The Declaration of independence : a study in the history of political ideas |
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| II. |
| III. |
 | IV. | CHAPTER IV |
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| VI. |
 | CHAPTER IV The Declaration of independence : |  |
CHAPTER IV
DRAFTING THE DECLARATION
The committee appointed June 11, 1776, to
prepare a declaration of independence consisted
of Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and
Robert R. Livingston. In his Autobiography,[1]
written in 1805, and again in a letter to Pickering,
written in 1822, Adams says that the Committee
of Five decided upon "the articles of
which the declaration was to consist," and it
then appointed Jefferson and himself a subcommittee
to "draw them up in form." When
the sub-committee met, he says,
Jefferson proposed to me to make the draught, I said
I will not; You shall do it. Oh no! Why will you not?
You ought to do it. I will not. Why? Reasons enough.
What can be your reasons? Reason 1st. You are a
Virginian and a Virginian ought to appear at the head
of this business. Reason 2nd. I am obnoxious, suspected
and unpopular; you are very much otherwise. Reason
3rd. You can write ten times better than I can. `Well,'
as I can.' Very well, when you have drawn it up we will
have a meeting.[2]
Jefferson's account is different. Writing to
Madison in 1823, he says:
Mr. Adams memory has led him into unquestionable
error. At the age of 88 and 47 years after the transactions,
. . . this is not wonderful. Nor should I . . .
venture to oppose my memory to his, were it not supported
by written notes, taken by myself at the moment
and on the spot. . . . The Committee of 5 met, no such
thing as a sub-committee was proposed, but they unanimously
pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught.
I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the
committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin
and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections; . . . and
you have seen the original paper now in my hands, with
the corrections of Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams interlined
in their own handwriting. Their alterations were two or
three only, and merely verbal. I then wrote a fair copy,
reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered
to the Congress.[3]
This `original paper' of which Jefferson speaks,
`with the corrections of Dr. Franklin and Mr.
Adams interlined in their own handwriting,' is
commonly known as the Rough Draft. It has
been preserved, and may now be seen in the
Library of Congress in Washington, or, in excellent
facsimile, in Mr. Hazelton's indispensable
work on the Declaration of Independence.[4]
A more interesting paper, for those who are
curious about such things, is scarcely to be
found in the literature of American history. But
the inquiring student, coming to it for the first
time, would be astonished, perhaps disappointed,
if he expected to find in it nothing more than
the `original paper . . . with the corrections of
Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams interlined in their
own handwriting.' He would find, for example,
on the first page alone nineteen corrections,
of Adams and Franklin. It would
probably seem to him at first sight a bewildering
document, with many phrases crossed out,
numerous interlineations, and whole paragraphs
enclosed in brackets. Can this be the `original
paper' which Jefferson refers to? Can this be
the Rough Draft which Jefferson submitted to
Franklin and Adams?
Yes and no. Jefferson seemed not to be aware
that future students of history would wish to
see the `original paper' just as he wrote it; on
the contrary, this precious sheet was to him a
rough draft indeed, upon which he could conveniently
indicate whatever changes might be
made in the process of getting the Declaration
through the Committee of Five, and afterward
through Congress. The Rough Draft in its
present form is thus the `original paper,' together
with all, or nearly all, the corrections,
additions, and erasures made between the day
on which Jefferson submitted it to Franklin and
Adams and the 4 of July when Congress
adopted the Declaration in its final form. The
inquiring student, if he has the right kind of
curiosity, will not after all be disappointed to
learn this; on the contrary, he will be delighted
at the prospect of reading, in this single document,
with some difficulty it is true, the whole
Independence.
In this history there are obviously three stages
of importance: the Declaration as originally
written by Jefferson; the Declaration as submitted
by the Committee of Five to Congress;
the Declaration as finally adopted. The Declaration
as finally adopted is to be found in the
Journals of Congress; but that `fair copy'
which Jefferson speaks of as the report of the
Committee of Five has not been preserved;[5]
while the original Rough Draft, as we have
a memorandum upon which to note the later
changes. How then can we reconstruct the
text of the Declaration as it read when Jefferson
first submitted it to Franklin and Adams?
For example, Jefferson first wrote "we hold
these truths to be sacred & undeniable." In
the Rough Draft as it now reads, the words
"sacred & undeniable" are crossed out, and
"self-evident" is written in above the line.
Was this correction made by Jefferson in process
of composition? Or by the Committee of Five?
Or by Congress? There is nothing in the Rough
Draft itself to tell us. As it happens, John
Adams made a copy of the Declaration which
still exists.[6] Comparing this copy with the
corrected Rough Draft, we find that it incorporates
only a very few of the corrections:
one of the two corrections which Adams himself
wrote into the Rough Draft; one, or possibly
two, of the five corrections which Franklin
wrote in; and eight verbal changes apparently in
Jefferson's hand. This indicates that Adams
must have made his copy from the Rough
Draft when it was first submitted to him; and
we may assume that the eight verbal changes, if
Adams' copy, were there when Jefferson first
submitted the Draft to Adams — that is, they
were corrections which Jefferson made in process
of composing the Rough Draft in the first instance.
