{"id":552,"date":"2007-02-02T01:16:01","date_gmt":"2007-02-02T06:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=552"},"modified":"2018-08-19T06:30:04","modified_gmt":"2018-08-19T10:30:04","slug":"14940-%c2%a0%c2%a0-2-thomas-jefferson-original-draft-of-the-declaration-of-independence%c2%a0-article-14941-%c2%a0%c2%a0-7-thomas-jefferson-et-al-the-declaration-of-independence%c2%a0-ar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=552","title":{"rendered":"14940. [2] (Thomas Jefferson) Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence [article] 14941. [7] (Thomas Jefferson, et. al.) The Declaration of Independence [article]"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have not yet seen Gary Wills\u2019 renowned study of the Dec\u00adla\u00adra\u00adtion<\/em>. But I did read Carl Becker\u2019s work on the same sub\u00adject when I was a kid. I have made a small rep\u00adu\u00adta\u00adtion by try\u00ading to show the glob\u00adal ori\u00adgins of the demo\u00adc\u00adra\u00adtic idea, as opposed to the con\u00adnect-the-dots Greece-Rome-Britain-Amer\u00adi\u00adca sequence that is still a major com\u00adpo\u00adnent of the cur\u00adrently con\u00adfused unde\u00adrstand\u00ading of democ\u00adracy. How\u00adever, that doesn\u2019t mean that I con\u00adsider doc\u00adu\u00adments like the Dec\u00adla\u00adra\u00adtion to be unim\u00adpor\u00adtant. Far from it. It was so impor\u00adtant, in fact, that minor vari\u00ada\u00adtions in its phras\u00ading would have made a pro\u00adfound dif\u00adfer\u00adence in the sub\u00adse\u00adquent his\u00adtory, not only of the Unit\u00aded States, but of the world. Because the Dec\u00adla\u00adra\u00adtion was in the pock\u00adet, so to speak, of every Amer\u00adi\u00adcan, it could have reper\u00adcus\u00adsions, and util\u00adity, far beyond any philo\u00adsoph\u00adi\u00adcal essay. Fred\u00ader\u00adick Dou\u00adglas, whose char\u00adac\u00adter and intel\u00adlect make most of the more famous thinkers of the 19th cen\u00adtury seem puny by com\u00adpar\u00adi\u00adson, wrote mov\u00adingly of the impact its word\u00ading had on him. When you are a plan\u00adta\u00adtion slave, as Dou\u00adglas was, the words \u201cWe hold these truths to be self-evi\u00addent, that all men are cre\u00adated equal\u2026\u201d are not just a snap\u00adpy slo\u00adgan. They are hope, enlight\u00aden\u00adment, des\u00adtiny, right\u00adeous anger, human\u00adity, solace, and con\u00adcil\u00adi\u00ada\u00adtion com\u00adpounded in a sin\u00adgle sen\u00adtence. That sen\u00adtence is impor\u00adtant to any\u00adone who wish\u00ades to free them\u00adself from slav\u00adery, and is a pre\u00adcious gem in humanity\u2019s strong\u00adbox, not just for Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it\u2019s inter\u00adest\u00ading to com\u00adpare Jefferson\u2019s first draft with the final arti\u00adcle. The first ver\u00adsion fol\u00adlows the con\u00adven\u00adtions of mid-eigh\u00adteenth-cen\u00adtu\u00adry prose more close\u00adly. It is said that Thomas Paine had some influ\u00adence on the revi\u00adsion, and it does shift to blunter, more Quak\u00aderish phras\u00ading that would seem unusu\u00adal in a cul\u00adtured Vir\u00adgin\u00adian like Jef\u00adfer\u00adson. But I think it more like\u00adly that Jef\u00adfer\u00adson real\u00adized he was think\u00ading in a new way, and that it had to be said in a new way. The first ver\u00adsion is a prod\u00aduct of a writer to be read in a book. The final ver\u00adsion is a prod\u00aduct of a man tap\u00adping a moral dimen\u00adsion of the uni\u00adverse. The sad thing is that Jef\u00adfer\u00adson him\u00adself could not live up to his own inspi\u00adra\u00adtion. The man who did more than any\u00adone except John Wool\u00adman to lay down the moral argu\u00adment against slav\u00adery him\u00adself kept slaves. It is true that the Vir\u00adginia leg\u00adis\u00adla\u00adture, fear\u00adful of his exam\u00adple, had declared that if Jef\u00adfer\u00adson attempt\u00aded to free his slaves, they would be seized and sold to oth\u00ader, doubt\u00adless cru\u00adel\u00ader mas\u00adters, but Jef\u00adfer\u00adson, being an undoubt\u00aded genius, could sure\u00adly have devised some strat\u00ada\u00adgem to cir\u00adcum\u00advent this. No, it was just anoth\u00ader sad case of a bril\u00adliant intel\u00adlect capa\u00adble of imag\u00adin\u00ading, but not of doing what rea\u00adson demands. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have not yet seen Gary Wills\u2019 renowned study of the Dec\u00adla\u00adra\u00adtion. But I did read Carl Becker\u2019s work on the same sub\u00adject when I was a kid. I have made a small rep\u00adu\u00adta\u00adtion by try\u00ading to show the global \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,11,946,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-at-blog-2007","category-b-reading","category-bt-reading-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9257,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions\/9257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}