I have made it a rule, [said Franklin to Jefferson,] whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer, 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 signboard, 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 shewed it to thought the word Hatter tautologous, because followed by the words, makes hats, which shew 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 his inscription was reduced ultimately to John Thompson with the figure of a hat subjoined.28
Franklin’s anecdote must have had its intended effect. Jefferson remembered it well and continued to repeat it for many years afterward.
Jefferson regretted the changes Congress made to his version of the Declaration of Independence and maintained the superiority of his original text. Sending a copy of the Declaration to Richard Henry Lee shortly after Congress approved it, Jefferson also included a copy of his original version, telling him, “You will judge whether it is the better or worse for the Critics.”29
Writing his autobiography in the last decade of his life, Jefferson used the work as a vehicle to reassert his original text of the Declaration. He also included the final text of the document as approved by Congress and devised a way to present both simultaneously. In the autobiography, he introduced the text with the following explanation: “As the sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject also, I will state the form of the declaration as originally reported. The parts struck out by Congress shall be distinguished by a black line drawn under them; and those inserted by them shall be placed in the margin or in a concurrent column.”30
Coming to the last two paragraphs of the document, Jefferson found it impossible to maintain his stated method. The differences between the documents were too great. Consequently, he supplied the last two paragraphs of both versions in parallel columns. One addition made by Congress is obvious. Jefferson’s original did not mention “a firm reliance of the protection of divine providence.” This insertion may have upset him the most. Founding the United States of America on principles of reason, he saw no need to conclude the Declaration of Independence with reference to religion.
Congress tentatively approved the Declaration of Independence on Tuesday, July 2. On Thursday, July 4, it approved the work with its final changes and ordered the document printed. It would not actually be signed until August 2. By this time, Pennsylvania had elected a new slate of delegates to the Continental Congress, which included Benjamin Rush. Yet another man of science to join the ranks of Revolutionary patriots, Rush, an Edinburgh-trained physician, was currently serving as Professor of Chemistry at the College of Philadelphia and had already established himself as a leader in the field with A Syllabus of a Course of Lectures in Chemistry, the first American textbook on the subject.31 He and Jefferson became lifelong friends.
Rush’s reminiscence of the event brings alive the experience within the Continental Congress as he and his fellow delegates affixed their names to the Declaration of Independence. He recalled the “pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house” as one after another was called to the table of the President of Congress to sign what many believed to be “our own death warrants.”32 The gloom was broken by a remark Benjamin Harrison made to Elbridge Gerry: “I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr. Gerry,” the tall, corpulent Harrison said to the slender delegate from Massachusetts, “when we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead.”
“This speech procured a transient smile,” Rush recalled, “but it was soon succeeded by the solemnity with which the whole business was conducted.” Several versions of this anecdote survive, and all closely coincide, including the story told by Jefferson himself. Harrison’s remark captured a feeling of the moment, the knowledge among the signers that by affixing their names to the Declaration of Independence they were putting their lives on the line. Should American independence fail, all would be convicted of treason. Dark humor had been a part of early American culture since the days of Captain John Smith. Among the early colonists, it offered a way to cope with the dangers and privations of the American wilderness. Now, dark humor offered a way to cope with the life-threatening danger that comes when people stand up for what they believe.
Though Jefferson downplayed the originality of the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence, no other document written before, or since, has synthesized and articulated so well or so succinctly the ideas of natural law and natural right. In addition, the Declaration of Independence is one of the greatest statements of defiance ever written. Speaking for the American people, Jefferson let the world know that no longer could they withstand the abuses they were suffering at the hands of the British government. They could not and they would not.
On a stage erected outside the State House at noon on Monday, July 8, the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed before a huge crowd. John Nixon read the document to the people, who “declared their approbation by three repeated Huzzas.” Despite the scarcity of gunpowder, the soldiers raised their muskets to sound the “Feu de Joy.”33 Church bells rang throughout the day and into the night. The King’s arms were pulled down from both the State House and the Court House and burned in one of the many bonfires set throughout the city that evening. The skies were clear as darkness fell. The stars shone and the church bells rang. A new nation was born.
CHAPTER 14
The Book Culture of Philadelphia and Williamsburg, Contrasted
Living in Philadelphia while serving as a delegate to the Continental Congress, Jefferson immersed himself in the city’s literary culture. His Congressional colleagues included many of the finest readers and writers in America. Jefferson expanded his circle of acquaintances to include local booksellers and publishers, too. Seldom did he let a week go by without visiting one Philadelphia bookshop or another and making substantial purchases. His July 1776 accounts, combined with other surviving evidence, show him buying some pamphlets on the sixth and some more on the twelfth. He purchased a book on the fifteenth, a pamphlet on the twenty-sixth, more pamphlets on the twenty-ninth, and yet another pamphlet on the thirtieth.1 His accounts remain silent as to the titles of the books and pamphlets he purchased and the names of the booksellers he patronized, but other evidence can help identify some of the works Jefferson acquired and some of the shops he visited during his time in Philadelphia. He appears to have been best acquainted with three particular booksellers: Robert Bell, Robert Aitken, and John Dunlap. All exerted an influence on him that summer and would remain important contacts in the years to come.