With Adams' copy in hand it is therefore
possible to reconstruct the Rough Draft
as it probably read when first submitted to
Franklin.
THE ROUGH DRAFT
(as it probably read when Jefferson
first submitted it to Franklin.)[7]
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 a people to advance from that subordination
in which they have hitherto remained, & to assume
among the powers of the earth the equal & independent
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
requires that they should declare the causes which impel
them to the change.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,[8]
sacred and undeniable,
that all men are created equal & independent; that from
that equal creation they derive in rights inherent &
inalienable,[9]
among which are the preservation of life,
& liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure
these ends, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
that whenever any form of government shall become
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 & organizing
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
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, 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 their former
systems of government. the history of his present majesty
is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations,
among which no one fact stands single or solitary to contradict
the uniform tenor of the rest, all of which 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[11] by falsehood.
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[12]
& pressing importance, unless suspended in their
operation till his assent should be obtained; and when
so suspended, he has neglected utterly to attend to
them.
he has refused to pass other laws for the accomodation
of 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 dissolved Representative houses repeatedly &
continually, for opposing with manly firmness his
invasions on the rights of the people:
he has dissolved, he has refused for a long space of time
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 meantime 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
he has suffered the administration of justice totally to
cease in some of these colonies, refusing his assent to
laws for establishing judiciary powers:
he has made our judges dependent on his will alone, for
the tenure of their offices, and amount of their salaries:
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:
he has kept among us in times of peace standing armies
& ships of war:
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[13]
and unacknoleged by our
laws; giving his assent to their 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;
for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
for imposing taxes on us without our consent;
for depriving us of the benefits of trial by jury;
for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended
offenses;
for taking away our charters, & altering fundamentally
the forms of our governments;
for suspending our own legislatures & 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:
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 foreign
mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation
& tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty
& perfidy unworthy the head of a civilized nation:
he 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
of our property:
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself,
violating it's most sacred rights[15]
of life & liberty in
the persons of a distant people who never offended
him, captivating & 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 & sold,] he
has prostituted his negative for suppressing every
legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this
execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold:[16]
: 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 upon 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.
for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated
petitions have been answered by repeated injury.[17]
a
prince whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a
people who mean to be free. future ages will scarce
believe that the hardiness of one man, adventured within
the short compass of twelve years only, on so many
acts of tyranny without a mask, over a people fostered
& fixed in principles[18]
of liberty.
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British
brethren. we have warned them from time to time of
attempts by their legislature to extend a jurisdiction
over these our states. we have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration & settlement here, no
one of which could warrant so strange a pretension: that
these were effected at the expence of our own blood &
Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our several
forms of government, we had adopted one common
king, thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league
& amity with them: but that submission to their parliament
was no part of our constitution, nor ever in
idea, if history may be credited: and we appealed to
their native justice & magnanimity, as well as to the
ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations
which were likely to interrupt our correspondence &
connection. they too have been deaf to the voice of
justice & of consanguinity, & when occasions have been
given them, by the regular course of their laws, of
removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony,
they have by their free election re-established
them in power. at this very time too they are permitting
their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers
of our common blood, but Scotch & foreign mercenaries
to invade & deluge us in blood. these facts have given
the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit
bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren.
we must endeavor to forget our former love for them,
and to hold them as we hold the rest of mankind,
a free & a great people together; but a communication
of grandeur & of freedom it seems is below their
dignity. be it so, since they will have it: the road to
glory & happiness & to glory is open to us too; we will climb it
apart from them, in a separately state, and acquiesce in the necessity
which de pronounces our everlasting Adieu! eternal separation!
We therefore the representatives of the United States
of America in General Congress assembled do, in the
name & by authority[19]
of the good people of these
states, reject and renounce all allegiance & subjection
to the kings of Great Britain & all others who may hereafter
claim by, through, or under them; we utterly
dissolve and break off all political connection which
may have heretofore subsisted between us & the people
or parliament of Great Britain; and finally we do assert
and declare these colonies to be free and independent
states, and that as free & independent states they shall
hereafter have full power to levy war, conclude peace,
contract alliances, establish commerce, & to do all
other acts and things which independent states may of
mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes,
& our sacred honour.
Such, substantially, must have been the form
of the Rough Draft when Jefferson first submitted
it to Franklin. Between that day,
whenever it was, and the 28 of June when the
report of the Committee of Five was presented
to Congress (it will presently appear how the
report of the Committee can be approximately
reconstructed), a total of twenty-six alterations
were made in the Rough Draft. Twenty-three
of these were changes in phraseology —
two in Adams' hand, five in Franklin's, and
sixteen apparently in Jefferson's. Besides these
verbal changes, three entirely new paragraphs
were added. If this be true, what are we to
make of Jefferson's account of the matter in
his letter to Madison? In this letter, quoted
above, Jefferson says that having prepared the
Draft he submitted it to "Dr. Franklin and
Mr. Adams requesting their corrections; . . .
their alterations were two or three only, and
merely verbal. I then wrote a fair copy, reported
it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to
the Congress." Jefferson here asserts that no
changes were made in the Committee, and he
implies that none except those in the handwriting
before the `fair copy' was presented to the Committee.
