what passed in Congress, on their Declaration of Independence; in
which statement there is not one word of truth, and where bearing some
resemblance to truth, it is an entire perversion of it. I do not charge
this on Mr. Galloway himself; his desertion having taken place long
before these measures, he doubtless received his information from some
of the loyal friends whom he left behind him. But as yourself, as
well as others, appear embarrassed by inconsistent accounts of the
proceedings on that memorable occasion, and as those who have endeavored
to restore the truth, have themselves committed some errors, I will give
you some extracts from a written document on that subject; for the
truth of which, I pledge myself to heaven and earth; having, while the
question of Independence was under consideration before Congress, taken
written notes, in my seat, of what was passing, and reduced them to form
on the final conclusion. I have now before me that paper, from which
the following are extracts. ‘Friday, June 7th, 1776. The delegates from
Virginia moved, in obedience to instructions from their constituents,
that the Congress should 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; that measures should be immediately taken
for procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and a Confederation
be formed to bind the colonies more closely together. The House being
obliged to attend at that time to some other business, the proposition
was referred to the next day, when the members were ordered to attend
punctually at ten o’clock. Saturday, June 8th. They proceeded to take
it into consideration, and referred it to a committee of the whole,
into which they immediately resolved themselves, and passed that day and
Monday, the 10th, in debating on the subject.
‘It appearing, in the course of these debates, that the colonies of New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delware, Maryland, and South Carolina,
were not yet matured for falling from the parent stem, but that they
were fast advancing to that state, it was thought most prudent to wait
a while for them, and to postpone the final decision to July 1st. But,
that this might occasion as little delay as possible, a Committee was
appointed to prepare a Declaration of Independence. The Committee were
John Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, and
myself. This was reported to the House on Friday the 28th of June, when
it was read and ordered to lie on the table. On Monday, the 1st of July,
the House resolved itself into a Committee of the whole, and resumed the
consideration of the original motion made by the delegates of Virginia,
which, being again debated through the day, was carried in the
affirmative by the votes of New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and
Georgia. South Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it. Delaware had
but two members present, and they were divided. The delegates from
New York declared they were for it themselves, and were assured their
constituents were for it; but that their instructions having been drawn
near a twelvemonth before, when reconciliation was still the general
object, they were enjoined by them, to do nothing which should impede
that object. They, therefore, thought themselves not justifiable in
voting on either side, and asked leave to withdraw from the question,
which was given them. The Committee rose, and reported their resolution
to the House. Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, then requested the
determination might be put off to the next day, as he believed his
colleagues, though they disapproved of the resolution, would then join
in it for the sake of unanimity. The ultimate question, whether the
House would agree to the resolution of the Committee, was accordingly
postponed to the next day, when it was again moved, and South Carolina
concurred in voting for it. In the mean time, a third member had come
post from the Delaware counties, and turned the vote of that colony in
favor of the resolution. Members of a different sentiment attending that
morning from Pennsylvania also, her vote was changed; so that the whole
twelve colonies, who were authorized to vote at all, gave their votes
for it; and within a few days [July 9th] the convention of New York
approved of it, and thus supplied the void occasioned by the withdrawing
of their delegates from the vote.’ [Be careful to observe, that this
vacillation and vote were on the original motion of the 7th of June,
by the Virginia delegates, that Congress should declare the colonies
independent.] ‘Congress proceeded, the same day, to consider the
Declaration of Independence, which had been reported and laid on the
table the Friday preceding, and on Monday referred to a Committee of
the whole. The pusillanimous idea, that we had friends in England worth
keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason,
those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were
struck out, lest they should give them offence. The debates having taken
up the greater parts of the second, third, and fourth days of July,
were, in the evening of the last, closed: the Declaration was reported
by the Committee, agreed to by the House, and signed by every member
present except Mr. Dickinson.’ So far my notes.
Governor M’Kean, in his letter to M’Corkle of July 16th, 1817, has
thrown some lights on the transactions of that day: but, trusting to his
memory chiefly, at an age when our memories are not to be trusted, he
has confounded two questions, and ascribed proceedings to one which
belonged to the other. These two questions were, 1st, the Virginia
motion of June the 7th, to declare Independence; and 2nd, the actual
Declaration, its matter and form. Thus he states the question on the
Declaration itself, as decided on the 1st of July; but it was the
Virginia motion which was voted on that day in committee of the whole;
South Carolina, as well as Pennsylvania, then voting against it. But the
ultimate decision in the House, on the report of the Committee, being,
by request, postponed to the next morning, all the states voted for it,
except New York, whose vote was delayed for the reason before stated. It
was not till the 2nd of July, that the Declaration itself was taken up;
nor till the 4th, that it was decided, and it was signed by every member
present, except Mr. Dickinson.
