CHAPTER V.

1776.

Jefferson desired by Colleagues to draft Declaration-J. Adams's Statement of a SubCommittee-Jefferson's Correction-His Contemporaneous Notes-Sustained by the Original Draught-Adams's Inaccuracy as a Writer-Jefferson's Habitual Accuracy in Facts-Authorship of Declaration undisputed-C. F. Adams's extraordinary Comments -Proceedings in Congress on Independence Resolution-Proceedings on the Declaration Jefferson's Remarks on the Amendments-Lord John Russell's-The Declaration adopted-Signing the Declaration-Fac-simile of the Draught The Draught and Amendments-Where the Declaration was written-The Writing Desk-Jefferson during the Debate-John Thompson, the Hatter-The Entries in the Account Book— Meteorological Register-J. Adams, the Champion of Declaration Jefferson's Commemoration of it-J. Adams's great Speech-This not preserved-Webster's "Restoraration" of it-Webster's and Wirt's "Restorations" unequal to Originals-The Meagre History of the Debates-The probable Speakers-Jefferson's Description of S. Adams -Nelson, Harrison, and McKean-Gerry, Sherman, and others-Franklin's Influence on the Question Jefferson's-Declaration as a Literary and Political Production-Its Originality examined-J. Adams's and R. H. Lee's Views J. Adams's Assertion that it repeats a Report of his-Unfortunateness of the Claim-How far it was borrowed from Otis or Locke-Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence-Contemporaneous Reception of National Declaration-Effects on the Public Mind-Effects on the Loyalists -On the Whigs-Reception in Southern and Middle States-In New England-Jefferson's Appointments in Congress after the 4th of July-Letters.

THE Committee to prepare a Declaration of Independence "unanimously pressed " Mr. Jefferson "to undertake the draft." He did so, but before submitting the paper to the full Committee, communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, requesting their corrections, "which were two or three only, and merely verbal." The report was then laid before the entire Committee, which made no amendments; and on the 28th of June it was presented in Congress by its author. It was immediately read, and ordered to lie on the table.

In the often-quoted letter of John Adams to Timothy Pickering, in 1822, a somewhat different version of this affair is given. He says:

CHAP V.] JEFFERSON DESIRED TO DRAFT DECLARATION.

165

"The Committee met, discussed the subject, and then appointed Mr. Jefferson and me to make the draft, I suppose because we were the two first on the list. The sub-committee met. Jefferson proposed to me to make the draft. I said, 'I will not.' 'You should do it.' 'Oh! no.' 'Why will you not? You ought to do it.' 'I will not.' Why?' 'Reasons enough.' 'What can be your reasons?' 'Reason first-You are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second-I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third-You can write ten times better than I can.' 'Well,' said Jefferson, ‘if you are decided, I will do as well as I can.' 'Very well. When you have drawn it up, we will have a meeting.' A meeting we accordingly had, and conned the paper over. [After stating what he really liked and disliked in it, Mr. Adams proceeds:] I consented to report it, and do not now remember that I made or suggested a single alteration. We reported it to the Committee of five. It was read, and I do not remember that Franklin or Sherman criticised anything. We were all in haste. Congress was impatient, and the instrument was reported, as I believe, in Jefferson's handwriting, as he first drew it."

This statement was published in 1823, and Jefferson soon after (August 30th), wrote Mr. Madison:

“Mr. Adams's memory has led him into unquestionable error. At the age of eighty-eight, and forty-seven years after the transactions of Independence, this is not wonderful. Nor should I, at the age of eighty, on the small advantage of that diference only, venture to oppose my memory to his, were it not supported by written notes, taken by myself at the moment and on the spot." [After giving the substance of Mr. Adams's statement, he continues :] "Now these details are quite incorrect. The Committee of five met; no such thing as a sub-committee was proposed, but they unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draft. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the Committee, I communicated it separately to Doctor Franklin and Mr. Adams, requesting their corrections, because they were the two members of whose judgments and amendments I wished most to have the benefit, before presenting it to the Committee: and you have seen the original paper now in my hands, with the corrections of Doctor Franklin and Mr. Adams interlined in their own hand-writings. Their alterations were two or three only, and merely verbal. I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the Committee, and from them, unaltered, to Congress. This personal communication and consultation with Mr. Adams, he has misremembered into the actings of a subcommittee."

The notes "taken by himself at the moment," which Mr. Jefferson refers to as "supporting" his memory, contained the following passages:

"The Committee were John Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, and myself. The Committee for drawing the Declara

1 Mr. Adams's "reason second" and "reason third" go very distinctly to corro berate the reasons" we gave in the last chapter for Mr. Jefferson's being made chairman of the Committee.

166

HIS AND ADAMS'S VERSION OF THE AFFAIR.

[CHAP. V.

tion of Independence desired me to do it. It was accordingly done, and being approved by them, I reported it to the House on Friday, the 28th of June, when it was read and ordered to lie on the table."

And the "original paper" transferred from Mr. Jefferson's "hands" to the State Department, in Washington (a fac-simile of which will presently appear in this work), exhibits the interlineations mentioned, supporting the accuracy of Mr. Jefferson's narration down to details; and, on the other hand, showing how vague and loose must have been the minute recollections of a man who did not even remember whether he "made or suggested a single alteration !"