Either in the assertion or in the implication
Jefferson's statement must be inaccurate.
Jefferson was probably right in the assertion
that no changes were made in the Committee.
He tells us that he submitted the Draft to Franklin
and Adams first because they were the men
whose corrections he most wished to have the
benefit of. Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams
were themselves a majority of the Committee;
and if the draft was satisfactory to them it is
quite likely that it would pass the Committee
without change. Besides, there is no evidence
to contradict Jefferson's statement on this
point. What I suppose then is that the twenty-six
alterations were all made before the `fair
copy' (or the Rough Draft, if Jefferson was
mistaken in thinking there was a `fair copy'
was submitted to the Committee, and that
these changes were the result of at least two,
perhaps more, consultations between Jefferson
and Franklin, and between Jefferson and Adams.
Jefferson must have submitted the Draft to
both Franklin and Adams at least twice, because
the copy which Adams took contains only two
of the five corrections which Franklin wrote into
the Draft, and only one of the two which Adams
himself wrote in. It was after Adams made his
that Franklin wrote in three of his corrections,
and that Jefferson wrote in the three
new paragraphs and sixteen verbal changes.
Now there is nothing to show whether the corrections
in Jefferson's hand were made before
or after the later corrections by Franklin and
Adams. I think we may assume that Jefferson,
having written in three new paragraphs and sixteen
verbal changes, would scarcely venture to
make a `fair copy' for the Committee, or, if
there was no fair copy, would he be likely to
present the Rough Draft thus corrected to the
Committee, without having first submitted the
Draft thus amended to Franklin and Adams
for their final approval. Is it not then likely
that it was on the occasion of this final submission
of the corrected Draft to Franklin and
Adams that they wrote in the corrections which
appear in their hands but are not in the copy
which Adams made?
The order of events in correcting the Rough
Draft cannot in most respects be known; but
I should guess that it was somewhat as follows.
Having prepared the Draft, in which were
eight slight verbal corrections made in process
of composition, Jefferson first submitted it to
Franklin. Franklin then wrote in one, and probably
two, of the five corrections that appear in
of their salaries," Franklin changed it to read,
"and the amount & payment of their salaries." A second
correction by Franklin was probably made at
this time also. Jefferson originally wrote "reduce
them to arbitrary power." Franklin's correction
reads "reduce them under absolute
Despotism." But Adams' copy reads "reduce
them under absolute power," which is
neither the original nor the corrected reading,
but a combination of both. Adams may of
course have made a mistake in copying (he
made a number of slight errors in copying);
or it may be that at this time Franklin wrote
in "under absolute" in place of "to arbitrary,"
and that not until later, after Adams made his
copy, was "power" crossed out and "Despotism"
written in. In the original manuscript,
"Despotism" appears to have been written with
a different pen, or with heavier ink, than "under
Absolute," as if written at a different time. At
all events, not more than two of Franklin's five
corrections had been made when Jefferson submitted
the Draft to Adams. Adams then
wrote in one of his two corrections: where
Jefferson had written "for a long space of time,"
Adams added "after such dissolutions." Having
made this correction, Adams made his copy
returned the Draft to Jefferson.
After receiving the Draft from Adams, Jefferson
wrote in, at least the greater part of the
sixteen verbal changes, and three new paragraphs.
The verbal changes he probably made
on his own initiative; they were mere improvements
in phraseology, such as would be likely
to occur to him upon rereading. He may likewise
have added the three new paragraphs on
his own initiative; but I think it extremely
likely that Adams suggested the addition of the
paragraph about calling legislative bodies at
places remote from their public records. This
had actually occurred in Massachusetts, and
who more likely than Adams to remember it,
or to wish to have it included in the list of
grievances? This at least we know, that Jefferson
wrote out on a slip of paper the following
paragraph:
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.
The slip was then pasted at one end to the Rough
Draft at the place where occurs the paragraph
beginning, "he has dissolved Representative
other paragraphs which Jefferson added after
Adams returned the Draft are the one beginning,
"for abolishing the free system of English
laws,"[21] and the one beginning, "he has constrained
others taken captives on the high
seas."[22]
In whatever order these changes were made,
and whether after only one or after several
he has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, unco t from
lly] for opposing
the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatigui nce
eople
with his measures.
The word "continually," of which only the letters "lly" can now be
seen, has the bracket because it was omitted by Congress, and Jefferson
bracketed on the Rough Draft those parts omitted by Congress.
think be assumed that Jefferson would submit
the Rough Draft, after these changes were incorporated,
to Franklin and Adams for their
final approval before presenting the `fair copy'
(or the Rough Draft, if it was the Rough Draft)
to the Committee. Now it may well have been
at the time of this last inspection, after all
other changes had been made, that Adams wrote
in the second, and Franklin the last three
of the corrections that appear in their handwriting.
If this was in fact the order of events,
it is not difficult to understand that Jefferson
should have recalled the affair as he related it
to Madison in 1823: "their alterations were
two or three only, and merely verbal. I then
wrote a fair copy, reported it to the Committee,
& from them, unaltered to the Congress."
