Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor
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16.Page Smith, James Wilson, pp. 87–89, 129–139.
17.Morris to Joseph Reed, July 21, 1776, in Smith, Letters, 4: 510–511.
18.My interpretation of the motives behind Dickinson’s behavior that day mirror those of Flower, John Dickinson, p. 166.
19.Ibid., p. 166; Franklin B. Dexter, ed., The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, 2 vols. (New York, 1901), 2: 282; Calvert, Quaker Constitutionalism, p. 242; John Adams to John Winthrop, June 23, 1776, Adams Papers, 4: 332.
20.Quoted in Calvert, Quaker Constitutionalism, p. 242; and Flower, John Dickinson, p. 174.
21.John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776, Adams Family Correspondence, 2: 27–31.
CHAPTER 24—THOMAS JEFFERSON’S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
1.Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, pp. 25–26; Jefferson to Thomas Page, May 17, 1776, Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 293. Jefferson is known as a remarkably prolific correspondent, but in Julian Boyd’s edition of the Jefferson Papers covering the period from January 1 to the end of May 1776, there are only two letters from Jefferson, and five coming in to him.
2.Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 277–284.
3.Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, pp. 216–217.
4.“Draft Address to the Foreign Mercenaries,” May 1776 [precise date unknown], Smith, Letters, 110–112. It appears that Jefferson and George Wythe collaborated in drafting the address; it is in Wythe’s hand, but it was found in Jefferson’s personal papers.
5.Jefferson to Thomas Nelson, May 16, 1776, Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 2: 292–293.
6.Jefferson wrote three drafts of the Virginia Constitution. They are all printed in Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 337–364. Though most historians have concluded that George Mason’s draft of the Virginia Constitution was the most influential in shaping the final product, Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 329–337n, makes a strong case that Jefferson’s contribution to the Constitution was greater than historians have recognized.
7.JCC, 5: 431; John Adams to Timothy Pickering, Aug. 6, 1822, in Charles Francis Adams, ed., Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, 10 vols. (Boston, 1850–56), 2: 514n.
8.Adams, Autobiography, 3: 335.
9.Ibid. Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, pp. 219–220, makes a convincing case refuting Adams’s claim.
10.Christopher Collier, Roger Sherman’s Connecticut: Yankee Politics and the American Revolution (Middletown, CT, 1971), pp. 3–64, 85–137.
11.Ibid., p. 94; Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 4 vols., rev. ed. (New Haven, CT, 1966), 3: 34, 88–89.
12.For Livingston’s evolving views toward independence, see Ferling, Independence, pp. 285–289, 294.
13.Adams, Autobiography, 3: 336; Adams to Pickering, Aug. 6, 1822, in Adams, ed., Works of John Adams, 2: 514n. For an excellent account of these exchanges I am indebted to Maier, American Scripture, pp. 99–101.
14.Maier, American Scripture, p. 100; Jefferson to James Madison, Aug. 30, 1823, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1899), 10: 267–269.
15.My account of Jefferson’s drafting of the Declaration is based on the superb work of Maier, American Scripture, pp. 99–143, 235–241; Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study of Political Ideas (New York, 1922), pp. 135–193; and Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 11: 413–433.
16.Jefferson to James Madison, Aug. 30, 1823, Ford, ed., Writings of Jefferson, 10: 267–269.
17.Jefferson to Benjamin Franklin, June 21, 1776, Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 404. For a more general discussion of the sequence of events within the committee see ibid., 1: 413–417; and Maier, American Scripture, pp. 101–102.
18.There have been countless books and articles on the intellectual foundations of the Declaration of Independence. Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence, pp. 24–134, is the starting point for understanding the sources of Jefferson’s thought. Gary Wills, Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (New York, 1978) is a provocative, but ultimately unconvincing argument that the Scottish common-sense philosophers lay at the heart of Jefferson’s thought. Jay Fliegelman, Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance (Stanford, CA, 1993) argues that Jefferson wrote the Declaration in a style that was meant to be read aloud. A helpful survey of these varying perspectives can be found in Maier, American Scripture, pp. 123–143.
