Jefferson penned one more grievance in the rough draft presented to Congress, a grievance appearing at the very end of his list. Extraordinary both in length and content, it read:
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 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: 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 that final grievance Jefferson not only included a more extensive denunciation of the attempt to incite the slave population to rise in rebellion against their masters, but also an extended and convoluted statement blaming the king for the institution of the slave trade. Historians have long pondered what was going on inside Jefferson’s head and heart when he decided to add this lengthy excoriation of the king to the list. One can say that it is the one passage in the Declaration that, in its forced and labored prose, seems to lack anything approaching literary grace. Moreover, while Jefferson’s description of the slave trade as “piratical warfare,” “execrable” and “an assemblage of horrors” may have appealed to the moral senses of many, but not all, Americans, the logic of his argument—that King George III was somehow personally responsible for instituting and perpetuating a trade in human beings that was eagerly embraced by many of the residents of America’s southern colonies—simply strayed too far from the facts of that terrible trade. Some have read this draft of the grievance as a statement of Jefferson’s revulsion not only at the slave trade but also at the very institution of slavery. But the final lines of the grievance are concerned with the liberties and lives of the white residents of Virginia rather than of the slaves.26
After completing his bill of indictment against George III, Jefferson the lawyer moved on to his closing argument, reminding his readers that “in every stage of these oppressions,” the American colonists had patiently petitioned for a redress of their grievances, only to be answered by “repeated injury.” Indeed, Americans had petitioned not only the king, but also their “British brethren,” seeking to enlist their support in protecting their liberties. But, he concluded, “they too have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity.” His original draft went on at great length—perhaps too great a length—expressing disappointment with the failure of the English people to support American grievances, a situation that left Americans with no choice but to “renounce forever these unfeeling brethren.” Jefferson’s anger leaps off the pages of this part of his closing argument—an anger directed not merely at the king, but at the British people who, Jefferson believed, had not only not come to America’s aid in a time of need, but, indeed, had never contributed anything to America’s well-being.27
The final paragraph of Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration combined some of the Virginian’s eloquence with a tendency toward discursiveness that is perhaps not untypical of a first draft produced even by the finest of writers:
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 and 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 these colonies to be free and independent states, and that as free & independent states they shall hereafter have 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 we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, & our sacred honor.
That final paragraph asserted, for the first time, that it was the representatives of the “United states,” not the united colonies, who were taking the unprecedented step of dissolving the political connections between both the government and the people of Great Britain. And those “United states” were not only declaring their independence but also stating their intention to carry out a war against one of the world’s most formidable military powers, to negotiate a successful peace, to make alliances with other nations, to promote commerce and to “do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.” Finally, Jefferson concluded his draft with words of genuine elegance: “And for the support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
At some point after Jefferson wrote those final words, and no doubt after his already-revised draft of the Declaration had been read once again by his fellow members of the Committee of Five, he created a fair copy—that is, a clean copy—of his work and submitted it to the Continental Congress for their inspection and approval. As we will see, the work of writing the Declaration of Independence—America’s Declaration of Independence, not merely Jefferson’s—was far from complete.
TWENTY-FIVE
AMERICA’S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
The Declaration Goes to Congress
On Friday, June 28, the Committee of Five delivered its revised draft of Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence to Congress. There it was read—probably by secretary Charles Thomson and not by Jefferson himself—and then “ordered to lie on the table.” This was an obvious, and necessary, step, for before agreeing on a “Declaration” of independence, the delegates needed to debate and then decide on Richard Henry Lee’s resolution proposing independence.1
Charles Thomson left only the scantest record of what transpired for the remainder of that day, but it is likely that the Congress did not discuss that draft of the Declaration at any length on the 28th. It then adjourned for the weekend, resuming discussion of Lee’s resolution for independence on Monday, July 1. After the Congress adopted the resolution for independence on July 2, it moved itself into a committee of the whole to begin an open-ended discussion of the draft of the Declaration. Once again, we know little about what actually transpired, but it appears that the discussion was only a brief one, after which the delegates adjourned for the day. The real discussion of the draft would begin in earnest on July 3.2
Given the importance of the debate over the Declaration of Independence (or at least the importance that subsequent generations of American have attached to the process by which that document was created), it is surprising that virtually none of the delegates, other than Jefferson himself, recorded any impressions of that debate. And of course the secretary, Charles Thomson, was his usual unhelpful self. We do know from the final result that the members of Congress debated and made significant changes to the document over those days, rewriting a number of key passages and reducing Jefferson’s draft by a quarter of its original size. What is likely, given what we know about how the Committee of Five operated, is that it apparently made what they called a fair copy of the Declaration, incorporating the changes to Jefferson’s original draft suggested by his fellow committee members, as well as some of Jefferson’s own changes, and then turned it over to the Congress. Unfortunately, that fair copy, if it existed at all, has not survived. Even if we assume that it did exist, it seems unlikely that the members of the Congress could have carried out their debate looking over one another’s shoulders at a single copy. And so while it is probable that the Congress had
the committee draft printed and distributed to each of the delegates, if that was the case, none of those copies has survived. Perhaps Congress had ordered them destroyed once they had agreed on the final draft, but Charles Thomson has left us no record of that action. Our basis then, for comparing the “fair copy” of the Declaration and the draft finally adopted is Jefferson’s own rough draft, with his handwritten and marginal notations included. And, though we know that the changes made by the members of Congress were substantial, we have no record of who made them.3