The three booksellers had established themselves in Philadelphia since Jefferson first visited the city ten years earlier. Born in Scotland and apprenticed in England, Robert Bell rose to prominence in Ireland, where he developed a reputation as both bookseller and auctioneer and where he began to reprint works other publishers had already popularized. In the world of books, Dublin had long been known as the place where London imprints w
ere pirated and cheaply reprinted. Bell perpetuated and reinforced the city’s reputation as a center for cheap pirated editions, but he had even more audacity than his peers: he claimed the right to reprint whatever books he wished regardless of their place of origin. To that end, he reissued inexpensive reprints of works his Dublin competitors had issued, an endeavor that ultimately caused them to run him out of town.2
Finding himself persona non grata in Dublin, Bell came to the New World in the late 1760s to get a fresh start. Upon settling in Philadelphia, he opened a bookshop adjacent to St. Paul’s Church on Third Street, where the old Union Library used to be. The place had been vacated recently after the Library Company of Philadelphia had absorbed the Union Library. Before long, Bell developed a fine reputation among Philadelphians as bookseller, publisher, and auctioneer. Innovative and aggressive in his marketing, he displayed his flamboyant character both in person and in his advertising copy. He sometimes styled himself “Provedore to the Sentimentalists,” and other times used even more outrageous epithets to characterize himself in his role as bookseller. For example, prefaced to a list of sale books appended to his edition of Josiah Tucker’s True Interest of Britain, Set Forth in Regard to the Colonies— one of the pamphlets Jefferson added to his personal bookshelf in 1776—Bell included a brief note in which he claimed to be “Provedore to the Voluntiers of that Respectable Society, who practically know, that food for the mind, is equivalent to money.” Like Jefferson, Bell understood that true bibliophiles prefer books over money.
Bell became best known as an auctioneer, and many contemporary book-buyers came under the sway of what he called his “magic mallet.” Printer William McCulloch left the most amusing account of his technique as an auctioneer. Standing before a crowd of anxious book-buyers, Bell “was full of drollery, and many, going to his auction for the merriment, would buy a book from good humour. It was as good as a play to attend his sales at auction. There were few authors of whom he could not tell some anecdote, which would get the audience in a roar. He sometimes had a can of beer aside him, and would drink comical healths. His buffoonery was diversified and without limit.”3
His auctioneering eventually got him into trouble. Before long, unlicensed book auctions were outlawed in Philadelphia, and the licensing authorities repeatedly denied Bell’s application. Publishing a pamphlet in his own defense, he included some tongue-in-cheek admonitory lines of verse he attributed to “Momus”:
PRAY stop, Master Bell, with your selling of Books,
Your smart witty Sayings, and cunning arch Looks:
By Auction I mean—’tis a shocking Offence
To sell Wit, or Humour, or e’en common Sense,
Unsanction’d by Law, on any Pretence:
Read the Act of Assembly by Mood, and by Tense,
There’s none can vend Knowledge without A Lie-cence.4
These lines, of course, refer to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which Bell had published in Philadelphia in early 1776, the imprint that established his renown throughout North America and, incidentally, secured his fortune.
Jefferson had patronized Bell as early as the previous summer, when he subscribed to his three-volume reprint of James Burgh’s Political Disquisitions, a critical study of English politics and society that significantly influenced the development of American thought. Burgh’s solid moral foundation, rationalism, good sense, practicality, and refined literary style found many welcome readers in the New World. Intermittently, Burgh was capable of succinct nuggets of wisdom. Contemporary American readers saw much relevance in his poignant comments on liberty and freedom.
Political Disquisitions was the latest of several major reprints Bell had undertaken in Philadelphia. These ambitious publishing endeavors had begun with a three-volume edition of William Robertson’s History of the Reign of Charles V and continued with a four-volume edition of William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. With these reprints, Bell followed the usual practice of the Dublin reprinters: by reducing the size of a book’s format as well as its type, he enabled himself to retail the same titles at lower prices than the imported London editions could be had.
“The more Books are sold, the more will be sold,” Bell believed. For proof, he invoked the experience of his customers and competitors, calling this idea “an established Truth well known to every liberal Reader, and to every Bookseller of Experience; For the Sale of one book propagateth the Sale of another, with as much certainty as the Possession of one Guinea helpeth to the Possession of another.”5 Jefferson’s experience verifies Bell’s theory. His accounts show that he patronized Bell’s shop frequently when he was in Philadelphia. Though his surviving correspondence makes little mention of Bell, the attitude Jefferson held regarding inexpensive reprint editions shows that the two were in complete accord and suggests Bell’s influence. When a book Jefferson wanted was published in London, he was often content to wait until the Dublin edition appeared. His choice of imprints was partly a matter of economy, but it was also a matter of personal taste. He nearly always preferred smaller format books; since the Dublin publishers cut costs by reducing format size, he liked the Dublin editions for their convenience as well as their price.
