committee (of 5. to wit, Dr Franklin, Sherman, Livingston and ourselves) met, discussed the subject, and then appointed him and myself to make the draught: that we, as a subcommittee met, & after the urgencies of each on the other, I consented to undertake the task; that the draught being made, we, the subcommittee, met, & conned the paper over, and he does not remember that he made or suggested a single alteration.' now these details are quite incorrect, the committee of 5. met, no such thing as a subcommittee was proposed, but they unanimously 5 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 Franklin7 and mr Adams requesting their corrections; because they were the two members of whose judgments and amendments I wished most to have the benefit before presenting it to the Committee; and you have seen the original paper now in my hands, with the corrections 10 of Doctor Franklin and mr Adams interlined in their own handwritings.

their

11

9

alterations were two or three only, and merely verbal. I then wrote a fair copy 12, reported it to the Committee, and from them, unaltered to Congress, this personal communication and consultation with mr Adams he has misremembered into the meetings of a sub-committee. Pickering's observations, and mr Adams's in addition, that it contained no new ideas, that it is a common place compilation, it's sentiments hacknied in Congress for two years before, and it's essence contained in Otis's pamphlet,' may all be true, of that I am not to be the judge. Richd H. Lee charged it as copied from Locke's treatise on government.13 Otis's pamphlet I never saw, & whether I had gathered my ideas from reading or reflection I do not know. I know only that I turned to neither book or pamphlet while writing it. I did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether & to offer no sentiment which had

ever been expressed before, had mr Adams been so restrained, Congress would have lost the benefit of his bold and impressive advocations of the rights of revolution, for no man's confident & fervid addresses, more than mr Adams's encoraged and supported us thro' the difficulties surrounding us, which, like the ceaseless action of gravity, weighed on us by night and by day. yet, on the same ground, we may ask what of these elevated thoughts was new, or can be affirmed never before to have entered the conceptions of man? Whether also the sentiments of inde

which make so great a portion of the instrument

Λ

pendance, and the reasons for declaring it had been hacknied in
Congress for two years before the 4th of July 76. or this dictum
also of mr Adams be another slip of memory, let history say.
this however I will say for m? Adams, that he supported the
declaration with zeal & ability, fighting fearlessly for every word
of it. as to myself, I thought it a duty to be, on that occasion,
a passive auditor of the opinions of others, more impartial judges
than I could be, of it's merits or demerits, during the debate I
was sitting by Dr Franklin, and he observed that I was writhing
a little under the acrimonious criticisms on some of it's
parts;
and it was on that occasion that, by way of comfort, he told me
the story
15 of John Thompson, the Hatter, and his new sign.
Timothy thinks the instrument the better for having a fourth
of it expunged, he would have thought it still better had the
other three fourths gone out also, all but the single sentiment
(the only one he approves) which recommends friendship to his
dear England, whenever she is willing to be at peace with us.
his insinuations are that altho''the high tone of the instrument
was in union with the warm feelings of the times, this sentiment
of habitual friendship to England should never be forgotten, and
that the duties it enjoins should especially be borne in mind on
every celebration of this anniversary.' in other words, that the
Declaration, as being a libel on the government of England, com-
posed in times of passion, should now be buried in utter oblivion

but to spare the feelings of our English friends and Angloman fellow citizens, but it is not to wound them that we wish to keep it in mind; but to cherish the principles of the instrument in the bosoms of our own citizens; and it is a heavenly comfort to see that these principles are yet so strongly felt as to render a circumstance so trifling as this little lapse of memory of mr Adams worthy of being solemnly announced and supported at an anniversary assemblage of the nation on it's birthday. In opposition however to mr Pickering, I pray God that these principles may be eternal ..

The "written notes, taken by myself at the moment and on the spot" of which he speaks say merely :

the committee for drawing the declaration of Independance de

do

sired me to prepare it. I did so it was accordingly done, and being approved by them, I reported it to the house .

It seems that, at one time, it was believed that the recital of wrongs in the Declaration was not Jefferson's composition arising from the facts that this portion of the instrument was almost identical with similar recitals in the preamble to the Constitution of Virginia and that, when the Constitution was framed, Jefferson was not in Virginia.

The matter has since been cleared up, however; and it appears that both were composed by Jefferson — the recitals in the preamble to the Constitution first. These are the facts: 16

Certainly on May 27th, the resolutions of the Convention of Virginia of May 15th were laid before Congress, we believe by Nelson.

Jefferson, who was already " eager "to have his voice in" the "great questions of the session" and who thus learned of the action of the Convention, was inspired 18 to draft a plan for the new government (of Virginia), and this (now in the New York Public Library, Lenox) he gave to Wythe (who was present in Congress on June 8th or 1oth or on both days, we know, and who departed probably on the 13th) to lay before that body.

Meanwhile, as shown by a letter, dated Williamsburg, June 15th, from William Fleming, to Jefferson: "[S] The progress of the business in the convention is, according to the custom, but slow. The Declaration of rights which is to serve as the basis of a new government, you will see in the news papers; the form or constitution of which is yet in embryo

Indeed, at 3 o'clock on the afternoon of the 22d, Fleming wrote, again to Jefferson from the same place : "[S] I being inform'd that the post is to set out in an hour, have just left the committee appointed to prepare a form of governmt to give you a summary of their proceeding. The inclos'd, printed, plan was drawn by col. G. Mason and by him laid before the committee. They proceeded to examine it clause by clause, and have made such alterations as you will observe by examining the printed copy and the manuscript together; tho' I am fearful you will not readily understand them, having made my notes in a hurry at the Table, as the alterations were made. I left the committee debating on some amendments proposed to the last clause, which they have probably finished, as the bell, for the meeting of the house, is now ringing. This business has

already taken up about a fortnights time, I mean in Committee."

When this letter was written, Wythe evidently had not yet arrived. He was in attendance upon the Convention certainly as early as June 29th, however; and, on July 27th, he himself writes, from Williamsburg to Jefferson: "[S] When I came here the plan of government had been committed to the whole house. To those who had the chief hand in forming it the one you put into my hands was shewn. Two or three parts of this were, with little alteration, inserted in that: but such was the impatience of sitting long enough to discuss several important points in which they differ, and so many other matters were necessarily to be despatched before the adjournment that I was persuaded the revision of a subject the members seemed tired of would at that time have been unsuccessfully proposed."

We have also a letter from Pendleton to Jefferson, dated July 22d, which says: "[S] I expected you had in the Preamble to our form of Government, exhausted the Subject of complaint agt Geo. 3 & was at a loss to discover what the Congress would do for one to their Declaration of Independance without copying, but find you have acquitted your selves very well on that score; We are now engaged beyond the Power of withdrawing, and I think cannot fail of success in happiness, if we do not defeat our selves by intrigue & Canvassing to be uppermost in Offices of Power & Lucre. I fancy there was much of this in our last Convention, but not being of the party or in the Jurat, I cannot speak of it wth certainty, but am not otherwise able to account for the