The subsequent signatures of members who were not then present, and some
of them not yet in office, is easily explained, if we observe who they
were; to wit, that they were of New York and Pennsylvania. New York
did not sign till the 15th, because it was not till the 9th, (five days
after the general signature,) that their Convention authorized them to
do so. The Convention of Pennsylvania, learning that it had been signed
by a majority only of their delegates, named a new delegation on the
20th, leaving out Mr. Dickinson, who had refused to sign, Willing and
Humphreys, who had withdrawn, reappointing the three members who had
signed, Morris, who had not been present, and five new ones, to wit,
Rush, Clymer, Smith, Taylor, and Ross: and Morris and the five new
members were permitted to sign, because it manifested the assent of
their full delegation, and the express will of their Convention, which
might have been doubted on the former signature of a minority only. Why
the signature of Thornton, of New Hampshire, was permitted so late
as the 4th of November, I cannot now say; but undoubtedly for some
particular reason, which we should find to have been good, had it been
expressed. These were the only post-signers, and you see, sir,
that there were solid reasons for receiving those of New York and
Pennsylvania, and that this circumstance in no wise affects the faith of
this Declaratory Charter of our rights, and of the rights of man.
With a view to correct errors of fact before they become inveterate by
repetition, I have stated what I find essentially material in my papers,
but with that brevity which the labor of writing constrains me to use.
On the four particular articles of inquiry in your letter, respecting
your grandfather, the venerable Samuel Adams, neither memory nor
memorandums enable me to give any information. I can say that he was
truly a great man, wise in council, fertile in resources, immovable in
his purposes, and had, I think, a greater share than any other member,
in advising and directing our measures in the Northern war. As a
speaker, he could not be compared with his living colleague and
namesake, whose deep conceptions, nervous style, and undaunted firmness,
made him truly our bulwark in debate. But Mr. Samuel Adams, although not
of fluent elocution, was so rigorously logical, so clear in his views,
abundant in good sense, and master always of his subject, that he
commanded the most profound attention whenever he rose in an assembly,
by which the froth of declamation was heard with the most sovereign
contempt. I sincerely rejoice that the record of his worth is to be
undertaken by one so much disposed as you will be, to hand him down
fairly to that posterity, for whose liberty and happiness he was so
zealous a laborer.
With sentiments of sincere veneration for his memory, accept yourself
this tribute to it, with the assurances of my great respect.
Th: Jefferson.
P. S. August 6th, 1822. Since the date of this letter, to wit, this
day, August 6, ‘22, I have received the new publication of the Secret
Journals of Congress, wherein is stated a resolution of July 19th,
1776, that the Declaration passed on the 4th, be fairly engrossed on
parchment, and when engrossed, be signed by every member; and another
of August 2nd, that being engrossed and compared at the table, it was
signed by the members; that is to say, the copy engrossed on parchment
(for durability) was signed by the members, after being compared at the
table with the original one signed on paper, as before stated. I add
this P. S. to the copy of my letter to Mr. Wells, to prevent confounding
the signature of the original with that of the copy engrossed on
parchment.
[NOTE C]--August, 1774, Instructions to the first Delegation
On the Instructions given to the first Delegation of Virginia to
Congress, in August, 1774.