It is due to Mr. Adams to say that he inserted substantially the same version of the affair in his Autobiography, written about eighteen years earlier than his letter to Pickering, and about twenty-eight years after the occurrences took place, whereas Mr. Jefferson's statement to Mr. Madison, above given, was not written until forty-seven years afterwards. But independently of the testimony of the contemporaneous notes, which ought to be considered as settling the question (unless some one is prepared to say that Mr. Jefferson falsely entered in those notes, "the Committee desired me to do it-it was accordingly done"-when, in truth, the Committee desired two men to do it, and it was accordingly done by two); independently of the corroboration of Mr. Jefferson's version offered on the face of the interlined draft, and notwithstanding the difference of time intervening between the facts and respective statements, we should feel justly authorized to pronounce Jefferson's recollections by far the most reliable.

We have already mentioned that Mr. Adams was a signally inaccurate writer; and, in this respect, it did not make a very great difference whether he gave recollections five or fifty years after the event. It is hardly necessary to repeat that we regard his integrity and veracity as wholly above suspicion. But he was careless, impetuous, and unstudied in his statements, following the drift of the impression and the feeling of the moment, without stopping for investigation, or minding whom he rar against. It was his misfortune to run oftener against John Adams than any other man! But little cared he. Conscious integrity, overweening self-esteem, and an utter want of that sensitive delicacy which generally influences high-toned and (in

CHAP. V.]

THEIR COMPARATIVE ACCURACY.

167

the expressive common phrase) "thin-skinned" men, combined. to render him vastly independent in regard to consistency either with himself or others.

Jefferson, on the contrary, was a good deal of a precisian in all things. He observed the minute, and he recorded the minute with elaborate circumspection. On the score of accuracy, he was as much above as Mr. Adams was below the common medium standard of honest and observing men. We shall not say, now, how often he erred in the impressions he derived from facts, or in credulously believing, on the statements of others, what were not facts; but, in cases where he deliberately recorded actual occurrences as on his own personal observation or knowledge, we venture to assert, after a long and patient investigation of his writings, that the page of American history does not present a man who has written so much, or half so much, on whom fewer errors can be proved. It is true that he never prided himself on a peculiarly strong memory-he rather conveys the opposite idea-and long before 1823, he more than once spoke of his memory as being seriously shattered. But we never have run our eye over one of these characteristic disclaimers without thinking of an anecdote of Gifford's. He says, that in a discussion with Soame Jenyns, he quoted Doctor Johnson's confession that he "knew little Greek." "But how shall we know what Johnson would have called much Greek?" was the reply.

Mr. Jefferson relied much on "supporting" notes, and it is everywhere obvious that when he appealed to his memory in regard to past facts of any importance, he did so with peculiar care and consideration. But when we compare his statements in such cases with other men's-and especially when we compare his own with each other, made at twenty, forty, and even sixty years intervals, and observe their striking similarity not only in details, but in the very stand-point from which the subject is viewed, so that those details appear always about in the same scale of proportion (showing the perfect method of his mind), we confess his memory seems to us portentous.

In an unpublished letter from Mr. Madison to Mr. Trist (May 15, 1832), lying before us, the former, after suggesting a careful review of all of Mr. Jefferson's correspondence which

168

JEFFERSON'S HABITUAL ACCURACY.

[CHAP. V

would touch a particular topic, then attracting a great deal of public interest, remarked:

"Allowances ought to be made for a habit in Mr. J., as in all others of great genius, of expressing in strong and round terms impressions of the moment. It may be added, that a full exhibition of the correspondences of distinguished public men, through the varied scenes of a long period, would not fail, without one single exception, to involve delicate personalities, and apparent, if not real, inconsistencies."

The "inconsistencies" Mr. Madison principally referred to, were probably those of opinion at different periods of life. But taking the remark in its other sense, it is true of all the extensive correspondences ever written. Yet we say, frankly and fearlessly, that a serious and not fairly explainable inconsistency in statements of facts does not exist in all the correspondence of Thomas Jefferson-perhaps the most voluminous, with one or two exceptions, preserved of any of our earlier American

statesmen.

Of course we have not spent all this time in discussing this topic, simply in reference to the really insignificant question of whether or not the Committee to draft the Declaration of Independence chose a sub-committee of two, or directed their chairman to perform this duty. It being conceded on all sides that Jefferson alone drew up that immortal instrument, the other question scarcely rises to the dignity of a "curiosty of literature;" and it would not have here been noticed, except that on the authority of Adams's letter to Pickering (Mr. Jefferson's reply in the letter to Madison, not being then published), Mr. Webster, Mr. Wirt, and other distinguished gentlemen who delivered addresses on the death of Adams and Jefferson in 1826, followed, of course, Mr. Adams's version of the affair, and thus, without due explanation, would appear, to the generality of readers in after times, to give the weight of their great names to assertions of Mr. Adams's where he was directly contradicted by Jefferson with the asserted support of contemporaneous "notes ;" and except, moreover, that in a work published by (or by the aid of) Congress, the facts in the case have been deliberately, though we hope not intentionally, misrepresented.'

1 We refer of course to the Life and Writings of John Adams, edited by his grandson, Charles F. Adams. After mentioning that Mr. Jefferson attributed his grandfather'