CHAPTER 4

Declaring Independence

Do actions speak louder than words? When analyzing a document

like the Declaration ofIndependence, historians sometimes heed the
old proverb, "Watch what I do, not what I say. "

Good historians share with magicians a talent for elegant sleight of hand.
In both professions, the manner of execution conceals much of the work that
makes the performance possible. Like the magician's trapdoors, mirrors, and
other hidden props, historians' primary sources are essential to their task.
But the better that historians are at their craft, the more likely they will focus
their readers' attention on the historical scene itself and not on the support­
ing documents.
Contrary to prevailing etiquette, we have gone out of our way to call
attention to the problems of evidence to be solved before a historical narra­
tive is presented in its polished form. As yet, however, we have not examined
in detail the many operations to be performed on a single document. What
at first seems a relatively simple job of collecting, examining, and cataloging
can become remarkably complex.
So let us narrow our focus even more than in the previous two chapters
by concentrating not on a region (Virginia) or a village (Salem), but on one
document. The document in question is more important than most, yet brief
enough to be read in several minutes: the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration, of course, is one of the most celebrated documents
in the nation's history. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, adopted by the Sec­
ond Continental Congress, published for the benefit of the world, hailed
in countless patriotic speeches, it is today displayed within the rotunda of
the National Archives, encased in a glass container filled with helium to
prevent any long-term deterioration from oxygen. Ever y schoolchild knows
that Congress declared the colonies' independence by issuing the document
on July 4, 1776. Nearly ever yone has seen the painting by John Trumbull
that depicts members of Congress receiving the parchment for signing on
that day.
So the starting place is familiar enough. Yet there is a good deal to estab­
lish even when unpacking the basic facts. Under what circumstances did
Jefferson write the Declaration? What people, events, or other documents

75
76 AFTER THE FACT: Tmt ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION

The Committee of Five-Adams, Sherman, Livingston, Jefferson, and Franklin­

present their work to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, in
a detail from The Declaration efIndependence by John Trumbull. When Hancock
finally put his elaborate signature to the engrossed copy, he is reported to have said,
"There! John Bull can read my name without spectacles, and may now double his
reward of £500 for my head."

influenced him? Only when such questions are answered in more detail does
it become clear that quite a few of the "fact.s" enumerated in the previous
paragraph are either misleading or incorrect. And the confusion begins in
trying to answer the most elementary questions about the Declaration.

THE CREATION OF A TEXT

In May 1776 Thomas Jefferson traveled to Philadelphia, as befit a proper
gentleman, in a coach-and-four with two attending slaves. He promptly took
his place on the Virginia delegation to the Second Continental Congress.
Even a year after fighting had broken out at Lexington and Concord, Con­
gress was still debating whether the quarrel with England could be patched
up. Sentiment for independence ran high in many areas but by no means
everywhere. The greatest reluctance lay in the middle colonies, particu­
larly in Pennsylvania, where moderates like john Dickinson still hoped for
reconciliation.
 Declaring Independence 77

Such cautious sentiments infuriated the more radical delegates, especially

John and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts. The two Adamses had worked
for independence from the opening days of Congress but found the going
slow. America, complained John, was "a great, unwieldy body. It is like a
large fleet sailing under convoy. The fleetest sailers must wait for the dull­
est and the slowest." Jefferson also favored independence, but he lacked the
Adamses' taste for political infighting. While the men from Massachusetts
pulled their strings in Congress, Jefferson only listened attentively and took
notes. Thirty-three years old, he was the youngest delegate, and no doubt
his age contributed to his diffidence. Privately, he conversed more easily
with friends, sprawling casually in a chair with one shoulder cocked high,
the other low, and his long legs extended. He got along well with the other
delegates.
The debate over independence sputtered on fitfully until late May, when
Jefferson's colleague Richard Henry Lee arrived from Williamsburg, deter­
mined to force Congress to act. On Friday, June 7, based on orders from
Virginia, he rose in Congress and offered the following resolutions:

That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and indepen­
dent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and
that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is,
and ought to be, totally dissolved.
That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for form­
ing foreign alliances.
That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective
colonies for their consideration and approbation.

On Saturday and again on Monday, moderates and radicals debated

the propositions. The secretary of the Congress, Charles Thomson, cau­
tiously recorded in his minutes only that "certain resolutions" were "moved
and discussed"-the certain resolutions, of course, being treasonous in the
extreme.
Still, sentiment was running with the radicals. When delegate James
Wilson of Pennsylvania announced that he felt ready to vote for indepen­
dence, Congress set the wheels in motion by appointing a five-member com­
mittee "to prepare a Declaration to the effect of the said first resolution."
The events that followed can be traced, in bare outline at least, in a modern
edition of Secretary Thomson's minutes (Journals ofthe Continental Congress:
1774-1789). From it we learn that on June 11, 1776, Congress constituted
Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert
Livingston as a "Committee of Five" responsible for drafting the declaration.
Then for more than two weeks, Thomson's journal remains silent on the
subject. Only on Friday, June 28, does it note that the committee "brought
in a draught" of an independence declaration.
On Monday, July 1, Congress resolved itself into a "Committee of the
Whole," in which it could freely debate the sensitive question without
78 AFTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION

leaving any official record of debate or disagreement. (Thomson's minutes

did not record the activities of committees.) On July 2 the Committee of the
Whole went through the motions of "reporting back " to Congress (that is,
to itself ).The minutes note only that Richard Lee's resolution, then "being
read " in formal session, "was agreed to."
Thus the official journal makes it clear that Congress voted for indepen­
dence onJuly 2, notJuly4, adopting Richard Henry Lee's original proposal of
June 7. When John Adams wrote
As it turned out, John Adams picked home on July 3 to his wife, Abi­
the wrong date for celebrating gail, he enthusiastically predicted
American independence. that July 2 would be remembered
as "the most memorable Epoca in
the History of America.I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by suc­
ceeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.... 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."
As it turned out, Adams picked the wrong date for the fireworks.Although
Congress had officially broken the tie with England, the declaration explain­
ing the action had not yet been approved. On July 3 and 4 Congress again
met as a Committee of the Whole. Only then was the formal declaration
reported back, accepted, and sent to the printer. Thomson's journal notes,
"The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and signed
by the following members...." Here is the enactment familiar to everyone:
the "engrossed " parchment (one written in large, neat letters ) beginning
with its bold "In Congress, July 4, 1776," and concluding with the president
of the Continental Congress's signature, so flourishing that we still speak of
putting our John Hancock to paper. Below that, the signatures of fifty-five
other delegates appear more modestly inscribed.
If mention of the Declaration in Thomson's minutes concluded with the
entry on July 4, schoolchildren might emerge with their memories reason­
ably intact. But later entries of the journal suggest that in all likelihood, the
Declaration was not signed on July 4 after all, but on August 2. To muddy
the waters further, not all the signers were in Philadelphia even on August 2.
Some could not have signed the document until October or November.
So the upshot of the historian's preliminary investigation is that (1) Congress
declared independence on the second of July, not the fourth; (2) most mem­
bers officially signed the engrossed parchment only on the second of August;
and (3) all the signers of the Declaration never met together in the same room
at once, despite the appearances in John Trumbull's painting.In the matter
of establishing the basic facts surrounding a document, historians are all too
ready to agree with John Adams's bewildered search of his recollections in
old age: "What are we to think of history? When in less than 40 years, such
diversities appear in the memories of living men who were witnesses."
Yet even with the basic facts in place, many important points remain to
be answered about the Declaration's creation.Although Jefferson drafted it,
 Declaring Independence 79

what did the Committee of Five contribute? If the delegates made changes
during the congressional debate on July 3 and 4, for what purpose? A histo­
rian will want to know which parts of the completed document were most
controversial; surviving copies of earlier drafts could shed valuable light on
these questions.
The search for accurate information about the Declaration's drafting
began even while the protagonists were still living. Some forty years after
the signing, both Jefferson and John Adams tried to set down the sequence
of events. Adams recalled the affable and diplomatic Jefferson suggesting
that Adams write the first draft. "I will not," replied Adams.
"You shall do it," persisted Jefferson.
"Oh no!"
"Why will you not do it? You ought to do it."
"I will not."
"Reasons enough." Adams ticked them off. "Reason 1st. You are a Virgin­
ian and a Virginian ought to be at the head of this business. Reason 2nd. I
am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular; you are very much otherwise. Rea­
son 3rd. You can write ten times better than I can."
"Well," said Jefferson, "if you are decided, I will do as well as I can."
Jefferson, for his part, did not remember this bit of diplomatic shuttle­
cock.In a letter to James Madison in 182 3 he asserted that the Committee of
5 met .. . [and] they unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the
draught. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I
communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their
corrections; .. . and you have seen the original paper now in my hands, with
the corrections of Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams interlined in their own hand­
writing.Their alterations were two or three only, and merely verbal [that is,
changes of phrasing, not substance].
So far, so good. Jefferson's "original paper"-which he endorsed on the
document itself as the "original Rough draught"-is preserved in the Library
of Congress. Indeed, the draft is even rougher than Jefferson suggested. As
historian Carl Becker pointed out,

the inquiring student, coming to it for the first time, would be astonished, per­
haps disappointed, if he expected to find in it nothing more than the "original
paper ... with the corrections of Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams interlined in
their own handwriting." He would find, for example, on the first page alone
nineteen corrections, additions or erasures besides those in the handwriting of
Adams and Franklin. It would probably seem to him at first sight a bewilder­
ing document, with many phrases crossed out, numerous interlineations, and
whole paragraphs enclosed in brackets.

These corrections make the rough draft more difficult to read, but in the end
also more rewarding. For the fact is, Jefferson continued to record on this
copy successive changes of the Declaration, not only by Adams and Franklin,
but by Congress in its debates of July 3 and 4.
80 APTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HlsTORICAL DETECTION

Jefferson wrote out a rough draft of the Declaration, which this illustration from
1897 envisions him reading to Franklin at his lodgings. In 1883 those lodgings were
still standing, dwarfed by a four-story building next door that housed a tavern.

Thus by careful comparison and reconstruction, we can accurately estab­

lish the sequence of changes made in one crucial document, from the time
it was first drafted, through corrections in committee, to debate and further
amendment in Congress, and finally on to the engrossed parchment famil­
iar to history. The changes were not slight. In the end, Congress removed
about a quarter ofJefferson's original language. Eighty-six alterations were
made by one person or another, including Jefferson, over those fateful three
weeks of 1776.

