Declaration of Independence: Clever tweets condensing the document.

The Best Tweet Versions of the Declaration of Independence

The Best Tweet Versions of the Declaration of Independence

The inner workings of Slate.
July 4 2017 12:30 PM

The Declaration of Independence, Now Twitter Size

The winner of our #TinyDeclaration contest.

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John Silliman/Unsplash

Updated, July 4, 2017: Congratulations to @bchlivin, the winner of this year's #TinyDeclaration contest.

Thomas Jefferson didn’t have to worry about character count when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, but he didn’t have Tinder as a reference point either.

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The hundreds of entries to our #TinyDeclaration contest used a variety of methods to get at the same goal: condensing Jefferson’s historic statement into a single tweet. Some read like poems, others like legal briefs. One used only emojis. They referenced summer blockbusters, credit card marketing campaigns, and, yes, swiping left on King George.

These 15 finalists, in their different ways, succeed at compressing the heart of Jefferson’s document into 140 characters.

The winning tweet will be chosen by a panel consisting of Slate editor-in-chief Julia Turner, archivist David Ferriero, and author Brad Meltzer, and announced on Tuesday by the National Archives, our partners in this contest, at their July 4 celebration.