This view of the building in which Congress sat is from the Columbian Magazine, July, 1787. Cf. Scharf and Westcott's Philadelphia, i. 322, and Egle's Pennsylvania, p. 186; Harper's Mag., iii. 151. An architect's drawing of the front is on a folding sheet in A new and complete Hist. of the Brit. Empire in America (London, 1757?). Cf. other views in Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 272, 288. A water-color view by R. Peale is now preserved in the building. Cf. Belisle's Hist. of Independence Hall; Col. F. M. Etting's Memorials of 1776, his Hist. of the Old State House (1876), and his paper in the Penn Monthly, iii. 577; Lossing and others in Potter's Amer. Monthly, vi. 379, 455, vii. 1, 67, 477; John Savage's illustrated article in Harper's Monthly, xxxv. p. 217. Between 1873 and 1875 the hall was restored nearly to its ancient appearance, and now has some of the furniture in it used at the time of the Declaration. Cf. view in Gay, iii. 481, and Higginson's Larger Hist., 278. It has become a museum to commemorate the Revolutionary characters. The reports of the committee of restoration were printed. Cf. Scharf and Westcott, i. 318, and Col. Etting's History; also B. P. Poore's Descriptive Catal. of Government Publications, p. 945.
For the conditions of living in Philadelphia, and the appearance of the town at this time and during the war, see Watson's Annals; Scharf and Westcott's Philadelphia (ch. xvi., 1765-1776, xvii., 1776-1778, xviii., 1778-1783); Henry C. Watson's Old Bell of Independence (Philad., 1852,—later known as Noble Deeds of our Forefathers); R. H. Davis in Lippincott's Mag. (July, 1876), xviii. 27, and in Harper's Monthly, lii. pp. 705, 868; and F. D. Stone on "Philadelphia Society a hundred years ago, or the reign of Continental money." in Penna. Mag. of Hist., iii. 361. The diaries of Christopher Marshall (Albany, 1877) and of James Allen (Penna. Mag. of Hist., July, 1885, pp. 176, 278, 424) are of importance in this study.
ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
This reproduces only the sentences near the beginning in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson, showing his corrections. Later in the manuscript there are corrections, of no great extent, in the handwriting of John Adams and Benj. Franklin. The original paper is in the Patent Office at Washington, and is printed in Jefferson's Writings, i. 26; in Randall's Jefferson; in the Declaration of Independence (Boston, 1876, published by the city), where is also a reduced fac-simile of the engraved document as signed. Cf. Guizot's Washington, Atlas. Lossing (Field-Book, ii. 281) gives a fac-simile of a paragraph nearly all of which was omitted in the final draft, as was the paragraph respecting slavery (Jefferson's Memoir and Corresp., i. p. 16). A letter of Jefferson to R. H. Lee, July 8, 1776, accompanying the original draft, showing the changes made by Congress, is in Lee's Life of R. H. Lee, i. 275. For accounts of various early drafts, and for John Adams's instrumentality in correcting it, see C. F. Adams's John Adams, i. 233, ii. 515. Cf. also Parton's Jefferson, ch. 21; and his Franklin, ii. 126. John Adams contended that the essence of it was in earlier tracts of Otis and Sam. Adams (Works, ii. 514).
On the literary character of the document, see Greene's Historical View, p. 382; the lives of Jefferson by Tucker, Parton, Randall, John T. Morse, Jr. The similarity of the preamble of the Constitution of Virginia and certain parts of the Declaration have been taken to show that Jefferson plagiarized (New York Review, no. 1), but the testimony of a letter of George Wythe to Jefferson, July 27, 1776, seems to make it clear that Jefferson was the writer of that part of the Constitution, though Geo. Mason formed the body of it. Cf. also Wirt's Patrick Henry and Tucker's Jefferson.
The text of the Declaration as Jefferson originally wrote it will be found in Randall's Jefferson, p. 172; Niles's Weekly Register, July 3, 1813; Timothy Pickering's Review of the Cunningham Correspondence (1824), the Madison Papers. These copies do not always agree, since different drafts were followed. It is given, with changes indicated as made by Congress, in Jefferson's Works, i.; Russell's Life and Times of Fox; Lee's R. H. Lee. John Adams (Works, ii. 511) gives the reasons why Jefferson was put at the head of the committee for drafting the Declaration (Potter's American Monthly, vii. 191).
Trumbull's well-known picture of the committee presenting the Declaration in Congress was made known through A. B. Durand's engraving in 1820. The medals commemorating the event are described in Baker's Medallic Portraits of Washington, p. 32. The house in Philadelphia in which Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence is shown in Scharf and Westcott's Philadelphia (i. 320); Watson's Annals of Philadelphia (iii.); Brotherhead's Signers (1861, p. 110); Potter's American Monthly, vi. 341; Gay's Pop. Hist. U. S., iii. 483; Higginson's Larger Hist. U. S., 274. The desk on which he wrote it was for a long time in the possession of Mr. Joseph Coolidge of Boston, and at his death passed by his will to the custody of Congress. Randall's Jefferson, i. 177; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., iii. 151.