Congressmen voted for independence on July 2, 1776, then spent two days editing Thomas Jefferson’s draft of the text. They officially declared independence on July 4. In August they signed a carefully lettered parchment copy that today is housed in the National Archives. Worried that the original signed Declaration of Independence was fading, then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned engraver William Stone to create a copper plate to produce facsimiles of the text in 1823. This facsimile was printed from Stone’s plate.