Life of Thomas Jefferson

8. Declaration of Independence

After having approved the original motion asserting their independence, Congress proceeded the same day, July 2nd, to consider the Declaration of Independence, which had been reported the 28th of June and ordered to lie on the table. The debates were again renewed with great violence -- greater than before. Tremendous was the ordeal through which the title-deed of our liberties, perfect as it had issued from the hands of its artificer, was destined to pass. Inch by inch was its progress through the House disputed. Every dictum of peculiar political force and almost every expression was made a subject of acrimonious animadversion by the anti-revolutionists. On the other side, the champions of Independence contended with the constancy of martyrs for every tenet and every word of the precious gospel of their faith. Among the latter class, the Author of the Declaration himself has assigned to John Adams the station of preeminence. Thirty-seven years afterwards, he declared that "Mr. Adams was the pillar of its support on the floor of Congress, its ablest advocate and defender against the multifarious assaults it encountered." At another time, he said, "John Adams was our Colossus on the floor. Not graceful, not elegant, not always fluent in his public addresses, he yet came out with a power both of thought and of expression which moved us from our seats."

The debates were continued with unremitting heat through the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th days of July, till on the evening of the last -- the most important day perhaps, politically speaking, that the world ever saw -- they were brought to a close. The principle of unanimity finally prevailed; reciprocal concessions, sufficient to unite all on the solid ground of the main purpose, were made. In the generous spirit of compromise, however, some of the most splendid specifications in the American Character were surrendered. On some of these it is well known the author himself set the highest value, as recognizing principles to which he was enthusiastically partial and which were almost peculiar to him. His scorching malediction against the traffickers in human blood stood conspicuously among the latter. The light in which he viewed these depredations upon the original may be gathered from the following memorandum of the transaction in which also he betrays a fact in relation to New England that was not generally known.

For purposes of comparing the original with the amended form, a portion of the Preamble to the Declaration, and the entire section relating to the slave trade, shall be presented as it came from the hands of the author. The parts of the Preamble stricken out by Congress are shown in italics, and enclosed in brackets; and those inserted by them are placed in the margin. The entire section relating to the slave trade was stricken by Congress.

A Declaration by the Representatives of the UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA, in General Congress Assembled.

When in the course of human events it
becomes necessary for one people to dissolve
the political bands which have connected
them with another, and to assume among the
powers of the earth the separate and equal
station to which the laws of nature and of
nature's God entitle them, a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind requires that
they should declare the causes which impel
them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal; that they
are endowed by their Creator with [inherent . . . . . . . . . certain
and] inalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;
that to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed;
that whenever any form of government be-
comes destructive of these ends, it is the
right of the people to alter or abolish it, and
to institute new government, laying its foun-
dation on such principles, and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem
most likely to effect their safety and happi-
ness. Prudence indeed will dictate that
governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shown that
mankind are more disposed to suffer while
evils are sufferable, than to right themselves
by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses
and usurpations [begun at a distinguished pe-
riod and] pursuing invariably the same ob-
ject, evinces a design to reduce them under
absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their
duty to throw off such government, and to
provide new guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these
colonies; and such is now the necessity which
constrains them to [expunge] their former . . . . . . . . . . . alter
systems of government. The history of the
present king of Great Britain is a history of
[unremitting] injuries and usurpations, . . . . . . . . . . . . . repeated
[among which appears no solitary fact to con-
tradict the uniform tenor of the rest, but all . . . . . . . . . all having
have] in direct object the establishment of an
absolute tyranny over these states. To prove
this, let facts be submitted to a candid world
[for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet
unsullied by falsehood.]

[He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.]

The sentiments of men are known by what they reject as well as by what they receive, and the comparison of the entire original with the amended form will demonstrate the singular forwardness of one mind on certain great principles of Political Science. The complete document with the original and amended form is available at the following location:

The Declaration of Independence
This presentation includes the complete text of Jefferson's original version with the changes made by Congress.

The world has long since passed judgment upon the relative merits of these two forms of the American Declaration and awarded the meed of preeminence to the primitive one. The amendments obliterated some of its best and brightest features, impaired the beauty and force of others, and softened the general tone of the whole instrument.