So far we have assumed that the three new
paragraphs and the sixteen verbal changes in
Jefferson's hand were written into the Rough
Draft before it was submitted to the Committee
of Five. But how do we know this, since
Jefferson's `fair copy' has not been preserved?
How do we know these changes were not made
by Congress? Fortunately, it is possible to
reconstruct the report of the Committee of
Five substantially as it must have read. We
have a copy of the Declaration which Jefferson
of July, 1776, and which, in a letter to Lee
of that date, he says is the Declaration "as
originally framed."[23] This copy, now possessed
by the American Philosophical Society, and
printed in facsimile in the Proceedings of the
society,[24] is quite obviously not the Declaration
`as originally framed' — that is, as Jefferson
framed it before submitting it to Franklin
and Adams for the first time — because it
differs strikingly from the copy which Adams
made. It was probably made from the Rough
Draft at about the time that the Committee
of Five submitted its report to Congress; and
if that report was made, as Jefferson says, in
the form of a `fair copy,' it is safe to assume
that it was intended to be a duplicate of the
fair copy.[25] What Jefferson meant by the
phrase "as originally framed" was "as originally
reported." This is confirmed by the fact that
Jefferson described another copy of the Declaration,
and practically identical with the Lee
copy, by saying that it is the Declaration "as
originally reported." This latter copy is the
one which he wrote into his "Notes," later
during the debates in Congress or afterward, Jefferson
indicated on the Rough Draft the changes
made by Congress by bracketing the parts
omitted. Thus the Lee copy, the copy in Jefferson's
"Notes," and the Rough Draft exclusive
of the corrections made in connection with the
bracketed parts, furnish us with three texts
which were intended to conform to the report
of the Committee of Five. The most reliable
of these texts is probably the Lee copy. The
text given below is made by reproducing the
Rough Draft exclusive of all corrections that
do not appear in the Lee copy; that is, it is
the Rough Draft as it must have read when
Jefferson made the Lee copy, assuming that he
made the Lee copy from the Rough Draft,
and made no errors in copying. If Jefferson
made a `fair copy' for the Committee, he may
of course have made the Lee copy from that
fair copy instead of from the Rough Draft.
In either case it can hardly be supposed that
he made any changes deliberately; and if he
made any errors (he apparently made at least
one),[27] they were probably slight. The corrections
printed in roman are those which, being
incorporated in Adams' copy, I have assumed
before he first submitted the Draft to
Franklin. All other corrections and additions
are printed in italics. Where the reading of
the Lee copy differs from that of the copy in
the "Notes," excepting differences in punctuation
and capitalization, I have noted the difference
in footnotes.
The text here given is identical with the Adams copy except,
(1) the corrections of Franklin and Adams appearing on the Rough
Draft and incorporated by Adams in his copy are omitted, (2) the spelling,
capitalization, and punctuation of the Rough Draft have been followed,
(3) in a number of instances where Adams obviously made slips
in copying, the Rough Draft is followed. These slips, in each case, are
indicated in the footnotes.
It is not clear that this change was made by Jefferson. The
handwriting of "self-evident" resembles Franklin's.
Adams' copy reads "unalienable." This is the reading of the
Declaration as finally adopted, but as the change is not indicated on
the Rough Draft, Adams must have deliberately or inadvertently made
the change in copying. See below, p. 175, note 1.
The Rough Draft reads "injuries." But it is clear that the original
form was "injury." The "y" has been erased and "ies" written in.
All of the official texts read "injury," and all of Jefferson's own copies
of the Declaration read "injury" except the one which he copied into
his "Notes." It seems that Jefferson must have made this change after
the Declaration was adopted, since it is unlikely that it would have
been rejected by Congress if it had been in the report of the Committee
of Five.
In the course of time a part of this slip was torn out and lost;
but the rest of it, which is in two parts, was pasted down throughout,
over, and largely concealing, the paragraph which reads: "he has dissolved
Representative houses repeatedly & continually, for opposing
with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people:" Of
this paragraph, therefore, only a few words can now be seen on the Rough
Draft; and of the paragraph written on the slip, only about two thirds
can be seen. At this point the Rough Draft now reads as follows:
This paragraph is written in at the bottom of page 2 of the Rough
Draft; there was margin enough there to insert it by writing a very
small hand and crowding the lines.
This paragraph is written in on page 3 of the Rough Draft, between
the paragraph beginning, "he has incited treasonable insurrections,"
and the paragraph beginning, "he has waged cruel war." Jefferson
was able to crowd the new paragraph in because he left a pretty
wide space between the lines when he wrote the Rough Draft, but the
new paragraph had to be written so close and small that, even apart
from the fact that this paragraph does not appear in Adams's copy, we
should know it to be a later insertion.
THE ROUGH DRAFT
as it probably read when Jefferson
made the `fair copy' which was presented
to Congress as the report of
the Committee of Five.
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 a one people to dissolve the political hands which have connected
them with another, and to advance from that subordination in
which they have hitherto remained, & to assume among
the powers of the earth the separate and equal equal & independent 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 separation
the
change.
