what should be added to the declaration of independence
At the Second Continental Congress during the summer of 1776, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia was charged with drafting a formal statement justifying the 13 North American colonies' break with Dandy U.k.. A member of a committee of five that also included John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert Livingston of New York and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Jefferson drew up a draft and included Franklin's and Adams' corrections. At the time, the Declaration of Independence was regarded as a collective effort of the Continental Congress; Jefferson was not recognized equally its main author until the 1790s.
Jefferson'south Early Career
Born into one of the most prominent families in Virginia (on his female parent's side), Jefferson studied at the Higher of William and Mary in Williamsburg and began practicing police force in 1767. In 1768, Jefferson stood as a candidate for the Virginia House of Burgesses; he entered the legislature but as opposition was building to the taxation policies of the British government. That same year, Jefferson began edifice Monticello, his hilltop estate in Albemarle County; he would later greatly expand his holdings in land and slaves through his matrimony to Martha Wayles Skelton in 1772.
In 1774, Jefferson wrote "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," in which he claimed that the colonies were tied to the king only by voluntary bonds of loyalty. Published as a political pamphlet without Jefferson'south permission, this document extended Jefferson's reputation beyond Virginia, and he became known as an eloquent voice for the cause of American independence from Britain. In the spring of 1775, shortly after skirmishes broke out between colonial militiamen and British soldiers at Lexington and Agree, the Virginia legislature sent Jefferson as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
At the 2d Continental Congress
The 33-twelvemonth-old Jefferson may accept been a shy, awkward public speaker in Congressional debates, merely he used his skills every bit a writer and contributor to support the patriotic cause. By the tardily spring of 1776, more and more colonists favored an official and permanent break from Not bad Britain; in mid-May, viii of the 13 colonies said they would support independence.
On June 7, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia formally presented a resolution before the Congress, stating that "[T]hese United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, gratis 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 Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." Information technology became known as the Lee Resolution, or the resolution for independence.
On June 11, Jefferson was appointed to a v-human being commission–alongside John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York–that was charged with drafting a formal statement justifying the break with Great Uk. Jefferson was the simply southerner on the committee, and had arrived in Philadelphia accompanied past three of his many slaves. Still, it was he who was given the task of drafting the Proclamation of Independence, which would go the foremost statement of human liberty and equality always written.
Co-ordinate to an account Jefferson wrote in 1823, the other members of the committee "unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught [sic]. I consented; I drew it; but earlier I reported information technology to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections…I then wrote a off-white copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress."
"We Hold These Truths to be Cocky-Evident…"
The torso of Jefferson'south typhoon contained a list of grievances against the British crown, only information technology was its preamble to the Constitution that would strike the deepest chords in the minds and hearts of futurity Americans: "We agree these truths to exist self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted amidst men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
The Continental Congress reconvened on July one, and the following day 12 of the thirteen colonies adopted Lee's resolution for independence. The process of consideration and revision of Jefferson'southward declaration (including Adams' and Franklin'due south corrections) continued on July 3 and into the late morning of July 4, during which Congress deleted and revised some i-fifth of its text.
The delegates made no changes to that key preamble, still, and the basic certificate remained Jefferson'southward words. Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence later on the Fourth of July (though about historians at present accept that the document was non signed until Baronial 2).
The Men Who Signed the Proclamation of Independence
Delegates from all 13 colonies signed the Announcement of Independence. All were male, white landowners. Two would proceed to be president of the United states. One signed his proper noun and then large that he became an idiomatic expression. When someone asks you to sign something past telling you to "put your John Hancock here," they are referencing John Hancock'south outsized signature on the Announcement of Independence. Below are the document'southward signees:
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Connecticut:
Samuel Huntington, Roger Sherman, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
Delaware:
George Read, Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean
Georgia:
Push Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Maryland:
Charles Carroll, Samuel Hunt, Thomas Stone, William Paca
Massachusetts:
John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
New Jersey:
Abraham Clark, John Hart, Francis Hopkinson, Richard Stockton. John Witherspoon
New York:
Lewis Morris, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, William Floyd
Due north Carolina:
William Hooper, John Penn. Joseph Hewes
Pennsylvania:
George Clymer, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, John Morton, Benjamin Rush, George Ross, James Smith, James Wilson, George Taylor
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, Thomas Lynch, Jr., Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Virginia:
Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Jefferson, George Wythe, Thomas Nelson, Jr.
A Complicated Legacy
Thomas Jefferson wasn't recognized every bit the principal author of the Declaration of Independence until the 1790s; the certificate was originally presented as a commonage effort by the entire Continental Congress. Jefferson had returned to the Virginia legislature in the late summer of 1776 and in 1785 had succeeded Franklin as minister to France. He served equally Secretary of State in the chiffonier of President George Washington, and later on emerged as a leader of a Republican political party that championed state'due south rights and opposed the strong centralized government favored by Alexander Hamilton'southward Federalists.
Elected equally the nation's 3rd president in 1800, Jefferson would serve 2 terms, during which the young nation doubled its territory through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and struggled to maintain neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars betwixt England and French republic.
Despite his many subsequently accomplishments, Jefferson's principal legacy to the United States arguably remains the Proclamation of Independence, the eloquent expression of liberty, equality and democracy upon which the country was founded. His critics, however, point to Jefferson'due south admitted racism, and the negative views (common to wealthy Virginia planters of the time) that he expressed about African Americans during his lifetime.
Meanwhile, recent Dna show seems to back up much-disputed claims that Jefferson had a longstanding intimate relationship with i of his enslaved women, Sally Hemings, and that the couple had several children together. Given these circumstances, Jefferson's legacy as history's nigh eloquent proponent of human freedom and equality–justly earned by his words in the Declaration of Independence–remains complicated by the inconsistencies of his life as a slave owner.
Source: https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/writing-of-declaration-of-independence
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