The Declaration of Independence

by: Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson
An American Founding Father who was the draftsman of the Declaration of Independence
of the United States and the nation’s first secretary of state (1789–94), second vice
president (1797–1801), and, as the third president (1801–09), the statesman responsible for
the Louisiana Purchase.
Early Life
Jefferson was born into one of the most prominent families of Virginia's planter elite. His
mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, was a member of the proud Randolph clan, a family claiming
descent from English and Scottish royalty. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a successful farmer as
well as a skilled surveyor and cartographer who produced the first accurate map of the Province
of Virginia. The young Jefferson was the third born of ten siblings.
Drafting the Declaration of Independence
In June 1776, the Congress appointed a five-man committee (Jefferson, John Adams,
Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston) to draft a Declaration of
Independence. The committee then chose Jefferson to author the declaration's first draft, selecting
him for what John Adams called his "happy talent for composition and singular felicity of
expression." Over 17 days, Thomas Jefferson writes what will become the mission statement for a
revolution and a new nation: The Declaration of Independence.
Although the Declaration of Independence adopted on July 4, 1776 had undergone a series
of revisions from Jefferson's original draft, its immortal words remain essentially his own:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty,
and the pursuit of Happiness."
Nevertheless, he was not regarded by his contemporaries as the author of the Declaration,
which was seen as a collective effort by the entire Congress. Indeed, he was not known by most
Americans as the principal author until the 1790s.
Literary Piece
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the
earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,
a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed,
will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils
are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But
when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design
to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient
sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their
former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of
repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute
Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless
suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has
utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless
those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to
them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from
the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with
his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness
his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected,
whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large
for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from
without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose, obstructing
the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations
hither and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for
establishing Judiciary Powers.
 He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the
amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our
people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our
legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and
unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should
commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing
therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example
and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering
fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to
legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War
against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of
our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works
of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely
paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
 He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against
their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by
their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored to bring on the
inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble
terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose
character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free
people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them
from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our
common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections
and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We
must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we
hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress,
Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in
the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare,
That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are
Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them
and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent
States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce,
and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the
support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we
mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Connecticut:
Thornton Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington,
William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, New York:
Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis
Lewis, Lewis Morris
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
New Jersey: Maryland:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas
Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Clark Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas
Pennsylvania: Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter
Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, Braxton
James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, North Carolina:
George Ross William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

Delaware: South Carolina:

Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr.,
McKean Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George
Walton

Summary of the Introduction: The introduction of The Declaration of Independence contains

some of the world's most oft quoted words. The introduction opens by stating the purpose of the
document--to declare the causes that compel the colonists to separate themselves from the British
Crown.

The second paragraph contains the philosophy upon which the declaration is based, stating
that "all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights," that men institute governments in order to secure these rights, and that when government
attempts to remove these rights, the governed have the right to rebel.
Analysis: The line of reasoning used by the document's writers is as follows:

1. Governments are created to secure certain unalienable rights, rights that are granted, not by
government or man, but by God. This is called an appeal to Natural Law. It is apparent the
founding fathers felt that God should play an important part in the government of man; they
do not, however, go into detail on the nature of that God. This, as repeated nearly a decade
later in the Bill of Rights, is up to the individual and a right which, also, cannot be taken away
by government.
2. When government takes away these rights, the governed have just cause to overthrow or
separate themselves from that government. The thought that people had a right to overthrow
government was revolutionary, although the premise had been stated by philosophers in the
past--John Locke, for example. The Declaration contends that although the right to rebel exists,
human nature dictates that people will not do so over light and transient causes, choosing rather
to suffer than rebel in most cases.
3. Great Britain is guilty of attempting to take away the God given rights; therefore, the colonists
are justified in separating themselves from Great Britain. Jefferson and the committee use
deductive reasoning to make their case, stating first the principal and then supplying evidence
(in the body of the document).
4. In the introduction, Jefferson uses an "eighteenth-century rhetorical method by which one
phrase was piled on another, but their point became clear only at the end. It made sense to
assert the right of revolution so dramatically in The Declaration of Independence: it was the
right they were exercising in 1776, and the Declaration was designed to demonstrate that they
did so with justice."

The Body of the Document: The Declaration's introduction states the philosophy upon which the
colonies' decision to rebel is based. The body of the document lists the specific grievances of the
colonies against the British government--the evidence. The British government's infringement
upon the colonists' God given rights include preventing the passing of laws that promote the
common good, calling legislative assemblies at places designed to prevent colonial leaders from
attending, the dissolution of representative bodies of governments, the presence of standing armies
in times of peace, the harassment of colonists by British officials, establishing unfair trade laws,
denying colonists a fair trial, waging war against the colonies, and the impressment of American
sailors into the British Navy.

In addition to the list of grievances, Jefferson and his committee assert that the colonists
have repeatedly expressed their dissatisfaction with their treatment and that the British have done
nothing about it.
Interpretation: It's important to remember that the Declaration's primary audience was not King
George, but the world. In order to make their cause just, enlist the help of foreign powers, and win
the sympathy of British commoners, the document's writers needed to clearly state their cause and
clearly state King George's misdeeds. Jefferson understood this well. His original draft includes
several more grievances than the final copy, many of which were obscure and unknown even to
the most ardent supporters of American Independence.

The Declaration's Conclusion: The Declaration's introduction establishes the people's right to
separate themselves from a tyrannical government. The body gives evidence that the British
government has acted tyrannically. The conclusion unequivocally states that the colonies "ought
to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the
British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and
ought to be totally dissolved."

The conclusion states that free and independent states possess the power to:
5. wage war
6. make peace
7. contract alliances
8. establish trade
9. do anything independent states do

Interpretation: Signing the Declaration was an act of treason. The signers, in

the Declaration's conclusion, openly declare themselves enemies to the British crown. The word
"ought", used twice in the conclusion, implies moral correctness and makes a final appeal to
Natural Law. The conclusion makes several appeals to God. Its authors call upon divine
intervention to aid their cause and appeal to God in order to persuade the nations of the world of
the justness of their act. When taking the nation's founding document and the intent of its framers
into acount, the modern liberal notion that images of God and other references to Deity are opposed
to liberty and should be removed from public buildings is ludicrous at best and treasonous at worst.

References:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Jefferson
https://www.biography.com/people/thomas-jefferson-9353715

Prepared by:
SIMBAJON, Asher Jade A.
Facilitator