THE TACTICS OF INTERPRETATION

Having sketched the circumstances of the Declaration's composition, the

historian must attempt the more complicated task of interpretation. And
here, historians' paths are most likely to diverge. To determine a document's
historical significance requires placing it within the larger context of events.
There is no single method for doing this, of course. If there were, historians
would all agree on their reconstructions of the past, and history would be a
 Declaring Independence 81

good deal duller. On the other hand, historians do at least share certain tac­
tics of analysis that have consistently yielded profitable results.
What follows, then, is one set of tactical approaches to the Declaration.
These approaches are by no means the only ways of making sense of the
document. But they do suggest some range of the options historians nor­
mally call upon.
The document is read, first, to understand its surface content. This step may
appear too obvious to bear mentioning, but not so. The fact is, most histo­
rians examine a document from a particular and potentially limiting view­
point. A diplomatic historian, for instance, may approach the Declaration
with an eye to the role it played in cementing a formal alliance with France.
A historian of political theory might prefer to focus on the theoretical justifi­
cations of independence. Both perspectives are legitimate, but by beginning
with such specific interests, historians risk prejudging the document. They
are likely to notice only the kinds of evidence they are seeking.
So it makes sense to begin by putting aside any specific questions and
approaching the Declaration as a willing, even uncritical reader. Ask only
the most basic questions. How is the document organized? What are its
major points, briefly summarized?

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States ofAmerica.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with another, and
to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.-We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with cer­
tain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.-That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,-That
whenever any Farm of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is
the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Govern­
ment, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happi­
ness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should
not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience
hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are suffer­
able, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accus­
tomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide
new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance
of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to
alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King
82 AFTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION

of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having

in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.-He has refused his
Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.-He
has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing impor­
tance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained;
and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.-He has
refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people,
unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Leg­
islature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.-He has
called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant
from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatigu­
ing them into compliance with his measures.-He has dissolved Representa­
tive Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the
rights of the people.-He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions,
to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State
remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from with­
out, and convulsions within.-He has endeavoured to prevent the population
of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of
Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and
raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.-He has obstructed
the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing
judiciary powers.-He has made judges dependent on his Will alone, for the
tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.-He
has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers
to harass our people, and eat out their substance.-He has kept among us, in
times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.-He
has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil
power.-He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to
our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their
Acts of pretended Legislation.-For quartering large bodies of armed troops
among us:-For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any
Murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:-For
cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:-For imposing Taxes on us
without our Consent:-For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial
by Jury:-For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:­
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries
so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the
same absolute rule into these Colonies:-For taking away our Charters, abol­
ishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our
Governments:-For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring them­
selves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.-He has
abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging
War against us.-He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our
 Declaring Independence 83

towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.-He is at this time transporting
large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, deso­
lation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy
scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head
of a civilized nation.-He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive
on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the execution­
ers of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.-He
has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring
on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known
rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and condi­
tions. In every state of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in
the most humble terms: our repeated Petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which
may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We
been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them
from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrant­
able jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our
emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and
magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred
to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connec­
tions and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice
and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which
denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind,
Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in Gen­

eral Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for
the rectitude of our intentions do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good
People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United
Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free 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 Great Britain, is and ought to be
totally dissolved: and that as Free and independent States, they have full Power
to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to
do all other Acts and Things which independent States may of right do.-And
for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of
divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes
and our sacred Honor.

As befits a reasoned public document, the Declaration can be separated

fairly easily into its key parts. The first sentence begins by informing the
reader of the document's purpose. The colonies, having declared their inde­
pendence from England, intend to announce "the causes which impel them
to the separation."
The causes that follow, however, are not all of a piece. They break nat­
urally into two sections: the first, a theoretical justification of revolution,
and the second, a list of the specific grievances that justify this revolution.
84 AFTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION

Because the first section deals in general, "self-evident" truths, it is the one
most often remembered and quoted. "All men are created equal," "unalien­
able Rights," "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," "consent of the
governed"-these principles have meaning far beyond the circumstances of
the colonies in the summer of 177 6.
But the Declaration devotes far greater space to a list of British actions
that Congress labeled "a long train of abuses and usurpations" designed to
"reduce [Americans] under absolute Despotism." Because the Declaration
admits that revolution should never be undertaken lightly, it proceeds to
demonstrate that English rule has been not merely inconvenient, but so full
of "repeated injuries" that "absolute Tyranny" is the result. What threatens
Americans most, the Declaration proclaims, is not the individual measures,
but the existence of a deliberate plot by the king to deprive a "free people"
of their liberties.
The final section of the Declaration turns to the colonial response. Here
the Declaration incorporates Richard Lee's resolution passed on July 2 and
ends with the signers solemnly pledging their lives, fortunes, and sacred
honor to support the new government.
Having begun with this straightforward reading, the historian is less likely
to wrench out of context a particular passage, magnifying it at the expense
of the rest of the document. Yet taken by itself, the reading of "surface con­
tent" may distort a document's import. Significance, after all, depends on
the circumstances under which a document was created. Thus historians
must always seek to place their evidence in context.
The context of a document may be established, in pan, by asking what the docu­
ment might have said but did not. When Jefferson retired to his second-floor
lodgings on the outskirts of Philadelphia, placed a portable writing desk on
his lap, and put pen to paper, he had many options open to him. Yet the mod­
em reader, seeing only the final product, is tempted to view the document
as the logical, even inevitable result of Jefferson's deliberations. Perhaps it
was, but the historian needs to ask how it might have been otherwise. What
might Jefferson and the Congress have declared but did not?
We can get a better sense of what Congress and Jefferson rejected by look­
ing at a declaration made some ten years earlier by another intercolonial
gathering, the Stamp Act Con­
gress. Like Jefferson's, this decla­ A decade earlier, the Stamp Act
ration, protesting the Stamp Act Congress was unwilling to go as
as unjust, began by outlining gen­ far as the Continental Congress in
eral principles. In reading the first separating from Great Britain.
three resolves, note the difference
between their premises and those of the Declaration.