For the most part, the members of Congress left Jefferson’s preamble intact, aside from some minor bits of polishing (Jefferson’s “inherent and inalienable rights” became “certain inalienable rights,” which somehow, when the document was printed a day later, became “unalienable rights”). They made a few more changes in the paragraph leading up to the list of specific grievances, primarily eliminating some unnecessary wordiness. For example, Jefferson’s original draft noted the king’s “unremitting injuries and usurpations, among which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, but all have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny of 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.” The final draft simply stated: “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.”4
Some of the changes in wording of the specific grievances were probably intended to eliminate not merely a tendency toward wordiness but also to substitute a more accurate indictment for Jefferson’s occasionally hyperbolic language. Jefferson held that the king had “suffered the administration of justice totally to cease in some of these states by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers,” when in fact, only North Carolina had lodged that grievance, and, indeed, the details of that colony’s dispute with its royal governor over the operation of its courts were sufficiently complex that the claim that the king had caused the administration of justice there to “totally” cease amounted to a pretty gross overstatement. The final draft, which condemned the king for having “obstructed the administration of justice,” was considerably more vague, but also less hyperbolic.5
And then there was the elimination of Jefferson’s extended condemnation of the king for continuing the slave trade. As noted in the previous chapter, the lengthy passage in the rough draft denouncing the king for his role was jarring both in the passionate excess of its composition and in the one-sidedness of its accusation, so in that sense it is not surprising that some members of Congress would have inserted an editorial hand. Jefferson’s own record of the debate during those days was sketchy, but in referring to the virtual elimination of that clause from his draft, he noted that
the clause . . . reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina & 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 . . . under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.6
There has been no shortage of historical commentary both on Jefferson’s motives for including the passage on the slave trade in his draft of the Declaration and on the Congress’s decision to remove it. For Jefferson critics like Paul Finkelman, the very attempt to include the passage is just one more example of Jefferson’s pernicious hypocrisy on the whole subject of slavery, while more sympathetic Jefferson biographers such as Jon Meacham are inclined to give the Monticello slaveowner the benefit of the doubt. As for Congress’s role in deleting the passage, some have argued, as Jefferson’s account implied, that the elimination of that grievance was a necessary condition for South Carolina’s and Georgia’s support of independence on July 2. While it is the case that South Carolina in particular was still thought by some to be on the fence that day, and that the elimination of that grievance may well have helped bring them along, there is no evidence that any delegate from either of those colonies insisted on its elimination as a condition for his affirmative vote. As for those “Northern brethren” who were involved in the slave trade, the Rhode Island delegates, representing a colony in which many merchants were still actively involved in the trade, may have felt a little sensitive about the issue. But it seems more likely that that final grievance in Jefferson’s original draft was eliminated not only because of political pressure from slave-owning or slave-trading colonies but also because it was inaccurate and unfair.7
Whatever the case, the Congress made ample use of its editorial pen, eliminating entirely Jefferson’s lengthy denunciation of the slave trade as well as that relating to “treasonable insurrections of our fellow citizens,” a reference to the attempt to recruit Loyalists to fight on the side of the Crown. Reflecting the intense fear of the example set by Lord Dunmore’s 1775 proclamation promising freedom to Virginia slaves who deserted their masters to fight on the side of the British, they did, however, insert into the grievance relating to warfare by the “merciless Indian savages,” a condemnation of the king for exciting “domestic insurrections amongst us.” Thus, the final grievance in the finished draft of the Declaration read: “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, and conditions.” It was an emotionally powerful conclusion to the long list of specific grievances—but also a grievance that was both viciously racist and outrageously unfair. Although it was undeniably true that Native American inhabitants had often engaged in brutal warfare with European settlers in a contest for control of valuable land on the North American continent, the instigators of that conflict were, more often than not, the Europeans, not the Indian combatants. And the military tactics of those European settlers who engaged in those wars were hardly just or humane. This final passage of the list in the Declaration of Independence, combining as it did a casual reference to the king’s culpability for inciting “domestic insurrections” with its venomous description of the continent’s Native American inhabitants, has hardly proven something in which Americans in subsequent generations could take any pride. Perhaps its only utility, in the context of the twenty-first century, is that it serves as a shocking reminder of the paradox that lay at the new American nation’s core.
The Congress was also free with its editorial pen in the closing paragraphs of Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration. It may well have been that Jefferson had written those final paragraphs under the pressure of time. The penultimate paragraph—that denouncing not only the king but also the British people themselves—perhaps struck many members of Congress as not only verbose but unnecessarily inflammatory. Jefferson’s claim that the settlement of the colonies was done solely “at the expense of our own blood and treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain,” seemed a dubious historical account of the realities of the settlement process, and his denunciation of the British people as complicit in the sending of “foreign mercenaries to invade and destroy us” was excessively combative. The concluding sentences in the draft sent to Congress, in which Jefferson announced the American intention of endeavoring “to forget our former love for [the British people], and to hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends,” was, in essence, both accurate and eloquent. But in the long, rambling paragraph that preceded those sentences, Jefferson bemoaned the fact that the British people had not chosen the latter option: “We might have been a free & a great people together,” he lamented, “but a communication of grandeur and of freedom, it seems, is below their dignity.” Jefferson’s congressional editors retained the essential idea of those concludi
ng sentences—that of “enemies in war, in peace friends”—but cut out much of the rest. However disappointed the congressional delegates may have been about the failure of the king’s subjects in Great Britain to respond favorably to their appeals to them for their support, their personal identities were still bound up with their affection for many aspects of British civilization and culture, and for the British people themselves. Their deletion of nearly half of Jefferson’s wordy and inflammatory paragraph resulted in a finished product that was not only more concise, but more elegant and balanced, than Jefferson’s original.8
When the members of Congress went to work on the final paragraph of the Declaration, probably late in the afternoon of July 3 or on the morning of July 4, they cut back again on some of Jefferson’s wordiness, and at the same time added, perhaps to Jefferson’s dismay, references to “the Supreme judge of the world” and to “divine Providence.” That concluding paragraph, in its final form, reads:
Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor Page 49
