ORIGINAL DECLARATION.[B]
I now place before the reader the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, as it was presented by Jefferson. I have placed in brackets the matter struck out or amended by Congress.
It will be remembered that Mr. Jefferson was chairman of the committee to draft the document; Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and R. R. Livingston, being the other four of the committee; that they changed but a word or two in it; and that John Adams became its champion in Congress, and fought manfully for every word of it. Jefferson said nothing, as he scarcely ever spoke in public:
[1.] "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds 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 for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
[2.] "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with [inherent and] inalienable 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 form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter and abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, [begun at a distinguished period, and] 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 sufferings of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to [expunge] their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain, is a history of [unremitting] injuries and usurpations, [among which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, but all have] in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, [for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.]
[3.] "He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
[4.] "He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
[5.] "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 legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
[6.] "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
[7.] "He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly [and continually] for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.