I. That his Majesty's Subjects in these Colonies, owe the same Alle­
giance to the Crown of Great-Britain, that is owing from his Subjects
born within the Realm, and all due Subordination to that August Body
the Parliament of Great-Britain.
 Declaring Independence 85

II. That his Majesty's Liege Subjects in these Colonies, are entitled
to all the inherent Rights and Liberties of his Natural born Subjects,
within the Kingdom of Great-Britain.

III. That it is inseparably essential to the Freedom of a People, and the

undoubted Right of Englishmen, that no Taxes be imposed on them, but
with their own Consent, given personally, or by their Representatives.

The rights emphasized by the Stamp Act Congress in 1765 differ sig­
nificantly from those emphasized in 1776. The Stamp Act resolutions claim
that colonials are entitled to "all the inherent Rights and Liberties" of "Sub­
jects, within the Kingdom of Great-Britain." They possess "the undoubted
Right of Englishmen." Nowhere in Jefferson's Declaration are the rights
of Englishmen mentioned as justification for protesting the king's conduct.
Instead, the Declaration magnifies what the Stamp Act only mentions in
passing-natural rights inherent in the "Freedom of a People," whether they
be English subjects or not.
The shift from English rights to natural rights resulted from the changed
political situation. In 1765 Americans were seeking relief within the Brit­
ish imperial system. Logically, they cited rights they felt due them as Brit­
ish subjects. But in 1776 the Declaration was renouncing all ties with its
parent nation. If the colonies were no longer a part of Great Britain, what
good would it do to cite the rights of Englishmen? Thus the natural rights
"endowed" all persons "by their Creator" took on paramount importance.
The Declaration makes another striking omission. Nowhere in the long
list of grievances does it use another word that appears in the first resolve
of the Stamp Act Congress-"Parliament." The omission is all the more
surprising because the Revolutionary quarrel had its roots in the dispute
over Parliament's right to tax and regulate the colonies. The Sugar Act, the
Stamp Act, the Townshend duties, the Tea Act, the Coercive Acts, the Que­
bec Act-all place Parliament at the center of the dispute. The Declaration
alludes to those legislative measures but always in the context of the king's
actions, not Parliament's. Doing so admittedly required a bit of evasion: in
laying out parliamentary abuses, Jefferson complained, rather indirectly,
that the king had combined with "others"-namely Parliament-"to subject
us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our
laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation."
Obviously, the omission came about for much the same reason that Jefferson
excluded all mention of the "rights of Englishmen." At the Stamp Act Con­
gress of 1765, virtually all Americans were willing to grant Parliament some
jurisdiction over the colonies-not the right to lay taxes without American
representation, certainly, but at least the right to regulate colonial trade.
Thus Congress noted (in Resolve I) that Parliament deserved "all due
Subordination."
By 177 5 more radical colonials would not grant Parliament any
authority over the colonies. They had come to recognize what an early
86 AFTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION

pamphleteer had noted, that Americans could be just as easily "ruined by

the powers of legislation as by those of taxation." The Boston Port Bill,
which closed Boston harbor, was not a tax. Nor did it violate any tradi­
tional right. Yet Parliament used it to take away Americans' freedoms.
Although many colonials had totally rejected all parliamentary author­
ity by 177 5, most had not yet advocated independence. How, then, were
the colonies related to England if not through Parliament? The only link
was through the king. The colonies possessed their own sovereign legisla­
tures, but they shared with all British subjects one monarch. Thus when the
final break with England came, the Declaration carefully laid all blame at the
king's feet. That was the connection that needed to be severed.
What the Declaration does not say, then, proves to be as important as
what it did say. Historians can recognize the importance of such unstated
premises by remembering that the actors in any drama possess more alterna­
tives than the ones they finally choose.
A document may be understood by seeking to reconstrnct the intellectual worlds
behind its words. We have already seen, in the cases of the De Soto expedi­
tion, slavery in Virginia, and witchcraft in Salem, the extent to which his­
tory involves the task of reconstructing whole societies from fragmentary
records. The same process applies to the intellectual worlds that lie behind
a document.
The need to perform this reconstruction is often hidden, however, because
the context of the English language has changed over the past two hundred
years-and not simply in obvious ways. For example, what would Jefferson
have made of the following excerpt out of a computer magazine?

Macworld's Holiday Gift Guide. It's holiday shopping season again. Mac­
world advises you on the best ways to part with your paycheck....It could be
an audio CD, but it could also be a CD-ROM containing anything from an
encyclopedia to a virtual planetarium to an art studio for the kids.