19.The draft of Jefferson’s Declaration being discussed in this paragraph, and in subsequent discussions in this chapter unless otherwise noted, is the so-called “fair copy” that the Committee of Five submitted to the Congress. In fact, that fair copy has not survived, so scholars have used the closest version that they can find—a copy of the committee’s draft that Jefferson sent to Richard Henry Lee on July 8, 1776. Jefferson’s “original rough draft,” reprinted in Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 423–427, while more elegant than Mason’s, was wordier and not as elegant as the one that emerged from the committee. The version that most likely emerged from the Committee of Five, the so-called fair copy, has been replicated in Becker, Declaration of Independence, pp. 174–184 (Becker refers to it as the “Lee Copy”) and, in a slightly different form, in Maier, American Scripture, pp. 235–241 (which she refers to as the “Jefferson Draft”). The text of the fair copy analyzed in this chapter is reprinted in Appendix A of this volume; it is based on the version printed in Becker, with a few modifications, duly noted.
20.Maier, American Scripture, pp. 122–134. For a full discussion of Mason’s role in drafting the Virginia Declaration of Rights, see Robert Alan Rutland, The Birth of the Bill of Rights, 1776–1791 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1955), pp. 33–48; John Selby, The Revolution in Virginia, 1775–1783 (Williamsburg, VA, 1988), pp. 100–110; Beeman, Patrick Henry, pp. 101–109; McConnell, Politics of War, pp. 242–243.
21.For the differences between the Committee’s “fair copy” and the final version adopted by Congress, see Appendix A.
22.John Locke, Two Treatises on Government (London, 1821 ed.), p. 382. The quote from Jefferson’s Summary View is in Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 125; see also Maier, American Scripture, pp. 135–137.
23.Maier, American Scripture, p. 123, agrees that the preamble was not accorded anywhere near the importance, indeed, the reverence, that it is today. She believes that it was the last paragraph of the Declaration that was the most important and the most oft-quoted, because it, after all, was the paragraph that officially declared independence.
24.The draft of the Virginia Constitution referred to here is Jefferson’s “Third Draft,” printed in Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 356–365. The draft of the Declaration referred to here is the “fair copy” presented by the Committee of Five to Congress and reprinted in Appendix A. See also Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 332–333n, and Maier, American Scripture, pp. 105–123.
25.Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 357. The numbering of the individual grievances in Appendix A is based on the ordering of those grievances in Becker, Declaration of Independence, pp. 174–184.
26.For differing views of the intent and impact of this passage, see Becker, Declaration of Independence, pp. 212–214, and Maier, American Scripture, pp. 121–122.
27.Maier, American Scripture, pp. 139–142, has a particularly effective analysis of the anger contained in Jefferson’s denunciation of the British people.
CHAPTER 25—AMERICA’S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
1.Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 313–314. The analysis in this chapter, as in Chapter Twenty-Four, draws heavily on the superb analysis of Pauline Maier, in American Scripture, esp. pp. 45–46, 143–150.
2.JCC, 5: 507.
3.Maier, American Scripture, pp. 143–144; Willard Ritz, “From the Here of Jefferson’s Handwritten Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence to the There of the Printed Dunlap Broadside,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, CXVI (1992): 499–552. See also Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 415–417.
4.This, and subsequent analyses of changes made by Congress to
the so-called “fair copy” of the document that Jefferson sent to Richard Henry Lee is based on the text of the Declaration, containing Congress’s revisions, printed in Becker, Declaration of Independence, pp. 174–184. See also, Maier, American Scripture, pp. 236–241. Maier’s text is a refined version of the version printed in Becker’s volume. The version from Becker, with minor adjustments, appears in Appendix A of this volume.
5.Maier, American Scripture, pp. 110–111, 146.
6.Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 314–315.