We hold these truths to be self-evident; sacred & undeniable; that
all men are created equal & independent; that they are endowed by their
creator with equal rights, some of which are from that
equal creation they derive in rights inherent & inalienable rights; that
among which these are the preservation of life, & liberty, &
the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights ends,
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 & organizing
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
[28]
under absolute Despotism to arbitrary power, it is their right, it is their duty, to
for their future security. such has been the patient
sufferance of these colonies; & such is now the necessity
which constrains them to expunge their former systems
of government. the history of his [29] the present king of Great Britain majesty is a
history of unremitting injuries and usurpations, among
which appears no solitary fact no one fact stands single or solitary to contradict
the uniform tenor of the rest, all of which but all 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 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 neglected utterly[30]
to attend to them.
he has refused to pass other laws for the accomodation
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:
he has dissolved he has refused for a long space of time [31]
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 meantime 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 the administration of justice totally to
laws for establishing judiciary powers:
he has made our judges dependent on his will alone,
for the tenure of their offices, and [32]
the amount and payment of their
salaries:
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:
he has kept among us in times of peace without our consent standing armies &
ships of war without the our consent. of our legislatures:
he has effected 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 unacknoleged 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;
for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
for imposing taxes on us without our consent;
for depriving us of the benefits of trial by jury;
for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for
pretended offenses;
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;
for taking away our charters,[33]
abolishing our most important valuable laws & altering fundamentally
the forms of our governments;
for suspending our own legislatures & 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:
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 foreign
mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation
& tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty
he 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[34]
treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens,
with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation
of our property:
he has constrained others[35]
taken captives falling into his hands, on the
high seas to bear arms against their country & to destroy
& be destroyed by the brethren whom they love, to become
the executioners of their friends & brethren, or to fall
themselves by their hands.
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself,
violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the
persons of a distant people who never offended him,
captivating & carrying them into slavery in another
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 & sold, he
has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative
attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable
commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold 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 upon 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.
in every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for
redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions
have been answered[36]
only by repeated injury.[37]
a prince whose
character is thus marked by every act which may define
a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to
be free. future ages will scarce believe that the hardiness
twelve years only, to lay build a foundation[38] so broad & undisguised for tyranny on so many acts of tyranny without
a mask, over a people fostered & fixed in principles of
liberty. freedom.
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British
brethren. we have warned them from time to time of
attempts by their legislature to extend a jurisdiction over
these our states. we have reminded them of the circumstances
of our emigration & settlement here, no one
of which could warrant so strange a pretension: that
these were effected at the expence of our own blood &
treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of
Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our several
forms of government, we had adopted one common king,
thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league & amity
with them: but that submission to their parliament was
no part of our constitution, nor ever in idea if history may
be credited: and we appealed to their native justice &
magnanimity as well as to the ties of our common kindred
to disavow these usurpations which were likely to interrupt
our connection & correspondence & connection. they too have been
occasions have been given them, by the regular course
of their laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers
of our harmony, they have by their free election
re-established them in power. at this very time too they
are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not
only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch & foreign
mercenaries to invade & [39] destroy us deluge us in blood. these facts
have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly
spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren.
we must endeavor to forget our former love for them, and
to hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in
war, in peace friends. we might have been a free & a
great people together; but a communication of grandeur
& of freedom it seems is below their dignity. be it so,
since they will have it: the road to glory & happiness & to glory
is open to us too; we will climb it apart from them in a separately state,[40]
everlasting adieu! eternal separation!
We therefore the representatives of the United States of
America in General Congress assembled do, in the name
& by authority of the good people of these states, reject
and renounce all allegiance & subjection to the kings of
Great Britain & all others who may hereafter claim by,
through, or under them; we utterly dissolve & break off
all political connection which may have heretofore have subsisted
between us & the people or parliament of Great
Britain; and finally we do assert and declare[41]
these
colonies to be free and independent states, and that as
free & independent states they shall hereafter have full
establish commerce, & to do all other acts and things
which independent states may of right do. And for the
support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each
other our lives, our fortunes, & our sacred honour.
The report of the Committee of Five, presented
to Congress on June 28, was taken up four days
later, debated on three successive days, and
finally adopted with a number of amendments
on the 4 of July. Since Congress sat, for
these debates, in committee of the whole, the
Journals give no account of either the debates
or the amendments. Jefferson recorded, in his
"Notes" taken at the time, a few details. In
the "Notes" he says:
The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England
worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of
many. For this reason those passages which conveyed
censures on the people of England were struck out, lest
they should give them offense. The clause too, reprobating
the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck
out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia,
who had never attempted to restrain the importation of
slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it.
