The mystery of the Declaration of Independence

Why the Declaration of Independence was titled ‘the United States of }|{merica.’ And why the copy of Declaration was found in Kiev.

This story dates back to the last year July when the author had been researching documents in the department of paper materials of the Central State Archives of the Foreign History of Ukraine in Kiev. A disturbed had of achieves, Nickolay Fedorovich Kislenko approached and told me: “Let’s go, I’ll show you something. You’ve never seen anything like this before”. They found a large and thick folder with an encrusted binding signed with emulsion “ North America . The War 1775- 83” on one of the shelves of storage rooms. A decomposed thrice folded sheet of the Declaration of Independence of the USA of 1776 was among letters, engravings, different posters and leaflets.

The text of the Declaration was authorized on July 4, 1776, and it was signed by two persons – the President of the Congress, John Hancock, and the secretary, Charles Thompson. That same day, the typographer John Dunlap, printed the pages with the text (now there are only 24 copies of these printed pages), which were distributed next day among different legislative houses, agencies, and committees.

They started to write the Declaration of Independence, known in its present calligraphic form, on July 19, and it was actually signed by the representatives of the Continental Congress on August 2, 1776.

Even a reader with the most vivid imagination cannot think of the surprise of the researcher when he saw the words:

The last thing it was left to do was to understand how the subject the American nation is so proud of, could be found in the archives in Kiev . And why this historically important document was titled the United States of }|{merica.

On July 19, 1776 the Congress ruled the Declaration had to be “properly rewritten in large letters on the parchment titled “The Unanimous Declaration of Thirteen United States of America” and […] signed by all members of the Congress.

The assistant of Charles Thompson, Timothy Mattlack was responsible for the calligraphic work. At this point the official chronicle is changing its tone in all sources, and the further information is quite fragmentary. It is only known that the delegates of the Congress signed the document on August 2.

After that the dark period in the history of the 61.5*75,5 sheet of paper begins. The declaration was folded and hidden in the archive. All this time the document was not shown to anyone, but only leaflets with the text had been spreading. In the mean time, the original was moved from one archive to another, until 1814 when it was found in the city of Washington.

As the matter of fact, the real name of Timothy Mattlack, who had written the text of the Declaration, was Tomyslav Mattlackovsky. A Few years before the Revolution in the New World, he left the Bratslav voyevodstvo, and flew to America, where he started to work as a brewer, than joined the Quacker movement, and finally started his political career.

Sometimes he was ordered to do calligraphic work – he wrote some important documents, including the Bill on the Appointment of George Washington the commander in chief of the Continental army.

The author visited Kiev several times more this year, and found a parish book in the Central State Archive of the Ministry of Health, which read that Mattlackovsky originated from }|{merinca (a town from 1903), near Vinnitsa.

In all probability, Mattlackovsky, being nostalgic, used a mixture of alphabets while writing the heading, and the members of the Congress did not notice anything wrong on the day the Declaration was signed. However, Charles Thompson found it next day, since he ordered to hide the original immediately and not to show to anyone, and Mattlack was demoted from the secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to the delegate of the Congress from the same state.

There were two attempts to make a facsimile of the Declaration undertaken in 1818 and 1819. But the copies were recognized as useless for mass distribution because specialists responsible for copying had decorated the document with drawings and patterns. The Congress’s task was to make a precise copy that should be accessible to the public. It was William G. Stone who was responsible for this work in 1820. The process of copying took three years, after which the State Department purchased the print from the specialist.

On June 5, 1823, the Washington department of “National Intelligencer” remarked that “The opportunity to make copies [of the Declaration] that the State Department has at the moment, makes the further demonstration of the original unnecessary”.

The result of the meticulous work was the version that is nowadays sold as posters.

Stone did not solve two problems: the problem of the letter ‘}|{‘ and the problem of asymmetry of the heading in respect to the body of the text.

According to all norms of that time, the heading should be either of the same width that the body of the text, or be in the centre, but the special commission of the Congress considered the inexactitude admissible. Stone persuaded the members of the commission that ignorant viewers would be sure that they saw the letter ‘A’.

Since that epoch, the original had not been shown to anyone and there had been no information about its fate. Since the middle of the 19 th century, the old copy had been exhibiting, which is under the thick glass in the Hall of Freedom Charters in the building of the National Archives in Washington even nowadays.

The plot of the film “The Treasure of the Nation”, with Nicholas Cage starring, was based on the story of this copy. It is noteworthy, the producers ordered avoid showing the heading in close up, and all posters are made as collages, where the letter ‘}|{‘ is hidden in somehow. Americans think that the excessive attention to the historical mistake is unnecessary.

The view from a different point

The limited number of privileged people has learned immediately about the finding. It was decided to present the artifact to America . As the author has been working on the problems of the origin of the heading (which have disturbed nobody anymore), a diplomatic problem rose. The problem was that Zhmyrinka was under Polish rule at the moment of the creation of the Declaration. In 1793, }|{merinca was included in Podolsk gubernia, Russia , and after the fall of the USSR , it turned to be a part of Ukraine.

Secret political ‘games’ were launched on the top level concerning the question what country should gift the artifact. The main country that had the right to give the original, naturally, was Ukraine , though Poland and Russia also laid their claims.

Summer 2004 was the period of a fierce struggle between Victor Yushchenko and Victor Yanukovich for presidency in Ukraine . It was extremely noteworthy that Yushchenko wanted to present the Declaration of Independence to Bush in person, while Yanukovich declared that he would exhibit the historical document in the Donetsk Local-History Museum as an attraction for tourists. Putin, in his turn, supported Yanukovich, since he was convinced that he would trade the Declaration out after the elections and gift it to Bush himself.

The President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, delayed the meeting with the Polish President Alexander Kwasnewski appointed on October 25, 2004 in order to avoid the debates concerning the Polish involvement in the affair. On October 26, Putin arrived in Ukraine but he was hinted at the fact that Russia cannot count for a right to present the Declaration. In a month, the former President of Poland, Lech Valensa arrived in Kiev but his visit was also fruitless.

Then, in October, Putin, during his visit to Chili, as he wanted to be on the ball, he told George Bush about the finding during their meeting and promised to present it in person. At the beginning of December, Kuchma arrived in Moscow where he told Putin pointblank what he thought about his behaviour and flew away immediately. On February 22, 2005, during a seven minute meeting in Brussels, Yushchenko informed Bush that he had the Declaration and that he would bring it to the USA when he would visit this country at the beginning of April (the same day it was told that the meeting with Putin, which was supposed to be two days later, would be reduced substantially).

Being happy, Bush organized the press-conference, at which he compared publicly Yushchenko to George Washington.

The public could hardly appreciate the real value of the complement at that moment.