On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress published the Declaration of Independence. This sacred document was drafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson, with influence from George Mason’s Declaration of Rights. As Jefferson remembered in a letter to Henry Lee in 1825, he set out to draft a “common sense” treatise in “terms so plain and firm, as to command [the] assent” of mankind.[1]

The final draft of the Declaration of Independence did not necessarily please Jefferson, as Congress made several changes, including the removal of a passage on the slave trade.

he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.[2]

 Ultimately, the final document was published and disseminated nationwide for public viewing.

Ironically, the Continental Congress adopted the resolution on July 2, 1776. John Adams infamously wrote to his wife, Abigail,

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding Generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”[3]

As the nation gathers today to celebrate with family, friends, food, and fireworks, may we not forget the bravery of the colonists in standing up against what they saw as injustices forced upon them by both Parliament and King George III.

Happy Birthday, America!!

[1] Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825.Transcription available at Founders Online.

[2] Thomas Jefferson’s “original Rough draught” of the Declaration of Independence before it was revised by the other members of the Committee of Five and by Congress. From: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Vol. 1, 1760-1776. Ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp 243-247. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html.

[3] John Adams, Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776, “Had a Declaration…”. 3 pages. Original manuscript from the Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.