Our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender
few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable
carriers of them to others.[42]
In a letter to Robert Walsh, December 4, 1818,
Jefferson wrote as follows:
The words `Scotch and other foreign auxillaries' excited
the ire of a gentleman or two of that country. Severe
strictures on the British king, in negativing our repeated
repeals of the law which permitted the importation of
slaves, were disapproved by some Southern gentlemen,
whose reflections were not yet matured to the full abhorrence
of that traffic. Although the offensive expressions
were immediately yielded, these gentlemen continued their
depredations on other parts of the instrument.[43]
The Journal of Congress gives only the form of
the Declaration as finally adopted. In what is
called the `rough Journal' the entry for July 4
is as follows:
Mr. Harrison reported that the Committee of the Whole
Congress have agreed to a Declaration which he delivered
in. The Declaration being read was agreed to as follows.[44]
What follows in the `rough Journal' is a printed
copy of the Declaration — a copy printed by
Dunlap by order of Congress and under the
supervision of the Committee of Five. In what
is known as the `corrected Journal' the Declaration
is written in.[45]
The copy in the corrected
Journal should, one would suppose, be the more
authoritative text. Such seems, however, not to
be the case. Apart from differences in punctuation
and capitalization, in which the corrected
Journal follows more closely the practice of Jefferson,
the only differences in the two texts
are the following: where the rough Journal
reads, "for quartering large bodies of armed
troops among us," the corrected Journal reads,
"for quartering large bodies of troops among
us"; and where the rough Journal reads, "they
too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of
consanguinity," the corrected Journal reads,
"they too have been deaf to the voice of justice
& consanguinity." The reading of the rough
Journal in these two cases is the same as that
of every other text we have, including the
engrossed parchment copy. It seems clear,
therefore, that these changes in the corrected
Journal were not `corrections' but simply inadvertent
omissions. The copy in the rough
Journal should thus be taken as the most authoritative
the copy which Jefferson sent to Richard H.
Lee is the nearest we can come to the `fair
copy' which was the report of the Committee
of Five, a comparison of the Lee copy with the
copy in the rough Journal will give us the
changes made by Congress as accurately as it
is possible to determine them. The text given
below is the Lee copy, except for one reading
in the last paragraph where Jefferson probably
made an error in copying, with the parts
omitted by Congress crossed out and the
parts added interlined in italics.
The Rough Draft reads, "he has utterly neglected atterly." The copy
in the "Notes" reads "utterly neglected." My belief is that this was
one of the corrections made by Congress which Jefferson neglected to
indicate as he commonly did such corrections, by bracketing the
omitted word.
The copy in the "Notes" reads "our fellow citizens" in place of
"others." This is the reading of the text as adopted by Congress;
but as the change does not appear on the Rough Draft, I have assumed
that this was a change made by Congress. The paragraph is written
in the Rough Draft as here shown, following the paragraph beginning,
"he has incited." Congress changed the order, placing the paragraph
beginning "he has constrained" immediately following the one beginning
"he is at this time transporting." The copy in the "Notes" follows
the order adopted by Congress.
The Rough Draft reads,
"we will climb it must tread apart from them in a separately state"
The text as adopted by Congress reads "we will climb it apart from
them." The copy in the "Notes" is the only one which gives the reading
"we will tread it apart from them." If the change from "climb"
to "tread" was made before the Committee of Five submitted its
report, we must suppose that Jefferson made an error in the Lee copy
and that Congress changed the "tread" back to "climb." This seems
improbable. See below, pp. 199-201.
Here I have followed the Rough Draft instead of the Lee copy.
The Lee copy reads, "parliament or people . . we do assert these
colonies." There is no indication on the Rough Draft that `people or
parliament' was at any time changed to `parliament or people,' nor is
there any indication that `and declare' was at any time omitted.
Furthermore, the text adopted by Congress reads "publish and declare,"
which seems to indicate that the words `and declare' were in the report
of the Committee of Five. I assume therefore that the different
reading of the Lee copy is the result of an error in copying. The copy
which Jefferson incorporated in his "Notes" follows the reading of the
Rough Draft; on the other hand, two other copies made by Jefferson,
probably at the same time he made the Lee copy, follow the reading
of the Lee copy. Cf. Hazelton, op. cit., 177, 340.
THE DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE
(as it reads in the Lee copy, which is probably
the same as the report of the Committee of Five,
with parts omitted by Congress crossed out and
the parts added interlined in italics.)
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
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 inheient and certain un inalienable[46]
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
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the
people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government,
laying it's foundation on such principles, and organizing
it's powers in such form as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their safety and happiness. prudence
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 and usurpations,
begun at a distinguished period & pursuing invariably
the same object, evinces a design to reduce them
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 the present king of Great
Britain is a history of unremitting repeated injuries and usurpations,
among which appears no solitary fact to contradict
the uniform tenor of the rest, but all have 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.
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 accomodation of
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.
he has refused for a long 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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion
from without, & convulsions within.
he has endeavored to prevent the population of these
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 states, by refusing his assent to
laws for establishing judiciary powers.
he has made our judges dependent on his will alone, for
the tenure of their offices, and the amount & paiment
of their salaries.
he has erected a multitude of new offices by a self assumed
power, & sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our
people, and eat out their substance.
he has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies
and ships of war, without 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 unacknoleged by
our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended
legislation for quartering large bodies of armed troops[47]
among us;
for protecting them by a mock-trial from punishment
for any murders which they should commit on the
inhabitants of these states;
for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
for imposing taxes on us without our consent;
for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury;
for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended
offenses;
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
states;
for taking away our charters, abolishing our most
valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms
of our governments;
for suspending our own legislatures, & declaring themselves
invested with power to legislate for us in all
cases whatsoever.
he has abdicated government here, withdrawing his
governors, & by declaring us out of his allegiance and
protection and waging war against us.
