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Of all his writings, Thomas Jefferson's most famous and far-reaching was undoubtedly his draft of the Declaration of Independence.
Although the issue of slavery was widely debated -- both the chattel slavery of Africans in America and the civil slavery that fired patriot rhetoric -- it is conspicuously absent from the final version of the
Declaration. Yet in his rough draft, Jefferson railed against King George III for creating and sustaining the slave trade, describing it as "a cruel war against human nature."
Although Jefferson's description of the slave trade was as much an indictment of the colonies as of Britain and the king, the issue that most distressed the patriots stemmed from Lord Dunmore's 1775 proclamation that offered freedom to slaves who joined the British cause: "...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..."
When the document was presented to the Continental Congress on July 1, 1776, both northern and southern slaveholding delegates objected to its inclusion, and it was removed. The only remaining allusion to the original paragraph on slavery is the phrase "He has excited domestic Insurrections among us," included in a list of grievances against the
king.
Image Credit: Courtesy Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston
Intended to announce and justify the birth of a new nation, the Declaration of Independence has grown into an emblem of core principles of the United States and continues to influence millions throughout the world. The presentation of the document through time has mirrored its rise in importance amongst American relics.
A Draft Copy
On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress entrusted a committee of
five delegates (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman) with composing the Declaration of Independence. The committee chose thirty-three year old Thomas Jefferson to draft what he called an expression of “the American mind.” Though he “turned to neither book or pamphlet,” Jefferson relied on his knowledge of philosophy as well as the sentiments of the Virginia Constitution, the Declaration of Rights and Richard Henry Lee’s resolution proposed to
Congress on June 7. Jefferson later recalled, “I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections.” The revised copy was submitted to Congress on June 28, 1776.
The Extant (Existing) Documents
There are six extant drafts. Only one copy is referred to as the “original rough draft” with copy edits by Franklin, Adams and the Congress. It is located in the Jefferson Papers at the Library of
Congress. Four additional drafts were sent by Jefferson to colleagues and do not contain edits by Congress. Later, Jefferson also made his own notes on the Declaration debates and included them in his autobiography in 1821.
At Independence National Historical Park, look for...
...the exterior of the Declaration House at 7th and Market Streets. Jefferson and his enslaved servant Robert Hemings lived on this site when Jefferson drafted the famous document. Find the signs on the
fences for more information about the house itself.
A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN GENERAL CONGRESS ASSEMBLED
one
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a^
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
people to ^advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto
and to separate and equal
^remained, & to assume among the powers of the earth the ^equal and
independent station to which the laws of nature and of nature's god
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
the separation
that they should declare the causes which impel them to ^change.
self-evident,
We hold these truths to be ^sacred & undeniable; that all Men
they are endowed by their creator with
are created equal & independent; that ^from that equal creation they
equal rights, some of which are rights; that these
derive in rights inherent & inalienable ^ among ^which are the
preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness;
rights
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 becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the right of the people to alter or 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 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 & usurpations pursuing
invariably the same object, evinces a design to subject reduce them
under absolute Despotism
[FRANKLIN]
^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 alter their former systems of
the king of Great Britain
[ADAMS]
government. the History of ^his the present ^majesty is a history of
appears no solitary fact
repeated injuries & usurpations, among which ^no one fact stands single
but all
and 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 by falsehood.
he has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome & 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 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
in the Legislature
representation ^, a right inestimable to them, & formidable to tyrants
only:
he has called together legislative bodies in 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.
time after such dissolutions
he has dissolved, he has refused for a long ^ space of 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 cease in
states
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
the and payment
[FRANKLIN]
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 new officers to harass our people and eat
out their substance.
without our consent
he has kept among us in times of peace ^ standing armies,
the
without ^our consent. of our legislatures
& 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, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his
acts of
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
which
murders ^ 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 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;
valuable
abolishing our most ^important laws
[FRANKLIN]
for taking away our charters, ^ & altering fundimentally 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 and 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 in 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:
taken captives
he has constrained others, ^falling into his hands, on the high
seas to bear arms against their country, & to destroy & be
destroyed by their breteren 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 to slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable
death in their transportations 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
determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold
this excrable commerce ^ and that this assemblage of horrors might
want no fact of distiguished die, he is now exciting those very
people to rise in arms against 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 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
only
[FRANKLIN]
been answered ^ 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 people who mean to be free. future
ages will scarce belive that the hardiness of one man, adventured
build
to ^lay a foundation so broad & undistiguished for tyranny
within the short compass of twelve years only, ^on so many acts
of tyrany without a mask, over a people fostered & fixed in
freedom
principles 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 warrent so strange a
pretention: 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 and magnanimity as well as the ties of our
common kindred to disavow these usurpations which were likely to
connection &
interrupt our ^ correspondence. they too have been deaf to the
voice of justice & of consanguinity & when occations 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 & foriegn mercinaries to
destroy us
[FRANKLIN]
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 bretheren. 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 gradeur &
of freedom it seems is below their dignity, be it so, since they
& to glory
will have it: the road to glory & happiness ^ is open to us too;
apart from them
we will climb it ^ in a separatly state, and acquiesce in the
de eternal separation!
necessity which pro^nounces our ^everlasting adieu!
We therefore the representatives of the United States of
America in General Congress assembled, do, in the name & by the
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
have
may have heretofore ^ sibsisted between us & the people or parliament
of Great Britain; and do finally we do assert and declare these
colonies to be free and independent states, and that as free &
full
independent states they shall hereafter have ^ power to levy war,
conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, & 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 honor.View in landscape view to see transcription of rough draft.