To begin with, terms like "audio CD" and "CD-ROM" would mystify Jef­
ferson simply because they come from a totally unfamiliar world. Beyond
the obvious, however, the excerpt contains words that might seem familiar
but would be deceptively so, because their meaning has changed over time.
Jefferson probably would recognize "planetarium," though he might pre­
fer the more common eighteenth-century term orrery. He would recognize
"virtual" as well. But a "virtual planetarium"? Today's notion of virtual real­
ity would be lost to him unless he read a good deal more about the computer
revolution.
Even more to the point, look at the innocuous phrase "It's holiday shop­
ping season again." The words would be completely familiar to Jefferson,
but the world that surrounds them certainly would not. To understand the
phrase, he would have to appreciate how much the Christmas holiday has
evolved into a major commercial event, bearing scant resemblance to any
eighteenth-century observance. (In John Adams's Puritan New England,
of course, even to celebrate Christmas would have been frowned upon as
 Declaring Independence 87

a popish superstition.) Or to make an even subtler linguistic point: unlike a

magazine article from the 19 5 Os, this one from the 1990s never uses the word
Christmas. The social reasons for this deliberate omission would undoubt­
edly interest Jefferson, for it reflects a multicultural nation sensitive to the
questions of equality and the separation of church and state. But unless he
were aware of the ways in which American society had evolved, Jefferson
would miss the implications hidden within language that to us seems reason­
ably straightforward.
By the same token, eighteenth-century documents may appear decep­
tively lucid to twentieth-century readers. When Jefferson wrote that all
men were "endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Sometimes the same word means
Rights," including "Life, Lib­ different things in different
erty and the pursuit of Happi­ centuries.
ness," the meaning seems clear.
But as essayist and historian Garry Wills has insisted, "To understand any
text remote from us in time, we must reassemble a world around that text.
The preconceptions of the original audience, its tastes, its range of refer­
ence, must be recovered, so far as that is possible."
In terms of reassembling Jefferson's world, historians have most often
followed Carl Becker in arguing that its center lay in the political philoso­
phy of John Locke. Locke's Second Treatise on Government (1690) asserted
that all governments were essentially a compact between individuals based
on the principles of human nature. Locke speculated that if all the laws and
customs that had grown up in human society over the years were stripped
away, human beings would find themselves in "a state of perfect freedom to
order their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of
the law of nature." But because some individuals inevitably violate the laws
of nature-robbing or murdering or committing other crimes-people have
always banded together to make a compact, Locke suggested, agreeing to
create governments that will order human society. And just as people come
together to allow themselves to be governed, likewise they can overturn
those governments wherein the ruler has become a tyrant who "may do to all
his subjects whatever he pleases."
Jefferson's colleague Richard Henry Lee in later years commented that
Jefferson, in writing the Declaration, had merely "copied from Locke's
treatise on government." Yet as important as Locke was, his writings were
only one aspect of the Enlightenment tradition flourishing in the eighteenth
century. Jefferson shared with many European philosophes the belief that
human affairs should be studied as precisely as the natural world. Just as Sir
Isaac Newton in the 1680s had used mathematical equations to derive the
laws of gravity, optics, and planetary motion, so the philosophes of Jeffer­
son's day looked to quantify the study of the human psyche.
The results of such efforts seem quaint today, but the philosophes took
their work seriously. Garry Wills has argued that even more important to
Jefferson than Locke were the writings of Scottish Enlightenment thinkers,
88 AFTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION

An orrery, shown in this engraving from 1768, traced the orbits of the planets
around the sun. Hit was possible to discover the relationships within the natural
order, Jefferson and other Enlightenment thinkers reasoned, why not map the
relationships of the human psyche?

chief among them Francis Hutcheson. In 1725 Hutcheson attempted to quan­

tify such elusive concepts as morality. The result was a string of equations
in which qualities were abbreviated by letters (B benevolence, A
= ability,
=

S = self-love, I interest) and placed in their proper relations:

=

M = (B + S) X ABA + SA; and therefore

=

M-I
BA = M - SA M - I, and B
= =

A
Jefferson possessed a similar passion for quantification. He repeatedly
praised the American astronomer David Rittenhouse and his orrery, a mechan­
ical model of the solar system whose gears replicated the relative motions of
the earth, moon, and planets.Jefferson also applied classification and observa­
tion as a gentleman planter. If it were possible to discover the many relation­
ships within the natural order, he reasoned, farmers might better plant and
harvest to those rhythms. Even in the White House, Jefferson kept his eye
on the Washington markets and recorded the seasons' first arrivals of thirty­
seven different vegetables.
 Declaring Independence 89

Wills argues that]efferson conceived the "pursuit of Happiness" in equally

precise terms. Francis Hutcheson had suggested that a person's actions be
judged by how much happiness that person brought to other people."That
action is best," he argued, "which accomplishes the greatest happiness for the
greatest number." According to Enlightenment science, because happiness
could be quantified, a government's actions could be weighed in the balance
scales to discover whether they hindered a citizen's right to pursue happiness
as he or she saw fit. Thus, for Jefferson, the pursuit of happiness was not a
phrase expressing the vague hope that all Americans should have the chance
to live happily ever after.His language reflected the conviction that the sci­
ence of government, like the science of agriculture or celestial mechanics,
would gradually take its place in the advancing progress of humankind.
Jefferson, mind you, never said explicitly that he was relying on Scot­
tish moral philosophy when he wrote the Declaration.This is Garry Wills's
reconstruction, based on circumstantial evidence, such as the presence of
Francis Hutcheson's works in Jefferson's library and the topics Jefferson's
professors lectured on during his college years-and even, more generally,
what ideas and opinions were "in the air." Whether or not Wills's specific
case is convincing, his method of research is one that historians commonly
employ. By understanding the intellectual world from which a document
arose, we come to understand the document itself.

