Good day to you.
I am Thomas Jefferson.
If I had but ten seconds to tell you about
myself, I would tell you these three things,
and not a word more.
I was the author of the Declaration of American
Independence, of the statute of Virginia for
religious freedom, and the father of the University
of Virginia.
Fortunately, we have a bit more time than
that to spend together today.
Thus I am honored to introduce myself a little
more thoroughly than the fleeting tick-tock
of your modern time keeping might otherwise
allow.
You may have wondered why I did not include
any public offices in that list.
I do not want to be remembered for having
been representative to the Virginia House
of Burgesses from the county of Albemarle,
where I grew up, nor as a representative of
Virginia to the 2nd Continental Congress and
to the Congress of the United States under
the Articles of Confederation.
I do not want to be remembered as having represented
the United States in France, nor as having
served as the first Secretary of State under
the US Constitution.
I do not want to be remembered as having served
as the nation’s 2nd Vice President (well…
nobody wants to be remembered for being a
vice president…)
And I do not want to be remembered for having
been the 3rd President of the United States.
In a government by the people, those who hold
public offices are servants.
If they serve well, they deserve to be remembered
fondly for what they did, not for the title they held.
I devoted roughly half of my 83 years - from
1743 to 1826 - to public service.
On July 4th, 1776, after the vote on the Declaration
of Independence, I was placed on a committee for,
among other purposes, proposing a motto
for the United States.
The motto that Congress eventually adopted
was “E Pluribus Unum,” which is latin for
“Out of Many, One.”
I dedicated my life in public service to the
idea that America will derive our greatness
from the vast resources that can be found
only in a diversity of opinion, and that we
will derive our strength from our ability
to focus that diversity into a unity of purpose.
I articulated our purpose as one people in
the Declaration of Independence.
If I had but ten seconds to tell that purpose,
I would say it this way.
One day, all men —meaning all mankind—
will be treated as they are created: as equals.
Fortunately, I have decidedly more time than
the instantaneous grammar or other forms of
communication like the twittering of birds
of the birds in the trees in your day would
otherwise permit.
This allows me to continue the telling of
the story of the Declaration of Independence
—a story so aptly begun in this series of
conversations by my compatriot Richard Henry Lee.
Mr. Lee told you of how, on Friday June 7th,
1776, he proposed the three resolutions that
brought us one step closer to a declaration
of our independence.
The first of the resolutions proposed independence.
The second proposed the forming of foreign
alliances.
The third proposed that we create a plan of
confederation between the colonies.
On Saturday June 8th, Congress proceeded to
take the first resolution - that of independency
- into consideration and referred it to a
committee of the whole, into which they immediately
resolved themselves, and passed that day and
Monday the 10th in debating on the subject.
I took notes on these debates, which I saved
as a record for posterity.
The debate was not on whether we should become
independent, but on when and how.
It was argued by James Wilson, Robert R. Livingston,
Edward Rutledge, John Dickinson and others
that tho’ they were friends to the measures
themselves, and saw the impossibility that
we should ever again be united with Great
Britain, yet they were against adopting them
at this time.
They said that we should wait for the voice
of the people to drive us to it, which would
happen soon enough.
They essentially argued that we should first
effect the second two resolutions by establishing
alliances and organizing ourselves internally;
only then would we be ready to officially
declare our independence.
On the other side it was argued by John Adams,
Mr. Lee, George Wythe, and others that this
was the best opportunity we would have, and
that if we waited, we would miss our chance.
The King had already made us independent by
declaring us out of his protection, and no
delegates could be denied a power of declaring
an existing truth.
They said that the people were waiting for
us to lead the way.
We had to take the risk of making the commitment
publicly if we were to expect anyone —be
they foreign powers or our own people— to
join in the cause.
It appearing in the course of these debates
that the colonies of New Jersey, New York,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, and
Maryland were not yet matured for falling
from the parent stem, but that they were fast
advancing to that state,
…it was thought most prudent to wait a while
for them, and to postpone the final decision
for three weeks.
But that this might occasion as little delay
as possible, a committee was appointed to
prepare a declaration of independence.
The Committee were John Adams, Dr. Franklin,
Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston & myself.
You may be wondering, if Robert R. Livingston
of New York had been one of the leading spokesmen
for NOT declaring independence so soon, why was
he placed on the committee to draft the declaration?
The people of New York had not voted to support
independence by June 11th, but we believed
they soon would.
Having Mr. Livingston on that committee would
encourage them.
Roger Sherman of Connecticut was universally
respected in Congress as a man of moderation.
He, like Livingston, did not participate actively
in the drafting process.
However, their presence on the committee helped
to reassure the more tenuous delegates that
this declaration would not be too radical
to effect unity.
Dr. Franklin was the most well-known and respected
of the delegates in the eyes of the European
nations whom we needed to enlist to our aid.