7.Maier, American Scripture, pp. 146–147. Historians have devoted a huge amount of time and effort in analyzing Jefferson’s own views and behaviors on the subject of slavery. Dumas Malone, in his otherwise excellent Jefferson the Virginian, p. 228, largely ignores the issue. Jon Meacham, in his recently published biography, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (New York, 2012), pp. 105–106, 124, seeks to strike a middle ground, recognizing some of the contradictory qualities of Jefferson’s rhetoric, but resists passing judgment. The two most judgmental, and hostile, accounts of Jefferson and slavery are Paul Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: Treason Against the Hopes of the World,” in Peter Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies (Charlottesville, VA, 1993), pp. 181–221, and Henry Wiencek, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves (New York, 2012). See also George Van Cleve, A Slaveholders’ Union: Slavery, Politics, and the Constitution in the Early Republic (Chicago, 2010), pp. 42–45, which, detaching itself from the moral question of slavery, argues that slavery was such a fundamental part of the economic life of America during the colonial period and early Republic that it is hardly surprising that so little progress was made in eliminating the paradox at the nation’s core. For a similarly balanced, and morally detached, analysis of this problem, see Peter Onuf and Ari Helo, “Jefferson, Morality, and the Problem of Slavery,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 60 (2003): 583–614.
8.Maier, American Scripture, pp. 147–148, 240–241.
9.Ibid., pp. 142, 148–149.
10.Jefferson’s reference to the “mutilations” of his draft is contained in a recollection of the events of those days in Jefferson to Robert Walsh, Dec. 4, 1818, in Ford, ed., Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 10: 120n; Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, July 8, 1776; Lee to Jefferson, July 21, 1776, Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 456, 471. My conclusion about the effect of the Congress’s alterations to Jefferson’s draft closely coincides with that in Maier, American Scripture, p. 150.
11.Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, p. 229.
12.Jefferson, “Notes on the Proceedings of Congress,” July 1–4, 1776, Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 315.
13.Jefferson apparently composed his notes on the events of those days shortly before June 1, 1783, at which time he sent them to James Madison. See Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 327–329n.
14.JCC, 5: 510–516; Robert Treat Paine Diary, July 4, 1776, Paine to Joseph Palmer, July 6, 1776, both in Smith, Letters, 4: 386, 399.
15.The only explicit evidence of Hancock’s signing is in the rough copy of Thomson’s journal, which says: “Signed, by order and in behalf of the Congress, John Hancock, President.” It seems likely that Thomson, as secretary, may have signed it that day as well. The most convincing analysis of the timing of the signing is Smith, Letters, 4: 381–383. See also Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 304–308; and Hazleton, Declaration of Independence, p. 204.
16.Hazleton, Declaration of Independence, p. 204; JCC, 5: 590–591.
17.JCC, 5: 626; Hazleton, Declaration of Independence, p. 204.
18.Hazleton, Declaration of Independence, pp. 210–21.
19.John Hancock to the New Jersey Convention, July 5, 1776; Hancock to the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, July 5, 1776; Hancock to “Certain States,” July 6, 1776; Smith, Letters, 4: 392, 393, 396. See also Ritz, “From the Here of Jefferson’s Handwritten Rough Draft,” pp. 499–512; Maier, American Scripture, p. 159.
20.Maier, American Scripture, pp. 156–157; Hazleton, Declaration of Independence, pp. 242–244; John Adams to Samuel Chase, July 9, 1776, Adams Papers, 9: 372. For the contention that the Declaration was read to a small group at the State House, see Ritz, “From the Here of Jefferson’s Handwritten Rough Draft,” pp. 507–510.
21.Hazleton, Declaration of Independence, pp. 252–253; George Washington, General Orders, July 9, 1776, George Washington to John Hancock, July 10, 1776, GW Papers, R.S., 5: 246, 258; Chernow, Washington, p. 237.
