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CHAPTER VII

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Thomas Jefferson [Va.] Drafts the Declaration-Eulogies of Jefferson as the Author of the Declaration by Daniel Webster and Edward Everett― Original Draft of the Declaration, with Corrections Showing the Final Draft-Signing and Promulgation of the Declaration-Speech of Samuel Adams [Mass.] on "American Independence.

THE Committee had delegated to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams the drafting of the Declaration, and Adams, with rare modesty, left this honorable task to Jefferson, confining himself to suggestions.

And Jefferson acquitted himself so well that, had he never written another line, his fame would have been imperishable, not only in America, but throughout the world, to which the Declaration stands as the supreme expression of natural rights and popular liberty. Said Daniel Webster, in his commemorative oration on Adams and Jefferson (1826):

"The merit of this paper is Mr. Jefferson's. Some changes were made in it, on the suggestion of other members of the committee, and others by Congress while it was under discussion. But none of them altered the tone, the frame, the arrangement, or the general character of the instrument. As a composition, the Declaration is Mr. Jefferson's. It is the production of his mind, and the high honor of it belongs to him, clearly and absolutely. . . To say that he performed his great work well would be doing him injustice. To say that he did excellently well, admirably well, would be inadequate and halting praise.

Let us rather say that he so discharged the duty assigned him that all Americans may well rejoice that the work of drawing the title-deed of their liberties devolved on his hands."

And Edward Everett, in his eulogy of Adams and Jefferson in the same year, said:

"To have been the instrument of expressing, in one brief, decisive act, the concentrated will and resolution of a whole family of states, of unfolding, in one all-important manifesto, the causes, the motives, and the justification of this great movement in human affairs; to have been permitted to give the impress and peculiarity of his own mind to a charter of public right, destined -or, rather, let me say, already elevated-to an importance in the estimation of men equal to any thing human, ever borne on parchment or expressed in the visible signs of thought-this is the glory of Thomas Jefferson."

The following text is the draft as presented to Congress, and as preserved in manuscript by the Department of State at Washington. John Adams also left behind him a copy of the draft in shorter form. Later Jefferson prepared a number of copies for his friends. That in the Madison collection is called "MS. A," and that in the Emmet collection is called "MS. B." The words with a white line drawn through them were stricken out in committee. The words within brackets were stricken out by Congress.1

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

REPORTED DRAFT

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled.

2

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a one people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained, & to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with other another and to assume among the powers of the earth the equal & independent separate and equal station to which the laws of nature & 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 change the separation.

We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable self-evident;

1 The text and accompanying annotations are reprinted from Vol. V of the "Journals of the Continental Congress," published by the Government Printing Office.

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In MS. A this word is in brackets.

In the engrossed form signed on August 2, 1776, the heading was changed to "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America."'

1

that all men are created equal, & independent; that from that equal creation they derive in they are endowed by their creator with equal rights some of which are certain [inherent &] inalienable rights; that among which these are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it's foundation on such principles & organising it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness. prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light & transient causes: and accordingly all experience hath shewn 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 & usurpations, [begun at a distinguished period, &] pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to subject reduce them to arbitrary power, under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government & to provide new guards for their future security. such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; & such is now the necessity which constrains them to [expunge] alter their former systems of government. the history of his the present Majesty King of Great Britain, is a history of [unremitting] repeated injuries and usurpations, [among which no one fact stands single or solitary appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, all of which [have] but] all having 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.]

2

he has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good:

he has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate & pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected utterly to attend to them.

he has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of

"Unalienable" in the engrossed form.

2 Against these three words Jefferson has written "Dr. Franklin's hand writing," but the insertion appears to have been made by Jefferson himself. "Against these four words Jefferson has written "Mr. Adams' hand writing."

large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, & formidable to tyrants only:

he has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, & distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures:

he has dissolved Representative houses repeatedly [& continually] for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people:

when dissolved he has refused for a long space of time time after such Dissolutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, & convulsions within:

he has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither; & raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands:

he has [suffered] obstructed the administration of justice [totally to cease in some of these colonics states,] by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers:

he has made [our] judges dependant on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount & payment 2 of their salaries:

3

he has erected a multitude of new offices [by a self-assumed power,] & sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our people & eat out their substance:

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he has kept among us in times of peace although our Con duct standing armies [& ships of war] without our the consent of our Legislatures:

he has affected to render the military, independent of & superior to the civil power:

he has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended acts of legislation, for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

for protecting them by a mock-trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

1 Against these four words Jefferson has written "Mr. Adams.''

2 Against these words Jefferson has written "Dr. Franklin."

MS. A reads "new officers."

These words were in the writing of John Adams.

for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

for imposing taxes on us without our consent;

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for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury;

for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences;

for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government and enlarging it's boundaries so as to render it at once an example & fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies [states] colonies;

2

for taking away our charters, abolishing our most important valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments,

for suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever: he has abdicated government here, [withdrawing his governors, & declaring us out of his allegiance & protection:] by declaring us out of his protection & waging war against us.3

he has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns & destroyed the lives of our people:

he is at this time transporting large armies of Scotch and other foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death desolation and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation:

he has constrained &c.5

he has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, & conditions [of existence:]

[he has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property:]

He has constrained others," falling into his hands taken cap

1MS. B omits these three words.

Against this phrase Jefferson has written "Dr. Franklin.''

MS. B omits the words "and waging war against us."

Omitted in engrossed copy.

"Probably a note of insertion for locating in the final form the third paragraph below. MS. A gives the final order of paragraphs, while MS. B follows the earlier arrangement. In the engrossed copy the paragraph appears here, beginning: "He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive," etc.

MS. A reads "our fellow citizens."

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