By June of 1776, the Continental Congress had been wrangling with England for years over issues usually called “taxation without representation.” On June 7, 1776, Light Horse Harry Lee proposed the following resolution for consideration by Congress. We can consider it the zero draft of the Declaration of Independence.
“Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right 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. That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances. That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.”
Congress voted to delay voting on the resolution until various delegations received permission from their state legislatures to do so. A couple of days later, Congress formed a Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.
The Committee of Five
The five were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. Franklin was not actually at the Congress; he was recuperating from an attack of gout at a friend’s house near Philadelphia. Roger Sherman wasn’t expected to do much writing or editing. He was on the committee for political reasons. Robert Livingston was a legal scholar. That pretty much left the drafting up to either Thomas Jefferson or John Adams.
Who Should Write the First Draft?
Jefferson thought Adams should write the first draft. But Adams begged off. He thought Jefferson should write the first draft because “Reason first, you are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second, I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third, you can write ten times better than I can. So Thomas Jefferson sat down and wrote his first draft of the Declaration of Independence in a couple of days.
The ideas and language he used owe a lot to ideas in other documents. They included John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, “The Virginia Declaration of Rights,” and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
Revising the First Draft
Jefferson and Adams did almost all the editing. Franklin was ill and not physically present, so he only made seven changes in his own hand. One was to change “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” to “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” On June 28, they sent their draft to the Continental Congress.
What Congress Did Next
On July 2, Congress approved Lee’s resolution. It was the legal act declaring independence.
Then, the members of Congress spent two days debating and editing the committee’s draft. They made 86 changes and cut almost a quarter of the text. Jefferson, like many writers across the centuries, considered the changes “mutilations.”
Things To Ponder if You’re a Writer
Writing is a team sport. No matter what you write, you’re building on work that has been done before. Editors, collaborators, and other early readers will add insight. You and they will shape the final document according to its purpose.