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The Declaration of Independence: The Evolution of the Text as Shown in Facsimiles of Various Drafts by Its Author, Thomas Jefferson

1945; Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture; Volume: 2; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1921456

1933-7698

Marie Kimball, Julian P. Boyd,

American Constitutional Law and Politics

This edition of Declaration of Independence makes available to public brochure printed for Library of Congress on occasion of Library's Bicentennial Exposition celebrating two-hundredth anniversary of Jefferson's birth. In his account of evolution of text of Declaration, Dr. Boyd has solved many of most difficult problems relating to that famous document, problems previously studied by Becker, Hazelton, Fitzpatrick, and others, to all of whom Dr. Boyd pays due tribute. Dr. Boyd first gives a brief account of background of Declaration, which was truly expression of American mind. To Timothy Pickering's charge that Jefferson contributed nothing original or solely Jeffersonian, reply is made that Jefferson harmonizing sentiments of day with concepts of government which had an ancient and diverse lineage, and yet did it in a prose style which stamped product of his pen indubitably and singly Jeffersonian. The greatness of his achievement, declared Dr. Boyd, aside from fact that he created one of outstanding literary documents of world and of all time, was that he identified its sublime purpose with roots of liberal traditions that spread back to England, to Scotland, to Geneva, to Holland, to Germany, to Rome, and to Athens. Under heading, Two Influential Documents, Dr. Boyd asserts that when Jefferson sat down to task of writing Declaration it is scarcely possible that he could have escaped a reliance on his own draft of a proposed constitution for Virginia and on George Mason's bill of rights adopted by convention of Virginia on June 12, 1776. This is evidenced by fact that in his draft of a fundamental law for Virginia, Jefferson catalogued a series of charges against George III similar to his indictment of king in Declaration. sequence of charges in both documents and their parallel phraseology indicate, according to Dr. Boyd, that Jefferson copied from his earlier document in writing Declaration. Of Jefferson's debt to George Mason's Declaration of Rights, Dr. Boyd says that the similarity that exists is a similarity of ideas and expresses doubt that case has been proved that Jefferson was as directly influenced by Mason's Declaration as he was by his own proposed constitution of Virginia. Six texts of Declaration in Jefferson's handwriting, together with copy in handwriting of John Adams, are used to trace evolu-