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER?

More than a few historians, however, become uneasy about depending too
heavily on a genealogy of ideas. Certainly, a historian can speak of theories
as being "in the air" and of Jefferson, as it were, inhaling. But that approach
may neglect the noisy world outside his Philadelphia lodgings. ByJune 177 6
Congress was waging a war, and a hundred and one events demanded its
daily attention. The morning that Richard Henry Lee submitted his motion
for independence, delegates had to deal with troops being raised in South
Carolina and complaints about the gunpowder manufactured by a certain
Mr. Oswald of Eve's Mill. Over the following days they learned that the
British fleet had sailed from Halifax, on its way to attack New York City.
Events large and small kept Jefferson and the rest of Congress from sitting
down quietly to ponder over a single document.
Thus to understand the Declaration we must also set it within the context
of contemporary events. "What was Jefferson thinking about on the eve of
his authorship of the Declaration of Independence?" asked a recent biog­
rapher, Joseph Ellis. "The answer is indisputable. He was not thinking ...
about John Locke's theory of natural rights or Scottish commonsense phi­
losophy. He was thinking about Virginia's new constitution." Throughout
May and June, couriers brought news to Jefferson of doings in Williams­
burg, the capital of his own "country," as he called it. There, onJune 12, the
Virginia convention adopted a preamble to its state constitution, written by
90 AFTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION

George Mason. "All men are created equally free and independent and have
certain inherent and natural rights," wrote Mason, ". . . among which are
the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing
property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."
These words reached Philadelphia little more than a week beforeJeffer­
son penned his immortal credo "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." The point is not to expose
Jefferson as a plagiarist, for he substantially improved Mason's version. Nor
is it to deny thatJohn Locke or Francis Hutcheson may have played a role
in shaping Jefferson's (and Mason's) thinking. But comparing Jefferson's
language with Mason's makes it clear how much Jefferson was affected by
actions around him rather than the books and words in his library.
Often enough, actions do speak louder than words. Yet a problem
remains. Despite the proverb about actions, we are still talking about words,
whetherJefferson's or George Mason's. The point of the maxim is that we
cannot always take words at face value-that often, actions are what reveal
true feelings. We need not reject the Declaration's heartfelt sentiments in
order to recognize that the Congress (or, for that matter, colonials them­
selves) may have had reasons for declaring independence that they did not
proclaim loudly.
Consider the vexed topic of slavery, especially relevant to a document
proclaiming that "all men are created equal." It has become commonplace
to point out the contradiction between the Declaration's noble embrace of
human liberties and the reality that many delegates to Congress, including
Jefferson, were slave owners; or similarly, the inconsistency between a decla­
ration of equality and the refusal to let women participate in the equal rights
of citizenship.
Although such contradictions seem now to be almost truisms, they
deserve to be pointed out again and again. Indeed, much of American his­
tory can be seen as an effort to work out the full meaning of "all men are cre­
ated equal"-whether in the Civil War, which ended slavery only after a vast
and bloody carnage, or at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, mounted
by women to proclaim an equality of the sexes in their own Declaration
of Sentiments. The theme could be applied to the populist and progressive
movements of the late nineteenth century, which challenged the monopoly
powers of big business, or to the twentieth-century debates over civil rights
and affirmative action. The implications of the Declaration have engaged
the republic for more than two centuries and will continue to do so.
So let's return to the notion of actions and examine the intriguing way in
which slavery appears in the Declaration. At first glance, it doesn't seem to
appear at all. The only allusion comes in the document's long list of griev­
ances, where Congress notes that the king has "excited domestic insurrections
amongst us"-a rather indirect way of saying that the king had encouraged
slaves to rise up against their patriot masters. The five words slip by so quickly
that we hardly notice them.
 Declaring Independence 91

Slavery did not slip by so quickly inJefferson's rough draft. His discussion
of the institution appeared not as a grace note, but as the climax of his long
list of grievances against the king:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred
rights of life and 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 nega­
tive [that is, used his veto power] Jefferson� rough draft ofthe
for suppressing every legislative Declaration said a lot more about
attempt to prohibit or to restrain
slavery than what appeared in the
this execrable commerce. And that
final draft.
this assemblage of horrors might
want no fact of distinguishing 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, by
murdering the people on 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.