INDEX
Adams, Abigail Smith, 68
Adams, Elizabeth, 321
Adams, John, 5, 8, 109, 118, 139, 142, 144, 151, 166, 174, 201, 202, 257, 267, 345, 354
“A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend,” 322
on Address to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, 251
on Address to the King, 167
anti-Catholic bias of, 153
on appointment of army officers, 234
assessment of colonies’ attitudes toward independence, 344
assessment of first congress, 3, 63, 147, 171–172
as “Atlas of Independence,” 64, 443n1
Autobiography, 388, 392
on Benjamin Franklin, 243–244
on Boston Committee of Correspondence petition, 146
on Boston Tea Party, 24
on Catholic Church, 147–148
on committee to visit General Washington, 265
on Common Sense, 322–324
on Declaration of Taking Arms, 250
defense of British soldiers after Boston Massacre, 71–73
on delay in declaring independence, 329–330, 381
description of independence as divine plan, 1, 381
distaste for violence and disorder, 70
distrust of Quakerism, 162
draft of letter to General Gage, 145
education, 65
on first official reading of Declaration of Independence, 417
on forming new governments, 284, 286
on Georgia delegates, 259
on John Dickinson, 253–254
on John Hancock, 211, 219, 230
as John Hancock’s attorney, 214
law practice, 66–68
on natural rights, 117
on Olive Branch petition, 253–254
on peace commissioners, 333, 340–341
on Philadelphia hospitality, 137–138
political writings by, 68–70
on Prohibitory Act, 331
on proportional representation, 100
questions about foreign trade, 338
on raising continental army, 226
rebuttal to Dickinson’s argument against independence (July 1, 1776), 373–374
on reconciliation, 206–207
relationship with John Dickinson, 64, 78, 167, 252–254, 325
on Rev. Duche’s prayer, 106
on Robert Sherman, 390
selection of Carpenters’ Hall as meeting place, 80
as source of information, 104
on Thomas Jefferson, 388, 391–392
Thoughts on Government, 322–323
trip to Philadelphia, 47–49, 52–53, 73–74, 194
on Washington as commander-in-chief, 228–229, 230–231
Adams, Samuel, 5, 8, 60, 142, 144, 151, 155, 172, 241, 253, 336
Boston Tea Party, 23–24
boycott of British trade, proposal for, 32
cancellation of ball by, 188
changed impression of, 135–136
on committee visiting General Washington, 265
committees of correspondence, organization of, 21–22
on Common Sense, 321
on delay in declaring independence, 341
escape from British troops, 175, 193–194
General Gage, draft of letter to, 145
horseback ride to Philadelphia, 260–261
on importance of consensus for independence, 330
John Hancock, relationship with, 194, 215–218
on king’s rejection of Olive Branch petition, 289
personal life, 16–17
political activism, 17
role of in first congress, 171
Sons of Liberty, as leader, 18–19
stolen letters, use of, 217–218
suggestion of prayer by Rev. Duche, 106–107
writing skills, 18
Address to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, 181, 248, 250
Address to the King, 165–168, 169, 176–181
Administration of Justice Act (1774), 401
Aitken, Robert, 310–311
Alexander, Robert, 329
Alison, Francis, 85–86
Allen, Andrew, 329
Allen, Ethan, 201, 221
American Philosophical Society, 54, 123
American Revolutionary War, beginning of, 193
Andrea Doria (ship), 268
Annapolis, Maryland, 38
Anne Arundel County, Maryland, 187
April 19, 1775, events of, 192–193, 200
Archbishop of Canterbury, 25
Arnold, Benedict
defeat of at Quebec, 298–299
at Fort Ticonderoga, 221
Articles of Association
creation, 155–162
effect on local resistance, 185–186, 189–190
enforcement, 186–188
function, 173
Autobiography (John Adams), 388, 392
Bache, Richard, 309, 310
Barrington, William, 2nd Viscount, 275
Barry, Richard, 154
Bartlett, Josiah, 260, 284, 321, 332, 359
Bassett, Burwell, 233
Beaver (ship), 11, 23
Bell, Robert, 312, 320
Bentley, Joshua, 192
Bernard, Francis, 19, 214
Besey (ship), 44
Biddle, Edward, 57, 110, 134, 142
Bland, Richard, 49, 57, 58, 140, 165, 260
Bob (Jefferson’s slave), 385
Boerum, Simon, 59
Bollan, William, 176, 276
Bond, Thomas, 53
Bonvouloir, Julien Achard de, 339
Boston, Massachusetts
Battle of Bunker Hill, 238
Boston Caucus, 17
Boston Massacre, 71
Boston Tea Party (1773), 11–12, 23–25
Boston Town Meeting, 20–21, 23