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 foreign
mercenaries, to compleat the works of death, desolation
& 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 excited domestic insurrection 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 property
he has constrained our fellow citizens others, taken captives on the high
seas to bear arms against their country, to become the
executioners of their friends & brethren, or to fall
themselves by their hands.
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself,
violating it's most sacred rights of life & 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 trans-
of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian
king of Great Britain determined to keep open a
market where MEN should be bought & 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 upon 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.
In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for
redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions
have been answered only by repeated injury. a prince
whose character is thus marked by every act which may
define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people who
mean to be free. future ages will scarce believe that the
hardiness of one man adventured within the short compass
of twelve years only to build a foundation, so broad and
in principles of freedom.
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British
brethren. we have warned them from time to time of
attempts by their legislature to extend a an unwarrantable jurisdiction
over us. these our states we have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here, no
one of which could warrant so strange a pretension:
that these were effected at the expence of our own blood
and treasure, unassisted by the wealth o the strength
of Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our several
forms of government, we had adopted one common king,
thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league and amity
with them: but that submission to their parliament was
no part of our constitution, nor ever in idea, if history
may be credited: and we have appealed to their native justice
& magnanimity, as well as to and we have conjured them by the tyes of our common
kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which were likely
to would inevitably interrupt our connections & correspondence. they too
have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity[48]
; and when occasions have been given them,
by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their
their free election re-established them in power. at this
very time too, they are permitting their chief magistrate
to send over not only soldiers of our common blood, but
Scotch and foreign mercenaries to invade and destroy
us. these facts have given the last stab to agonizing
affection; and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever
these unfeeling brethren we must therefore endeavor to forget our
former love for them, and to hold them as we hold the
rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. we
might have been a free & a great people together, but
a communication of grandeur and of freedom, it seems, is
below their dignity be it so, since they will have it
the road to happiness and to glory is open to us too;
we will climb it apart from them, and acquiesce in the
necessity which denounces our eternal separation and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.!
We therefore the Representatives of the United states
of America in General Congress assembled, appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions do, in the
name & by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that states,
reject and renounce all allegiance and subjection to the
kings of Great Britain, & all others who may hereafter
claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolve
between us them and the state people or parliament of Great
Britain is & ought to be totally dissolved,; and finally we do assert and declare[49] these
colonies to be free and independent states, & that as
free & independent states, they have full power to levy
war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce,
& to do all other acts and things which independent
states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration,
with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives,
our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Contrary to a tradition early established and
long held, the Declaration was not signed by
the members of Congress on July 4. Neither
the rough nor the corrected Journal shows any
signatures, except that the printed copy in the
rough Journal closes with these words, of course
in print: "Signed by order and in behalf of
the Congress, John Hancock, President." The
secret domestic Journal for July 19 contains
the following entry: "Resolved that the Declaration
passed on the 4th be fairly engrossed."
And in the margin there is added: "Engrossed
on parchment with the title and stile of "The
Unanimous Declaration of the 13 United States
be signed by every member of Congress."
On August 2 occurs the following entry: "The
Declaration of Independence being engrossed
and compared at the table was signed by the
members." Certain members, being absent on
the 2 of August, signed the engrossed copy at
a later date.[50] The engrossed parchment copy,
carefully preserved at Washington, is identical
in phraseology with the copy in the rough
Journal.[51] The paragraphing, except in one
instance, is indicated by dashes; the capitalization
and punctuation, following neither previous
copies, nor reason, nor the custom of
any age known to man, is one of the irremediable
evils of life to be accepted with becoming resignation.
Two slight errors in engrossing have
been corrected by interlineation.
The Rough Draft reads "[inherent certain &] inalienable." There is
no indication that Congress changed "inalienable" to "unalienable";
but the latter form appears in the text in the rough Journal, in the
corrected Journal, and in the parchment copy. John Adams, in making
his copy of the Rough Draft, wrote "unalienable." See above, p. 142,
note 2. Adams was one of the committee which supervised the printing
of the text adopted by Congress, and it may have been at his suggestion
that the change was made in printing. "Unalienable" may have been
the more customary form in the eighteenth century.
THE DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE
(as it reads in the parchment copy.)