The Declaration thus amended in committee of the whole was reported to the House on the 4th of July, agreed to, and signed by every member present except Mr. Dickinson. On the 19th of July it was ordered to be engrossed on parchment, and on the 2nd of August, the engrossed copy, after being compared at the table with the original, was ordered to be signed by every member.

On the same day that Independence was declared, Mr. Jefferson was appointed one of a committee of three to devise an appropriate Coat of Arms for the republic of the "United States of America."

The Declaration was received by the people with unbounded admiration and joy. On the 8th of July, it was promulgated with great solemnity at Philadelphia and saluted by the assembled multitude with peals on peals of acclamation. On the 11th, it was published in New York and proclaimed before the American Army then assembled in the vicinity with all the pomp and circumstance of a military pageant. It was received with exultation by the collected chivalry of the Revolution. They filled the air with their shouts and shook the earth with the thunders of their artillery. In Boston, the popular transports were unparalleled. The national manifesto was proclaimed from the balcony of the capitol in the presence of all the authorities, civil and military, and of an innumerable concourse of people. An immense banquet was prepared at which the authorities and all the principal citizens attended and drank toasts expressive of enthusiastic veneration for liberty and of detestation of tyrants. The rejoicings were continued through the night, and every ensign of royalty that adorned either the public or private edifice was demolished before morning.

Similar demonstrations of patriotic enthusiasm attended the reception of the Declaration in all the cities and chief towns of the continent.

In Virginia, the annunciation was greeted with graver tokens of public felicitation. The Convention decreed that the name of the King should be expunged from the liturgy of the established religion. All the remaining emblems of royal authority were superseded by appropriate representations of the new order of things. A new coat of arms for the commonwealth was immediately ordered.

The author of the Declaration himself was not unconscious of the amazing consequences which would flow from it when thus ushered before the world as the simultaneous fiat of the whole people. On the contrary, they formed the theme of his constant reflection and of his proudest prognostications. The emancipation of the whole family of nations as the ultimate result was the immovable conviction of his mind. It was in unison with the reveries of his early youth, and experience but confirmed him in the animating presentiment. Stirring effusions upon this topic abound in his private memoranda and in his familiar correspondence with friends. Speaking of the French Revolution as the first link in the chain of great consequences, he says in his notes upon that ill-starred drama:

Again, in a letter to John Adams in 1823, the kindling prophecy is pursued.

Such are the ulterior tendencies and probable results of this stupendous act. Enough has already been recounted to demonstrate that the author was scarcely more happy in originating its principles than in predicting its glorious consequences.

The term for which Mr. Jefferson had been elected to Congress expired on the 11th of August, '76, and he had communicated to the Convention of Virginia in June preceding, his intention to decline a re-appointment. But his excuses were overruled by that body, and he was unanimously re-elected. On receiving intelligence of the result, gratifying as it evidently was, he addressed a second letter to the chairman of the Convention in which he adhered to his original resolution as follows:

He continued in Congress until the 2nd of September following, when his successor having arrived, he resigned his seat and returned to Virginia.
Thus closed the extraordinary career of Mr. Jefferson in the Continental Congress. His actual attendance in that renowned Legislature had been only about nine months, and yet he had succeeded in impressing his character in distinct and legible traces upon the whole. The result is remarkable when considered in connection with his immature age. He had at this time attained only his thirty-third year, and was the youngest man but one in the session of '76.

We have been restrained by our design to the capital and distinguishing points in his course. The minor features of his service while engaged in conducting the general administration were proportioned to the same standard; but they are shorn of all interest by the overshadowing importance of his labors in the cause of the Revolution. In the multiplied transactions of a subordinate character which engaged the attention of the House, he sustained a corresponding reputation. To estimate the extent of his labors, it is only necessary to turn over the journals of Congress. In constituting the committees of importance, it was the policy, in general, to put Virginia at the head; and the effect of this policy was to throw him into the situation of chairman unusually often. No member probably served on more committees or executed a greater amount of business in proportion to his term of service than he did. The union of great practical ability with uncommon theoretical acuteness is an anomaly in the constitution of man. It is proverbial, however, that he displayed a promptitude no less remarkable in the ordinary details of legislation than in the high concerns of an abstract and metaphysical nature which were committed to him.