He brought to the committee an international
reputation, as well as extended practical
understanding of what the delicacy of foreign
courts would require in a formal declaration.
He was not eager to write the draft.
"I have made it a rule,” said he to me,
“whenever in my power, to avoid becoming
the draftsman of papers to be reviewed by
a public body.”
John Adams had been one of the leaders of
the independency movement from the very beginning.
Moreover, he represented Massachusetts, which
had long suffered the worst infringements
of rights by Parliament and the King.
He was, however, busy with other committees.
Among the reasons he gave that I should write
the draft was the fact that I was a Virginian.
This made sense.
The majority of the conflicts having taken
place in New England up until that point,
part of our task was to convince the southern
states that this was their struggle too.
Of the southern states, Virginia was the most
populous and had early become a leader in
the movement to assert our equal rights.
He also acknowledged that, while his vehemence
and forthrightness of expression had caused
some in Congress to look at him with a jaundiced
eye, my own habitual silence during debates,
when I made it a practice to take careful
notes, meant that the draft coming from my
pen would earn it no enemies a priori.
Delegates would be more likely to consider
the words on their own account.
It may seem strange to you that all of the
committee members were not vying for the honor
of writing such an important document.
In June of 1776, none of us realized how important
the Declaration of Independence would eventually
become.
Oh, we knew that what we were doing overall
was important, but we thought that the June
7th resolution for independency would be the
most memorable document.
Between the 11th and the 28th, I primarily
worked alone.
I did most of the work in one of the two rooms
that I had rented on the southwest corner
of High Street (which you may know better
as Market Street) and 7th Street, from one
Mr. Jacob Graff.
This location was, at the time, situated toward
the outskirts of Philadelphia.
At that location I enjoyed the benefits of
freely circulating air and a more peace and
quiet that a more centrally situated living
quarters would allow.
I wrote a number of drafts, of which I preserved
a portion.
Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams made a few alterations
during this process.
For instance, my original draft read,
“we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable…”
At the suggestion of the committee, that was
changed to the much more scientific expression,
“we hold these truths to be self-evident.”
I knew it was my duty not to find out new
principles, or new arguments, never before
thought of, nor merely to say things which
had never been said before; but to place before
mankind the common sense of the subject, in
terms so plain and firm as to command their assent,
and to justify ourselves in the independent
stand we were compelled to take.
Neither aiming at originality of principle
or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular
and previous writing, it was intended to be
an expression of the American mind, and to
give to that expression the proper tone and
spirit called for by the occasion.
It therefore should come as no surprise that
I found expressions that harmonized with sentiments
expressed elsewhere in the colonies.
For instance, the Virginia Bill of Rights,
which was adopted by the Convention at Williamsburg
on the day after our committee had been formed
to write the Declaration, read in part,
“That all men are by nature equally free
and independent and have certain inherent rights,
of which, when they enter into a state
of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive
or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment
of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring
and possessing property, and pursuing and
obtaining happiness and safety.”
After changes by the committee as well as
by Congress, the Declaration as approved by
the Continental Congress read,
“…that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights, that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…”
This brings me to the changes made by Congress.
After the committee approved the draft, I
reported it to the house on Friday the 28th
of June, when it was read and ordered to lie
on the table.
Richard Henry Lee kept a tally of the July
2nd vote on the same page where he had written
the independency resolution.
John Adams will tell you the story of the
debates and the vote, so I will move my story
forward to the afternoon of the 2nd.
After the vote on independence, Congress proceeded
the same day to consider the declaration
...the announcement of independence.
This is when they began to make (sigh) their changes.
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.
Congress made many more changes than that,
86 in all, including the shortening of
the document by a quarter.
On the afternoon of the 4th, it was read aloud
for a final review, and approved.
Congress then ordered the
 Declaration of Independence printed.
That part of the story, however, will be told by
John Dunlap —the man who printed the document.
I was asked to introduce myself and to tell a part
of the story of the Declaration of Independence.
Having fulfilled those duties, I see that
I have a little time left to respond to some
questions that have been sent to me.
This question is from one Praetoria Berrycloth,
from Wheyoughtathen, Pennsylvania.
Praetoria writes,
You wrote “all men are created equal” in the
Declaration of Independence, yet you owned slaves.
Did you attempt to address the issue of slavery while
you were writing the Declaration of Independence?
Yes, Praetoria, my original draft of the Declaration
of Independence included a paragraph condemning
the institution of slavery.
The paragraph was included in the list of
grievances, and read thus:
He has waged cruel war against human nature
itself, violating its 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 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.
This paragraph was only implicitly a condemnation
of slavery.
The purpose of the paragraph was to accuse
King George III of committing crimes not only
against our rights as British subjects, but
against human nature itself.
