FRtR > Documents > Declaration of Independence > Context
The Unanimous Declaration
of the Thirteen United States of America
july 4, 1776
Context
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On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee introduced
into Congress a resolution,(adopted on July 2)
which asserted that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, fee
and independent States. While this resolution was being discussed,on June
11 a committee,
consisting of John Adams,
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R.
Livingston , and Roger Sherman was appointed to
draft a Declaration of Independence.
In his Autobiography written in 1805,
Adams states that the committee of five decided upon "which the declaration
was to consist", and it then appointed Jefferson and himself to form a
subcommittee to really write them down. Now Jefferson and Adams have two
completely different versions of what happened then. Adams 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 ough 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", said Jefferson, 'if you are
decided I will do as well as I can'. Very well, when you have drawnit up we
will have a meeting.
Jefferson's version is completely different. In a letter to Maddison of 1823
he writes:
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.
The draft was presented to Congress on June 28 and
adopted by Congress on July 4,
after a number of changes had been made. There are no journals on the debates
and the amendments. The most important of these were the
excision of a passage indicting the slave trade and
a number of passages were reworded in a more pious form..
A formal parchment copy of the Declaration, adopted in Congress 4 July 1776,
was available for signing on
August 2, and most of the 55 signatures were inscribed upon it on that
date .
The intention of the Declaration, Jefferson later wrote, was not saying some-
thing new, but to place before mankind the common sense of the
subject, in
terms so plain and firm as to command their assent... Neither aiming at
originality of principles or sentiments, nor yet copied from any particular
and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American
mind.
The declaration of independence, July 4, 1776
Draft version of the Declaration of Independence, June 28,
1776
There is still another version of the text, the so-called Lee-version. This
is the text that Jefferson sent to Lee. This may be a better version of the
draft. See Carl L. Becker, The declaration of independence. A
study in the history of political ideas (New York, 1922) page 174.
One of the inspirations for the American Declaration of Independence was the Plakkaat van Verlatinghe of 1581 in which the Dutch abjured the King of Spain as their sovereign.
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