In Paris some years later, Jefferson helped Laurent Noel Pissot, a publisher who may be considered the French equivalent of Robert Bell, find an American market for his English reprints. Recommending Pissot to Francis Hopkinson, Jefferson explained, “A printer here has begun to print the most remarkable of the English authors, as that can be done here much cheaper than in England or even Ireland. He supposes America could take off a considerable number of copies, and has therefore applied to me to find a sure correspondent for him.”6 By the time Jefferson went to Paris, he clearly understood the value of inexpensive reprints, knowledge his contact with Robert Bell had fostered.
While in Philadelphia, Jefferson also frequented the bookshop of Robert Aitken, located on the east side of Front Street nearly opposite the London Coffee House. Having emigrated from Scotland, Aitken established his Philadelphia shop in 1771, and it soon developed a reputation as the city’s “largest and most valuable bookstore.” Aitken’s approach to the book business varied significantly from Bell’s and thus offered customers a much different shopping experience. Whereas Bell concentrated on his own publications, Aitken stocked a wide range of imported books. Aitken also emphasized the elegance of books as material objects. Among the printers in Philadelphia, Aitken reputedly had the finest taste. He was an expert bookbinder, too. Both documentary evidence and surviving examples of Aitken’s craftsmanship attest to his taste and his skill. The ever-observant William McCulloch stated, “There was no better finished binding ever done than some of the books executed in his shop.”7 Jefferson purchased a number of books from Aitken in 1776, and Aitken, as he did with so many of his customers, earned his respect and his continued patronage.
Printer and publisher John Dunlap had established his own printing house on the south side of Jersey Market. In practical terms, the location of Dunlap’s shop meant that Jefferson could stop there as he walked between Bell’s shop and Aitken’s. Five years earlier, Dunlap had begun publishing the weekly Pennsylvania Packet, or General Advertiser. He came to know Jefferson as a writer before meeting him in person: the previous year Dunlap had issued the Philadelphia edition of A Summary View of the Rights of British America. He thus helped give that work greater currency outside Virginia and establish Jefferson’s reputation as both writer and thinker. The care with which Dunlap treated this pamphlet suggests that he recognized the importance of the ideas it contained.
Dunlap’s edition of Summary View, which surpassed the Williamsburg edition in terms of elegance, offers an example of early American printing at its finest. The epigraph from Cicero was printed in all Roman capitals, which Dunlap followed with an English translation printed in italics. The preface, too, appears in italics, with sufficiently generous spacing to make its text fill an entire page. The stately appearance
of the preface reinforces the gravity of the ideas it introduces.
Other Congressional delegates recognized Dunlap’s keen eye for the visual appearance of the printed page, and in the summer of 1776, Congress chose him to print the Declaration of Independence. Presumably, Jefferson spent much time in Dunlap’s shop proofreading the Declaration before it was issued. A few years later, Jefferson would take advantage of their friendship to their mutual benefit by helping Dunlap establish a partner of his in a Richmond printing venture.8
Though Jefferson’s accounts for 1776 show him buying several items from Dunlap, not all were for himself. He enjoyed procuring books for friends and neighbors whenever he could. Richard Henry Lee, who had returned to Virginia after presenting his famous motion for American independence, missed the opportunities for book-buying Philadelphia had to offer and wrote Jefferson to ask for a copy of Richard Price’s Observations of the Nature of Civil Liberty, the work in which Price applied his moral philosophy to the political problems the American colonies faced. Price’s pamphlet lent moral support to the colonial cause and earned the respect and friendship of many American leaders.9 Jefferson acquired a copy of the work for himself, but, always happy for an excuse to return to the bookshop, he went back to Dunlap’s, bought another copy of Price’s pamphlet, and dispatched it to Lee. Jefferson’s book-buying efforts helped fill his friends’ bookshelves as well as his own.
In addition to the retail bookshops he patronized, Jefferson also had access to the Library Company of Philadelphia. Established by Franklin and his friends four decades earlier, the Library Company was the first of its kind, and it set an example for many similar subscription libraries throughout colonial America. The “Mother of all the North American Subscription Libraries,” Franklin called it.10 These libraries worked by selling shares and then allowing shareholders to borrow books from the collection. Shareholders also had a say in which titles the library purchased. By the early 1770s, the Library Company contained more than two thousand titles. Its holdings included more history than anything else, but it also had many political works containing ideas that greatly influenced the foundations of American government.
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