But no matter where I would have included
the subject of slavery in the document,
I would have needed to express it within the
context of a condemnation of the King and
of Parliament, because that was the nature
of the document I was writing.
Congress decided that the subject did not
serve as an effective grievance, at least
partially because the paragraph seemed to
place the blame of slavery entirely on the
shoulders of the king.
When I was writing the Declaration of Independence,
I was serving as council for the United States
of America, in the court of the world, prosecuting
King George III and Parliament for crimes
under natural law.
Of course I did not include any mention the
fault of the colonies in the matter of slavery,
any more than I would have mentioned our own
blame in any other subject in my argument.
If you ever have the misfortune of needing
to retain the assistance of legal council,
and your attorney begins making arguments
for the other side of the case, you may wish
to consider seeking new council.
(sighs)
Perhaps the logic of the paragraph was unwieldy.
But if the structure of the grievance was
the only issue, Congress could have made alterations
to the paragraph, as they made changes elsewhere.
Instead, they removed the entire subject of
slavery from the document.
I maintained ever afterward that their real
reason for striking out the clause reprobating
the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa was
something other than any perceived inefficacy
of the writing style or logic.
I argue that it was removed 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 had very few slaves themselves,
yet they had been pretty considerable carriers
of slaves to others.
What they did was to silence discussion about
the problem within the context of this statement
of the underlying reasons for our revolution.
I well understand that this is a difficult
subject to talk about, but we cannot find
a solution for problems we refuse to discuss.
This question was sent to me by Framlinggim
Edevane, in Maibealnot, Georgia.
Framlinggim writes,
How did you feel while the Congress was debating
and editing the committee’s final draft
of the Declaration of Independence?
Framlinggim, I admit to you that I was not
happy about the edits made by Congress.
I was sitting by Doctor Franklin, who perceived
that I was not insensible to these mutilations.
He then told me the following story.
“When I was a journeyman printer,” said
he, “one of my companions, an apprentice
hatter, having served out his time, was about
to open shop for himself.
His first concern was to have a handsome sign-board,
with a proper inscription.
He composed it in these words, John Thompson,
Hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money,
with a figure of a hat subjoined; but he thought he
would submit it to his friends for their amendments.
The first he showed it to thought the word
"Hatter" tautologous, because followed by the
words makes hats, which shows he was a hatter.
It was struck out.
The next observed that the word "makes" might
as well be omitted, because his customers
would not care who made the hats.
If good and to their mind, they would buy
by whomsoever made.
He struck it out.
A third said he thought the words for "ready
money" were useless, as it was not the custom
of the place to sell on credit.
Every one who purchased expected to pay.
They were parted with, and the inscription
now stood, John Thompson sells hats.
‘Sells hats!’, says his next friend: ‘Why,
nobody will expect you to give them away;
what then is the use of that word?’
It was stricken out, and hats followed it,
the rather as there was one painted on the board.
So the inscription was reduced ultimately
to John Thompson, with the figure of a hat subjoined.
I suppose that the good Dr. Franklin was trying
to salve my wounded pride, while gently reminding
me to take myself a little less seriously.
Anyone who has ever written anything to be
reviewed by a committee is probably able to
relate to the good Mr. Thompson, Hatter.
If so, they can understand how I felt as the
Continental Congress wreaked their depredations
upon my work.
In spite of my personal feelings, however,
I remained silent during the process, because
I knew that we needed to use compromise in
order to achieve consensus if we were to overcome
this crisis.
This question comes all the way from the town
of Couchant Pinnacles, California, sent to me
by one Gammon Whithergoye.
Gammon writes...
You mentioned that, at the time you were writing
the Declaration of Independence, you didn’t
know how important it was going to become.
How did your opinion of what the document
means change during your life?
What do you hope it will mean to future generations
of Americans?
Well Gammon...
The Declaration, and the 4th of July, began
to enjoy public fame as early as 1777, with
Americans celebrating the day and the document.
As both the day and the document were elevated
in the popular mind over the years, I became
associated with them.
This association played a significant role
in my being considered by the American people
as a representative of what our Revolution,
and our nation, stood for.
By the time the 50th anniversary of the Declaration
of Independence was approaching, I thought
of it in the following terms.
May it be to the world, what I believe it
will be, (to some parts sooner, to others
later, but finally to all:) the signal of
arousing men to burst the chains, under which
monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded
them to bind themselves, and to assume the
blessings and security of self-government.
That form which we have substituted restores
the free right to the unbounded exercise of
reason and freedom of opinion.
All eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man.
The general spread of the light of science
has already laid open to every view the palpable
truth, that the mass of mankind has not been
born, with saddles on their backs, nor a favored
few booted and spurred, ready to ride them
legitimately, by the grace of god.
These are grounds of hope for others.
For ourselves, let the annual return of this day
forever refresh our recollections of these rights,
and an undiminished devotion to them.
