308 INDEPENDENCE
was less inhibited as a member o small committees, where his associatesound him to be “rank, explicit, and decisive.”
32
Nonetheless, his colleaguesdid not see much o him. Jeerson had been in Congress only six weeks whenit recessed at the beginning o August 1775. Afer a month in Virginia, he re-turned to Philadelphia and served rom early October until late December,when, like numerous other delegates, he asked or a leave to return home. Heplanned on remaining with Martha or about ninety days, more than twicethe time spent at home that winter by most congressmen, but Jeerson’s ab-sence was considerably longer than he had anticipated. Late in March he ellill with another excruciating headache, brought on perhaps by his mother’sdeath on March 31 or by anxiety over his imminent departure. He did notleave Monticello or ve more weeks, nally taking up his seat in Congressagain in mid-May. On this occasion, he made the long trip rom AlbemarleCounty on horseback attended only by ourteen-year-old Robert Hemings, his
personal servant, or body slave.
33
Within three weeks o his return to Philadel-phia, Jeerson sat down to compose the Declaration o Independence.
34
Jeerson had moved to a new residence when he returned to Philadelphia. Pre- viously, he had lived on the east side o downtown, but he was bothered by thecity’s “excessive heats” in the summer, nding Philadelphia ar hotter and stick-ier than his remote hilltop in Virginia. He was now lodged on the second ooro the three-story, red brick home owned by Jacob Gra, a successul mason.Te apartment was not only cooler but also, with a bedroom and parlor, larger.
35
Jeferson’s residence in Philadelphia when he wrote the Declaration o Inde pendence.
Owned by Jacob Graf, and situated at Seventh and Market, Jeferson lodged here between May and August 1776. He draed the Declaration o Inde pendence
in his two-room parlor on the second story. (Drawing rom John . Schar and Tompson Westcott’s
History o Philadelphia,
1884.)
“THE CHARACTER OF A FINE WRITER” 309
Jeerson likely began writing the draf o the Declaration on Wednesday or Tursday, June 12 or 13. Accustomed to rising early, he probably worked inthe relative coolness o early morning. He may also have taken up his penagain in the evening, when the tra c beneath his windows aded and an oc-casional night breeze stirred. It is conceivable too that he skipped some ses-sions o Congress and worked through the day. Lee, with Wythe in tow, hadlef or home, but our other members o Virginia’s delegation were present,aording Jeerson the luxury o staying away i he chose to do so.Only two things are known or certain about Jeerson’s work on the draf:He wrote it while seated in a revolving Windsor chair with a small, oldingwriting desk placed across his lap, both o which had been custom-made orhim by a Philadelphia cabinetmaker.
36
And he delivered the draf quickly.Adams later recalled that only “a day or two” was required or Jeerson tocomplete the task.
37
While Adams may not have meant or his comment tobe taken literally, Jeerson was ordinarily a rapid writer.On a “Friday morn” Jeerson sent a copy o the draf to Franklin—he ad-dressed it to “Doctr. Franklyn”—and asked that he “suggest such alterationsas his more enlarged view o the subject will dictate.” By then, Jeerson hadalready shown Adams what he had written.
38
Tus, in all probability Jeer-son completed his draf within three to ve days and gave it to Adams some-time between Monday, June 17, and Wednesday, June 19. Jeerson probably transmitted the draf document to Franklin on Friday, June 21.Years later Adams, consumed with jealousy at the laurels Jeerson hadreaped as the author o the Declaration o Independence, carped that the
document was “a juvenile declamation” that merely rehashed what othershad said. Tere was “not an idea in it, but what had been hackneyed in Con-gress or two years beore.” But Adams had orgotten that neither he nor hiscolleagues on the committee or in Congress wanted Jeerson to write some-thing novel. It would have been ludicrous to have done so. Jeerson correctly understood, as he put it years later, that his task was to avoid “aiming atoriginality o principle or sentiment.” He was to prepare a draf that capturedthe “tone and spirit” o “the American mind” toward the mother country’simperial policies and the king’s decision to make war on them. Along thesesame lines the document had to make clear why Congress, which had repeat-edly insisted that it was not bent on independence, was indeed declaring in-
dependence. Within these parameters, Jeerson subsequently said, he merely
sought to avoid copying “rom any particular and previous writing.”
39
As the draf sprang rom Jeerson’s pen, it became clear that the Declara-tion o Independence was to be more than simply a justication o revolution.
It need not have been. Te English Declaration o Rights, with which Jeerson
310 INDEPENDENCE
and every educated colonist was amiliar, began with “Whereas” and pro-ceeded to list the charges against the king, James II. When Adams, a monthearlier, had written the resolution directing the colonies to abandon theircharters and create new, independent governments, he had begun: “Whereas
his Britannic Majesty, in conjunction with the Lords and Commons o Great-Britain, has . . . ,” ollowed by a compilation o the wrongdoings by Britain’sleaders during the past decade. Tat Jeerson’s draf did not ollow thosemodels may have been his unique contribution to the eventual Declaration o Independence. Or, it may have been the result o the instructions provided by
the Committee o Five. For instance, in his private correspondence near thetime the committee rst met, Adams had ervently declared that an indepen-dent America must embrace “a more equal Liberty, than has prevail’d inother Parts o the Earth” and must repudiate hereditary rule by the “Dons,the Bashaws, the Grandees, the Patricians, the Sachems, the Nabobs, call themby what Name you please,” but in short, the “insolent Domination, in a ew, a very ew opulent, monopolizing Families.”
40
He and others on the committeemay have instructed Jeerson to go beyond merely amassing charges o Brit-ish despotism and to delineate the meaning o the American Revolution.Jeerson’s draf included two segments that consciously sought to do morethan merely justiy the break with Great Britain. Jeerson penned a draf thatenunciated in the broadest terms the principles upon which the new nationwould stand and around which its citizenry could rally. Afer all, until re-cently, the colonists had considered themselves to be British, but those eel-ings had evaporated. Furthermore, the colonists identied rst and oremostwith their province and hardly, i at all, with the Continental Congress or theconcept o an American Union. But the “united colonies” were about to be-come the “United States.” Jeerson’s draf, thereore, was meant not only tobring to a close America’s days as colonies o another nation, but to also an-nounce the creation o the American nation.Tis was also meant to be a war document. Te meaning it gave to theAmerican Revolution should oster a willingness to ght or the new nationand the resplendent ideals or which it stood, while at the same time sus-tain morale on the home ront throughout a lengthy war. However, thisdocument was not to be directed solely at the American citizenry. Its audi-ence included “mankind” in a “candid world,” and none more so than Amer-ica’s riends in Great Britain who might someday play a useul role in thetermination o hostilities and recognition o the United States. Te draf re-erred to “our British brethren” who had long been remarkable or their “na-tive justice & magnanimity,” and especially those among them who had been
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