American Archives, containing copies of key letters, documents, and broadsides from the Revolutionary War. Congress agreed to fund an edition of 1,500 sets. For the project, Force arranged with the State Department to print 4,000 copies of the Declaration, from Stone’s original copperplate, on fine, wove paper. These printings included the alteration to the copperplate that is still evident: “W.J. Stone sc. Washington” in the lower right (lower left of the print). The “Force Declaration” is the most attainable example of the Stone Declaration on the market, though still quite rare. Accompanied by a copy of Peter Force’s American Archives: Fifth Series, containing A Documentary History of The United States of American, From the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, to the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, September 3, 1783. Volume I. [Washington: Published by M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force, 1848]. From 1837 to 1853, Force published nine volumes of his American Archives: A Documentary History of the United States, under the authority of Congress and the sponsorship of the State Department. Series V, Volume I included a facsimile engraving of the Declaration of Independence by William J. Stone. Though Congress canceled the project before completion in 1853, the many published volumes are an essential source for the history of the United States between 1774 and 1776. In 1867, Congress purchased Force’s collection of original documents for $100,000, and added them to the collections of the Library of Congress. In very good condition. Matted and framed.