Parades, flags, fireworks, parties, outdoor picnics, all are part of Fourth of July celebrations. In some places, the Declaration is read aloud. In others, it is printed in local newspapers. All of us should read, or reread, the Declaration to understand the Americans at the time of the founding of our nation.
The Declaration is of course an iconic document, along with the Treaty of Paris that formally ended the Revolutionary War, the U.S. Constitution that created the U.S. government, and the Bill of Rights that guaranteed our rights and freedoms. Of all these documents, only the Declaration has been declared “American scripture” in the title of a book by that name by the late MIT historian, Pauline Maier.
What is the backstory to the Declaration? We know that Thomas Jefferson was its principal writer, but the task was a communal one. The Continental Congress assigned it to a committee of five, which in addition to Jefferson included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.
The committee chose Jefferson to prepare the initial draft. His work is not entirely the document we know today. At first, he asked Adams and Franklin to review it, and notably, Franklin persuaded Jefferson to change several words, especially at the beginning.
Everyone knows these ringing words: “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.”
But that was not Jefferson’s original phrasing. Franklin objected to Jefferson’s construction, which read, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Soon Adams, the others on the committee, and then the entire Continental Congress itself became Jefferson’s editor, giving the document the tone and character that we know today.
Jefferson’s words, “that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” were changed to “that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” A subtle, but substantial improvement.
Jefferson was furious with the many congressional changes, later writing how upset he was with “these mutilations.” Sitting next to him in Congress during this period, Franklin told him this story from when he was a journeyman printer. “One of my companions” was an apprentice hatter, he said, who wanted to open his own shop. His sign read, “John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money.” After he asked several friends to comment on the sign, one by one, they all objected to its length and repetitiveness.
The first said that if you are a hatter, you need not say you are the maker if they are good, because no one wants a bad hat. And you do not have to say you make hats if you are a hatter. Another complained that of course he sells hats, because he wasn’t going to give them away. Yet one more said, you need not say you want money for your hats. You aren’t selling them on credit. Finally, one told him to get rid of the word “hatter” because there was an image of a hat on the sign.
The final product, said Franklin, was, “John Thompson, with a figure of hat subjoined.” Short, to the point, and clear.
And so is the Declaration. It lays out American grievances primarily against an autocratic ruler, King George III of Britain, and the reasons for the American desire to separate from the Empire. It is by no means a revolutionary document. Nowhere did it evoke calls for the overthrow of the British government: it set out the reasons why the American must go its own way.
Its grave warning is as relevant today as it was in 1776. Autocrats continue to threaten the freedom and stability of the world we live in, and we should, in Jefferson’s words, pledge our “lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” to combat all the forces that threaten our rights and liberties, no matter their origin.
Jack Fruchtman is the author of Benjamin Franklin and His Visionary Friends and The Political Philosophy of Thomas Paine.