Jefferson’s Draft

Five Men, One Task

On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft a declaration of independence. The members were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.[reference:16]

The committee chose Jefferson to write the first draft. He was 33 years old, a Virginia planter and lawyer, and had already established himself as a talented political writer.[reference:17]

Two Weeks in Philadelphia

Jefferson worked in private, behind a veil of Congressionally imposed secrecy. He wrote on a portable lap desk in his boarding house, sometimes at the home of a friend. He borrowed freely from existing documents — the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which George Mason had drafted just weeks earlier, and the political philosophy of John Locke and the Scottish Enlightenment.[reference:18][reference:19]

He later explained that he was not trying to invent new principles. “It was intended to be an expression of the American mind,” he wrote. The authority of the document rested on “the harmonizing sentiments of the day.”[reference:20]

Jefferson finished a draft on June 28 — less than three weeks after he had begun. He made a clean copy, which he labeled the “original Rough draught.” That draft still exists, and it shows the edits made at every stage of the process.[reference:21]

47 Changes Before Congress

Jefferson’s draft was first revised by John Adams, then by Benjamin Franklin, then by the full committee. A total of 47 alterations were made before the document was presented to Congress on June 28, including the insertion of three complete paragraphs.[reference:22]

Franklin’s most famous edit was a single phrase. Jefferson had written that certain truths were “sacred and undeniable.” Franklin crossed out those words and wrote “self-evident” — a phrase drawn from the scientific language of the Enlightenment. It was a small change with enormous consequences: the truth of human equality would rest not on religious authority but on reason itself.

Jefferson opposed many of the changes. He was, as one historian noted, a writer who did not enjoy being edited. But he accepted them as part of the process.[reference:23]

39 More Changes, One Painful Deletion

After voting for independence on July 2, Congress continued to refine the document. Over the next two days, delegates went through the draft line by line, making 39 additional revisions. They eliminated about a quarter of Jefferson’s original text.[reference:24][reference:25]

The deletion that angered Jefferson most was a clause blaming King George III for the slave trade. Jefferson had written that the King had “waged cruel war against human nature itself” by forcing the slave trade upon the American colonies. Congress removed it — partly because delegates from Georgia and South Carolina objected, and partly because other delegates recognized the hypocrisy of a slaveholder condemning slavery.[reference:26][reference:27]

Jefferson later wrote that Congress had “mangled” his composition. But the document that emerged was no longer just his. It belonged to the Congress, and through them, to the American people.[reference:28]

“I was not striving for originality of principal or sentiment.” Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825

July 4, 1776

On the morning of July 4, Congress adopted the final text. That night, John Dunlap — the official printer to Congress — set the document in type and printed approximately 200 copies. These “Dunlap Broadsides” were sent to committees, assemblies, and commanders of the Continental troops. One copy crossed the Atlantic and reached King George III months later.[reference:29][reference:30]

The Declaration of Independence was not signed on July 4. Most delegates signed the official engrossed copy on August 2, 1776. Some signed later. The document that Jefferson wrote had become the document that a nation pledged its life, fortune, and honor to defend.[reference:31]