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united
States of America.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes
necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands,
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 certain
unalienable 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 becomes destructive
of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter
or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying
its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers
in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will
dictate that Governments long established should not
be changed for light and 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
pursuing invariably the same Object 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
alter their former Systems of Government. The history
of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, 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. — 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
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation
till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended,
he has utterly neglected to attend to them. —
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation
of large districts of people, unless those people would
relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature,
a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants
only. — He has called together legislative bodies at
depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose
of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. —
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for
opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights
of the people. — He has refused for a long 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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of
invasion from without, and convulsions within. — He has
endeavoured 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, and raising the conditions of new
Appropriations of Lands. — He has obstructed the Administration
of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for
establishing Judiciary powers. — He has made Judges
dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. —
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent
hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and
eat out their substance. — He has kept among us, in
our legislatures. — He has affected to render the Military
independent of and superior to the Civil power. — He
has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our
laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended 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: — For cutting
off our Trade with all parts of the world: — For imposing
Taxes on us without our Consent: — For depriving us
in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: —
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended
offenses: — For abolishing the free System of English
Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an
Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so
as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for
introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: —
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable
Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our
Governments: — For suspending our own Legislatures,
and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate
here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging
War against us. — He has plundered our seas, ravaged
our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives
of our people. — He is at this time transporting large
Armies of 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 our fellow
Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms
against their Country, to become the executioners of
their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their
Hands. — He has excited domestic insurrections amongst
us, and has endeavoured 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 and conditions. In every stage of these
Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most
humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered
only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character
is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant,
is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We
have warned them from time to time of attempts by their
legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over
us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of
our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed
to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have
conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow
these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt
our connections and correspondence. They too have
been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces
our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the
rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. —
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States
of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to
the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our
intentions do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good
People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare,
That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to
be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved
from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all
political connection between them and the State of Great
Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as
levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish
Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which
Independent States may of right do. — And for the support
of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the
protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to
each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The signatures on the parchment copy, of
which only a few are now legible, are given
below.
| John Hancock. | Fran.s Lewis. |
| Samuel Chase. | Lewis Morris. |
| Wm. Paca. | Richd Stockton. |
| Thos. Stone. | Jno Witherspoon. |
| Charles Carroll of Carrollton. | Fras Hopkinson. |
| George Wythe. | John Hart. |
| Richard Henry Lee. | Abra Clark. |
| Th Jefferson. | Josiah Bartlett. |
| Benja Harrison. | Wm. Whipple. |
| Thos. Nelson jr. | Saml Adams. |
| Francis Lightfoot Lee. | John Adams. |
| Carter Braxton. | Robt Treat Paine. |
| Robt Morris. | Elbridge Gerry. |
| Benjamin Rush. | Step Hopkins. |
| Benja Franklin. | William Ellery. |
| John Morton. | Roger Sherman. |
| Geo Clymer. | Saml Huntington. |
| Jas Smith. | Wm Williams. |
| Geo. Taylor. | Oliver Wolcott. |
| James Wilson. | Matthew Thornton. |
| Geo. Ross. | Wm Hooper. |
| Caesar Rodney. | Joseph Hewes. |
| Geo Read. | John Penn. |
| Tho M: Kean. | Edward Rutledge. |
| Wm Floyd. | Thos Heyward Junr |
| Phil. Livingston. | Thomas Lynch Junr |
| Arthur Middleton. | Lyman Hall. |
| Button Gwinnett. | Geo Walton. |
The Declaration of Independence: Its History. New York. 1906.
Whether the Rough Draft which Jefferson refers to in his letter to Madison
was the first draft which he made for the Declaration is not known.
But it appears that he used, in preparing the Declaration, a manuscript
now in the Library of Congress, which is in Jefferson's hand, and is
endorsed by him as follows: "Constitution of Virginia first ideas of
Th: J. communicated to a member of the Convention." The first
page of this manuscript is in the form of a series of reasons why Virginia
repudiates her allegiance to George III. The charges against the
king which appear in the Rough Draft seem to have been copied, in
many cases verbatim, from this manuscript. Cf Fitzpatrick, J. C.
"The Manuscript from which Jefferson Wrote the Declaration of
Independence"; in Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine,
LV, 363.
It is possible that Jefferson was mistaken in thinking that he made
a `fair copy' for the Committee. If he made such a copy, and if it was
handed in as the report of the Committee, it seems odd that it was not
preserved among the papers of Congress. If there was such a copy,
it was undoubtedly that copy as amended by Congress that was used
by Dunlap for printing the text that was pasted into the `rough' Journal;
and it is at least conceivable that it was inadvertently left with the printer,
and so lost. On the other hand, if there was no `fair copy,' we must
suppose that the corrected Rough Draft was itself the report of the
Committee. I find it difficult to suppose that Jefferson would have
presented, as the formal report of the Committee, a paper so filled
with erasures and interlineations that in certain parts no one but the
author could have read it without a reading glass. Besides, if the Rough
Draft was handed in as the report of the Committee it should bear the
endorsement of the Secretary of Congress, Charles Thompson. No such
endorsement appears on the Rough Draft. Again, if the Rough Draft
was used as the report of the Committee, one would suppose that the
amendments made by Congress would be indicated on it in the hand of
Charles Thompson; whereas they are in fact in the hand of Jefferson.
On the whole, the reasons for supposing that Jefferson made a `fair
copy,' which was used as the report of the Committee and afterward
lost, seem to me more convincing than the reasons for supposing that
the Rough Draft itself was used as the report of the Committee.
| CHAPTER IV The Declaration of independence : | |