The distinctive rhetorical power of the Declaration of Independence comes from the way, out of the disputed political history of the American Crisis, the Declaration displays a calming panoramic view for each of its readers and audiors. But what is a panorama? The word was coined by the Irish painter Robert Barker, the inventor of the visual panorama, by merging the Greek for pan, "all," + orama, "that which is seen." Barker's panorama was built in Leicester Square and granted a patent by Parliament in 1787. (See diagrams at right). It featured a raised platorm accessd by stairs, from which observers could see a 360 degree view of a large curved painting that was illuminated by indirect natural light. What results is an "unbroken view," a "complete and comprehensive survey or presentation of a subject." (OED) It is crucial to the art of the panorama that it brings what is remote close, it minituralizes in order to incorporate 'all' into a grand panoramic view. What results is a view of great cities or battlefields that have a detail, proximity and scope that was extracted from nature but would be impossible to experience within nature. Panoramas delighted the 19th century spectators who flocked to them.

Why would a verbal panorama be a useful way for Congress, and the Declaration's drafter Jefferson, to represent the the political crisis of 1776? We can develop one answer to that question by quoting Bruno Latour on the beneficial effects of the art of the panorama:

"Far from being the place where everything happens, as in their director’s dreams, [panoramas] are local sites to be added as so many new places dotting the flattened landscape we try to map. But even after such a downsizing, their role may become central since they allow spectators, listeners, and readers to be equipped with a desire for wholeness and centrality. It is from those powerful stories that we get our metaphors for what “binds us together,” the passions we are supposed to share, the general outline of society’s architecture, the master narratives with which we are disciplined." (Latour, Reassembling the Social, 2005, 189)

To bind together American Whigs and equip them "with a desire for wholeness and centrality" was the central rhetorical aim of the Declaration of 1776.