The passage is both revealing and astonishing. It reveals, first, that Jef­
ferson was very much aware of the contradiction between slavery and the
Declaration's high sentiments. Not once but twice he speaks out. The
enslavement of black Africans violates the "most sacred rights of life and
liberty," he admits. And again: enslavement amounts to "crimes commit­
ted against the Liberties of one people." Yet in admitting the wrong, he
blames the king for it! Jefferson based his charge on the fact that several
times during the eighteenth century, Virginia's legislature passed a tariff
designed to put a brake on the importation of slaves. The lawmakers did
so not so much from humanitarian motives (although these were occasion­
ally mentioned) but because the colony's slave population was expanding
rapidly. Importing too many Africans would lower the price of domestic
slaves whom Virginia planters wanted to sell. The British administration,
however, consistently vetoed such laws-and thus the king had "prosti­
tuted his negative" to prevent the slave trade from being restrained. For
their part, white Georgians and South Carolinians were generally happy
to see the trade continue, as were many New England merchants whose
income depended on it.
To accuse the king of enslaving black colonials was far-fetched enough,
butJefferson then turned around and hotly accused the king of freeing black
colonials. In November 1775 the loyal Governor Dunmore ofVirginia pro­
claimed that any slave who deserted his master to fight for the king would
be freed. Dunmore's Proclamation, as it was called, outraged many white
patriots. Hence Jefferson called King George to account for the vile "crime"
of freeing slaves who remained loyal to the crown.
92 AFTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION

What the delegates in Congress thought of the passage does not survive.
But their actions spoke loudly. In the final draft, Jefferson's long passage
vanished. All that remained was the accusation that the king had "excited
domestic insurrections." Most likely Congress rejected Jefferson's logic as
being so strained that it could hardly withstand public scrutiny. The less
said, the better.

DECLARING FOR FREEDOM

Saying less, however, is not the same as saying nothing. By not deleting the
accusation regarding "domestic insurrections," Congress revealed that this
particular issue remained a sensitive one. Indeed, many other declarations of
independence, issued by various states and towns on their own, complained
loudly about Dunmore's Proclamation. Marylanders protested that slaves
"were proclaimed free, enticed away, trained and armed against their lawful
masters." Pennsylvanians objected that the British had incited "the negroes
to imbrue their hands in the blood of their masters." North Carolina echoed
that sentiment nearly word for word. The frequency of this complaint raises
a question. Leave aside for a moment the issue of white attitudes toward
slavery and liberty. How did the actions of African Americans affect the draft­
ers of the Declaration?
On the face of it, the chance of answering that question seems far-fetched.
The approximately 400,000 black slaves living in the colonies in 177 6 could
not leave a trail of resolutions or declarations behind them, for most were
not allowed to. Yet the Declaration's complaint that Britain was stirring up
American slaves brings to mind the similar laments of proslavery advocates
in the 1850s and of segregationists during the 1950s and 1960s. Both repeat­
edly blamed "outside agitators" for encouraging southern blacks to assert
their civil rights. In the eighteenth century, the phrase most commonly
used was "instigated insurrection." "The newspapers were full of Publica­
tions calculated to excite the fears of the People," wrote one indignant South
Carolinian in 177 5, "Massacres and Instigated Insurrections, were words in
the mouth of every Child." And not only children: South Carolina's First
Provincial Congress voiced its own "dread of instigated insurrections."
North Carolinians, too, warned that "there is much reason to fear, in these
Times of general Tumult and Confusion, that the Slaves may be instigated,
encouraged by our inveterate Enemies to an Insurrection."
Were the British "instigating" rebellion? Or were they taking advantage
of African Americans' own determination to strike for freedom? As histo­
rian Sylvia Frey has pointed out, the incidence of flight, rebellion, or protest
among slaves increased significantly in the decade following the Stamp Act,
despite the long odds against success. In 1765 the Sons of Liberty paraded
around Charleston shouting "Liberty! Liberty and stamp'd paper!" Soon
after, slaves organized a demonstration of their own, chanting "Liberty!"
 Declaring Independence 93

Planter Henry Laurens believed the ruckus was merely a "thoughtless imita­
tion" of white colonials, but it frightened many South Carolinians.
With good reason. Look more closely at events in Virginia leading up to
Governor Dunmore's proclamation. Six months before Dunmore offered
freedom to all able-bodied slaves who would serve the king, he had con­
fiscated some of the colony's gunpowder to prevent the rebels from get­
ting it. At that point, "some Negroes . . . offered to join him and take up
arms." What was Dunmore's reaction? He ordered the slaves "to go about
their business" and "threatened them with his severest resentment, should
they presume to renew their application." Patriot forces, on the other hand,
accused Dunmore of seizing the gunpowder with the intention of "disarm­
ing the people, to weaken the means of opposing an insurrection of the
slaves." Hearing this charge, Dunmore became "exceedingly exasperated"
and threatened to "declare freedom to the slaves and reduce the City of Wil­
liamsburg to ashes."
In other words, the slaves, not Dunmore, made the first move in this
game of chess! And far from greeting the slaves' offer with delight, Dunmore
shunned it-until patriot fears
about black insurrections made Who was "instigating" rebellion-the
him consider the advantages that British or African American slaves?
black military support might
provide. Similarly, in 1773 and again in 1774 the loyal governor of Mas­
sachusetts, General Thomas Gage, received five separate petitions from "a
grate Number of [enslaved] Blacks" offering to fight for him if he would set
them free. "At present it is kept pretty quiet," Abigail Adams reassured her
husband, John, who was off at the First Continental Congress.
By 177 5 slave unrest was common in many areas of the Carolinas and
Georgia. Charleston had taken on "rather the appearance of a garrison
town," reported one observer, because the militia were patrolling the streets
at night as well as during the day, "to guard against any hostile attempts that
may be made by our domesticks." White fears were confirmed when a black
harbor pilot, Thomas Jeremiah, was arrested, tried, hanged, and burned to
death for plotting an insurrection that would enlist the help of the British
navy. Jeremiah told other blacks that "there was a great War coming soon"
that "was come to help the poor Negroes." According to James Madison, a
different group of slaves in Virginia "met together and chose a leader who
was to conduct them when the English troops should arrive." The con­
spiracy was discovered and suppressed. Islands along the coasts of South
Carolina and Georgia, as well as English navy ships, attracted slaves strik­
ing for freedom. The slaves were not "inticed," reported one captain; they
"came as freemen, and demanding protection." He could "have had near 500
who had offered."
The actions of these and other enslaved African Americans clearly
affected the conduct of both British officials and colonial rebels. The British,
who (like Dunmore) remained reluctant to encourage a full-scale rebellion,
94 AFTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION

nevertheless saw that the mere possibility of insurrection might be used as

an effective psychological threat. If South Carolinians did not stop oppos­
ing British policy, warned General Gage ominously, "it may happen that
your Rice and Indigo will be brought to market by negroes instead of white
People." For their part, southern white colonials worked energetically to
suppress both the rebellions and all news of them.As two Georgia delegates
to the Continental Congress informed John Adams, slave networks could
carry news "several hundreds of miles in a week or fortnight." Madison saw
clearly the dangers of talking about the slave conspiracy in his state: "It is
prudent such things should be concealed as well as suppressed," he warned
a friend. Maryland's provisional government felt similarly about Governor
Dunmore's proclamation in neighboring Virginia. It immediately outlawed
all correspondence with the state, either by land or water. But word spread
anyway. "The insolence of the Negroes in this county is come to such a
height," reported one Eastern Shore Marylander, "that we are under a
necessity of disarming them which we affected [sic] on Saturday last. We
took about eighty guns,some bayonets,swords,etc."
Thus the actions of African Americans helped push the delegates in Con­
gress toward their final decision for independence, even though the Decla­
ration remained largely silent on the subject. By striking for liberty, slaves
encouraged the British to use them as an element in their war against the
Americans.Lord North expected that British troops sent to Georgia and the
Carolinas in 177 5 would meet with success, especially because "we all know
the perilous situation ... [arising] from the great number of their negro
slaves,and the small proportion of white inhabitants."
The Americans were pushed toward independence by this knowledge.
Georgia delegates told John Adams that their slaves were eager to arise,and
if "one thousand regular [British] troops should land in Georgia, and their
commander ... proclaim freedom to all the negroes who would join his
campaign,twenty thousand would join it from [Georgia and South Carolina]
in a fortnight." James Madison, worrying about Lord Dunmore, warned
that a slave insurrection "is the only part in which this Colony is vulnerable;
& if we should be subdued,we shall fall like Achilles by the hand of one that
knows the secret." Washington,too,perceived the threat.Dunmore must be
crushed instantly,he warned in December 177 5, "otherwise,like a snowball,
in rolling, his army will get size." Although southern delegates wanted to
forbid black Americans from serving in the Continental Army, Washing­
ton changed his mind and supported the idea, having come to believe that
the outcome of the war might depend on "which side can arm the Negroes
the faster." Until recently, few historians have appreciated the role African
Americans played in shaping the context of independence.

Actions do speak louder than words-often enough. Still, the Declara­

tion's words and ideals have outlasted the sometimes contradictory actions
of its creators.Jefferson's entire life embodied those contradictions. More
than any president except Lincoln,Jefferson contributed to the downfall of
 Declaring Independence 95

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Masters whose slaves ran away commonly posted notices in newspapers offering
rewards for their rerurn. The advertisements often assumed that slaves had gone
to join kin. But these advertisements from an issue of the Virginia Gazette in
November 1775 indicate that slaveowners were frequently convinced that their
male slaves might have gone to offer service to Lord Dunmore or to the British
navy ("a Man of War's Man").

slavery. In addition to penning the Declaration's bold rhetoric, he pushed

for the antislavery provision in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which
served as a model for later efforts to stop slavery's expansion. Yet for all that,
he depended on the labor of enslaved African Americans throughout his
life. Although he apparently maintained a sexual relationship with one of his
slaves, Sally Hemings, upon his death he freed none, except five members of
the Hemings family. Sally was not among them.
It lay with Abraham Lincoln to express most eloquently the notion that a
document might transcend the contradictions of its creation. In 1857 Lin­
coln insisted that in proclaiming "all men are created equal," the founders
of the nation

did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoy­
ing that equality. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society,
which should be f.uniliar to all, and revered by all, constantly looked to,

constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly
96 AFTER THE FACT: THE ART OF HISTORICAL DETECTION

approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence,

and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors
everywhere.

"For the support of this Declaration," Jefferson concluded, "we mutually

pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." This
sentiment was no idle rhetoric. Many delegates took the final step toward
independence only with great reluctance. If the war was lost, they faced a
hangman's noose. Even in victory, more than a few signers discovered that
their fortunes had been devastated by the war. Yet it does no dishonor to
the principles of the Revolution to recognize the flawed nature of Jeffer­
son's attempt to reconcile slavery with liberty. Even less does it dishonor the
Revolution to appreciate the role enslaved African Americans played in forc­
ing the debates about independence. They, too, risked all in the actions­
declarations made without words-that so many of them took to avail them­
selves of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.