The Legislature of Virginia happened to be in session in Williamsburg,
when news was received of the passage, by the British Parliament, of the
Boston Port Bill, which was to take effect on the first day of June
then ensuing. The House of Burgesses, thereupon, passed a resolution,
recommending to their fellow-citizens that that day should be set apart
for fasting and prayer to the Supreme Being, imploring him to avert the
calamities then threatening us, and to give us one heart and one mind
to oppose every invasion of our liberties. The next day, May the 20th,
1774, the Governor dissolved us. We immediately repaired to a room in
the Raleigh tavern, about one hundred paces distant from the Capitol,
formed ourselves into a meeting, Peyton Randolph in the chair, and
came to resolutions, declaring, that an attack on one colony to enforce
arbitrary acts, ought to be considered as an attack on all, and to
be opposed by the united wisdom of all. We, therefore, appointed a
Committee of Correspondence, to address letters to the Speakers of
the several Houses of Representatives of the colonies, proposing
the appointment of deputies from each, to meet annually in a general
Congress, to deliberate on their common interests, and on the measures
to be pursued in common. The members then separated to their several
homes, except those of the Committee, who met the next day, prepared
letters according to instructions, and despatched them by messengers
express, to their several destinations. It had been agreed, also by the
meeting, that the Burgesses, who should be elected under the writs then
issuing, should be requested to meet in Convention on a certain day in
August, to learn the result of these letters, and to appoint delegates
to a Congress, should that measure be approved by the other colonies. At
the election, the people re-elected every man of the former Assembly, as
a proof of their approbation of what they had done. Before I left home
to attend the Convention, I prepared what I thought might be given,
in instruction, to the Delegates who should be appointed to attend the
General Congress proposed. They were drawn in haste, with a number of
blanks, with some uncertainties and inaccuracies of historical facts,
which I neglected at the moment, knowing they could be readily corrected
at the meeting. I set out on my journey, but was taken sick on the road,
and was unable to proceed. I therefore sent on, by express, two copies,
one under cover to Patrick Henry, the other to Peyton Randolph, who I
knew would be in the chair of the Convention. Of the former no more was
ever heard or known. Mr. Henry probably thought it too bold, as a first
measure, as the majority of the members did. On the other copy being
laid on the table of the Convention, by Peyton Randolph, as the
proposition of a member who was prevented from attendance by sickness
on the road, tamer sentiments were preferred, and, I believe, wisely
preferred; the leap I proposed being too long, as yet, for the mass of
our citizens. The distance between these, and the instructions actually
adopted, is of some curiosity, however, as it shows the inequality of
pace with which we moved, and the prudence required to keep front and
rear together. My creed had been formed on unsheathing the sword at
Lexington. They printed the paper, however, and gave it the title of ‘A
Summary View of the Rights of British America.’ In this form it got to
London, where the opposition took it up, shaped it to opposition views,
and, in that form, it ran rapidly through several editions.
Mr. Marshall, in his history of General Washington, chapter 3, speaking
of this proposition for Committees of correspondence and for a General
Congress, says, ‘this measure had already been proposed in town meeting
in Boston,’ and some pages before he had said, that ‘at a session of
the General Court of Massachusetts, in September, 1770, that Court, in
pursuance of a favorite idea of uniting all the colonies in one system
of measures, elected a Committee of correspondence, to communicate with
such Committees as might be appointed by the other colonies.’ This is an
error. The Committees of correspondence, elected by Massachusetts, were
expressly for a correspondence among the several towns of that province
only. Besides the text of their proceedings, his own note X, proves
this. The first proposition for a general correspondence between the
several states, and for a General Congress, was made by our meeting of
May, 1774. Botta, copying Marshall, has repeated his error, and so it
will be handed on from copyist to copyist, _ad infinitum_. Here follow
my proposition, and the more prudent one which was adopted.
‘Resolved, That it be an instruction to the said deputies, when
assembled in General Congress, with the deputies from the other states
of British America, to propose to the said Congress that an humble and
dutiful address be presented to his Majesty, begging leave to lay before
him, as Chief Magistrate of the British empire, the united complaints of
his Majesty’s subjects in America; complaints which are excited by many
unwarrantable encroachments and usurpations, attempted to be made by the
legislature of one part of the empire upon the rights which God and the
laws have given equally and independently to all. To represent to his
Majesty that, these, his States, have often individually made humble
application to his imperial throne, to obtain, through its intervention,
some redress of their injured rights; to none of which was ever even
an answer condescended. Humbly to hope that this, their joint address,
penned in the language of truth, and divested of those expressions of
servility which would persuade his Majesty that we are asking favors,
and not rights, shall obtain from his Majesty a more respectful
acceptance; and this his Majesty will think we have reason to expect,
when he reflects that he is no more than the chief officer of the
people, appointed by the laws, and circumscribed with definite powers,
to assist in working the great machine of government, erected for their
use, and, consequently, subject to their superintendence; and in order
that these, our rights, as well as the invasions of them, may be laid
more fully before his Majesty, to take a view of them from the origin
and first settlement of these countries.
