When the Declaration reached Savannah on August 8, 1776, President of the Council of Safety Archibald Bullock read it first to colleagues, then publicly on August 10th in three locations: the Battery, the Liberty Pole, and the Assembly. Georgia’s delegates to the Continental Congress—Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, and George Walton—had been authorized to support whatever the Congress deemed best for the common cause. They voted for and signed the Declaration without recorded dissent. Individual reactions remain largely unknown because the Georgia Gazette had largely stopped printing and little personal correspondence survives. Georgia’s leaders understood the document as elevating a colonial dispute into a genuine revolution, asserting the natural right of self-governance without kings, priests, or nobles. The fall 1776 constitutional convention translated this understanding into Georgia’s first constitution, ratified in 1777. The defining elements were a weak executive, broad voting rights for white male property holders, disestablishment of the Anglican Church, and exclusion of ministers from public office.
Interviewees
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Stan Deaton
- Dr. Elaine B. Andrews Distinguished Historian, Georgia Historical Society
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Christy Crisp
- Vice President of Education and Programs, Georgia Historical Society