The retirement of Mr. Jefferson from a stage of action on which he had performed so much in the zenith of human popularity and at the first crisis of Independence may appear unaccountable with the lights already in the possession of the reader. The motives assigned by him seem clearly disproportioned to the act, reasoning from all analogy applicable to the human character at large, and compel us to resort to more competent sources of information for a satisfactory solution of the mystery. The real and controlling motive of his resignation, but which his modesty would not permit him to urge to the Convention, is found inserted among his private "Memoirs." It is alike curious and honorable. He says, "The new government [in Virginia] was now organized, a meeting of the legislature was to be held in October, and I had been elected a member by my county. I knew that our legislation under the regal government had many very vicious points which urgently required reformation, and I thought I could be of more use in forwarding that work. I therefore retired from my seat in Congress on the 2nd of September, resigned it, and took my place in the legislature of my State on the 7th of October." (Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:53)

The whole secret of the transaction is here unveiled, and is singularly in unison with the reigning attribute of his character. Those who recollect the irrepressible anxiety which he felt for Virginia while in the crisis of her transition from the monarchical to the republican state, and the severe requisition which he made upon his own industry to secure the greatest practicable measure of freedom and liberality there, will be impressed with the admirable steadiness of purpose which influenced his present determination. The new government in the first province of free empire was now fairly put in motion, and he felt an invincible desire to participate in the measures of the first republican Legislature under it. Everything, he conceived, depended upon the stamp of political integrity that should be impressed upon the new institutions of a State government which was to set the example in the area of republican legislation, and which constituted so influential a member of the incipient confederacy. The principles of her present legal code were incompatible with the enjoyment of any considerable benefits under the change of administration, and required a fundamental revision and reduction to a consistent standard. The English common law with its odious and despotic refinements of feudal origin was in full force. Many of the British statutes of the most obnoxious character still existed, while the Virginia statutes themselves were scarcely less aristocratic and hostile to well-regulated liberty, presenting together an unwieldy and vicious mass of legislation, civil and religious, which, to the mind of the political reformer, presented stronger attractions than the scene in which he had just been distinguished by his labors. To have descended from an eminence in Congress which placed him near the helm of the Revolution to the subordinate station of representative to the municipal assembly was an act of magnanimity of which history furnishes few examples; but he was impressed with the necessity of carrying into action the sound principles which he had meditated during the first effort of emancipation; and now he thought was a propitious moment to place them on a safe foundation.

With the special design, therefore, of heading in person the great work of political regeneration which he had sketched for his country and for mankind, he early signified his determination to relinquish his station in the National Councils, and was immediately thereupon elected to a seat in the Legislature of Virginia.

Before following him into that body, however, the order of time requires us to notice a singular mark of distinction conferred on him by Congress. He had been absent from Philadelphia but a few days before he received the appointment of Commissioner to France with Dr. Franklin to negotiate treaties of alliance and commerce with that government. Silas Dean, then in France, acting as agent for procuring military supplies and for sounding the dispositions of the government towards us, was joined with them in the commission. The appointment was made on the last day of September, 1776. Greater importance was attached to the successful issue of this mission than to any other that had yet been meditated. The prevailing object of declaring Independence had been to secure the countenance and assistance of foreign powers; and towards France, whose friendship and co-operation appeared most likely to be obtained, the hopes of the country were undividedly directed.

If anything could mark more unequivocally the respect of Congress for the abilities of Mr. Jefferson by this appointment, it was the fact of their having associated a young man of thirty-three with a venerable philosopher of seventy, then the most distinguished civil character in America.

But the same reasons which influenced his retirement from Congress induced him to decline accepting the foreign station also, as appears by the following letter addressed to the President of Congress.

A more adequate and interesting revelation of his motives than is contained in the above letter is found among his private "Memoirs." After repeating the domestic causes already stated, he says: "I saw, too, that the laboring oar was really at home where much was to be done of the most permanent interest in new-modeling our governments, and much to defend our fanes and firesides from the desolations of an invading enemy pressing on our country in every point. I declined, therefore, and Dr. Lee was appointed in my place." (Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:75)

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