‘To remind him that our ancestors, before their emigration to America,
were the free inhabitants of the British dominions in Europe, and
possessed a right, which nature has given to all men, of departing from
the country in which chance, not choice, has placed them, of going in
quest of new habitations, and of there establishing new societies, under
such laws and regulations, as to them shall seem most likely to promote
public happiness. That their Saxon ancestors had, under this universal
law, in like manner left their native wilds and woods in the North of
Europe, had possessed themselves of the island of Britain, then less
charged with inhabitants, and had established there that system of laws
which has so long been the glory and protection of that country. Nor was
ever any claim of superiority or dependence asserted over them, by that
mother country from which they had migrated: and were such a claim made,
it is believed his Majesty’s subjects in Great Britain have too firm a
feeling of the rights derived to them from their ancestors, to bow down
the sovereignty of their state before such visionary pretensions. And it
is thought that no circumstance has occurred to distinguish, materially,
the British from the Saxon emigration. America was conquered, and her
settlements made and firmly established, at the expense of individuals,
and not of the British public. Their own blood was spilt in acquiring
lands for their settlement, their own fortunes expended in making that
settlement effectual. For themselves they fought, for themselves they
conquered, and for themselves alone they have right to hold. No shilling
was ever issued from the public treasures of his Majesty, or his
ancestors, for their assistance, till of very late times, after the
colonies had become established on a firm and permanent fooling. That
then, indeed, having become valuable to Great Britain for her commercial
purposes, his Parliament was pleased to lend them assistance, against
an enemy who would fain have drawn to herself the benefits of their
commerce, to the great aggrandizement of herself, and danger of Great
Britain. Such assistance, and in such circumstances, they had often
before given to Portugal and other allied states, with whom they carry
on a commercial intercourse. Yet these states never supposed, that
by calling in her aid, they thereby submitted themselves to her
sovereignty. Had such terms been proposed, they would have rejected them
with disdain, and trusted for better to the moderation of their enemies,
or to a vigorous exertion of their own force. We do not, however, mean
to underrate those aids, which, to us, were doubtless valuable, on
whatever principles granted: but we would show that they cannot give a
title to that authority which the British Parliament would arrogate over
us; and that they may amply be repaid, by our giving to the inhabitants
of Great Britain such exclusive privileges in trade as may be
advantageous to them, and, at the same time, not too restrictive to
ourselves. That settlement having been thus effected in the wilds of
America, the emigrants thought proper to adopt that system of laws,
under which they had hitherto lived in the mother country, and to
continue their union with her, by submitting themselves to the same
common sovereign, who was thereby made the central link, connecting the
several parts of the empire thus newly multiplied.
‘But that not long were they permitted, however far they thought
themselves removed from the hand of oppression, to hold undisturbed,
the rights thus acquired at the hazard of their lives and loss of their
fortunes. A family of Princes was then on the British throne, whose
treasonable crimes against their people brought on them, afterwards, the
exertion of those sacred and sovereign rights of punishment, reserved
in the hands of the people for cases of extreme necessity, and judged by
the constitution unsafe to be delegated to any other judicature. While
every day brought forth some new and unjustifiable exertion of power
over their subjects on that side the water, it, was not to be expected
that those here, much less able at that time to oppose the designs of
despotism, should be exempted from injury. Accordingly, this country,
which had been acquired by the lives, the labors, and fortunes of
individual adventurers, was by these Princes, at several times, parted
out and distributed among the favorites and followers of their fortunes;
and, by an assumed right of the crown alone, were erected into distinct
and independent governments; a measure, which, it is believed, his
Majesty’s prudence and understanding would prevent him from imitating at
this day; as no exercise of such power, of dividing and dismembering a
country, has ever occurred in his Majesty’s realm of England, though now
of very ancient standing; nor could it be justified or acquiesced under
there, or in any other part of his Majesty’s empire.
‘That the exercise of a free trade with all parts of the world,
possessed by the American colonists, as of natural right, and which
no law of their own had taken away or abridged, was next the object
of unjust encroachment. Some of the colonies having thought proper to
continue the administration of their government in the name and
under the authority of his Majesty, King Charles the First, whom,
notwithstanding his late deposition by the Commonwealth of England, they
continued in the sovereignty of their State, the Parliament, for the
Commonwealth, took the same in high offence, and assumed upon themselves
the power of prohibiting their trade with all other parts of the world,
except the Island of Great Britain. This arbitrary act, however, they
soon recalled, and by solemn treaty entered into on the 12th day of
March, 1651, between the said Commonwealth by their Commissioners, and
the colony of Virginia by their House of Burgesses, it was expressly
stipulated by the eighth article of the said treaty, that they should
have “free trade as the people of England do enjoy to all places and
with all nations, according to the laws of that Commonwealth.” But that,
upon the restoration of his Majesty, King Charles the Second, their
rights of free commerce fell once more a victim to arbitrary power: and
by several acts of his reign, as well as of some of his successors, the
trade of the colonies was laid under such restrictions, as show what
hopes they might form from the justice of a British Parliament, were its
uncontrolled power admitted over these States.*
*12. C.2. c. 18. 15. C.2. c.11. 25. C.2. c.7. 7. 8. W. M.
c.22. 11. W.34. Anne. 6. C.2. c.13.