which time Jefferson was in Virginia. Jefferson reached Philadelphia June 20, 1775, but returned to Virginia July 31; again reached Philadelphia October 1, but returned to Virginia December 28, 1775; and was once more in Philadelphia from May 14 to September 2, 1776.1 The Declaration was written between June 11 and 28, 1776. Until the publication of "Common Sense" on January 9, 1776, Paine was an obscure person. From December 29, 1775, to May 13, 1776, both included, Jefferson and Paine obviously could not have met. They may have met between May 14 and June 28, but of this there is no proof.2 Franklin's Works, v. 370 note, and in Bigelow's Life of Franklin, 11 248 note). The Pennsylvania Ledger of May 6, 1775, announced that "Yesterday evening arrived here Captain Osborne, from London, in whom came passenger the worthy Dr. FRANKLIN, Agent for Massachusetts government and this Province" (p. 3/1). Paine's statement that he arrived "some months before" Franklin is not very definite. But the following notice, to which so far as I am aware attention is now called for the first time, was printed in the Pennsylvania Evening Post, April 30, 1776: То САТО. WHEREAS Cato, in his eighth letter, and some of his partizans since, have made free with the Forester as having neither "character nor connexion." To which I answer, first, "better to have none than bad ones." Secondly, that the person supposed by some, and known by others, to be the author of Common Sense and the Forester's letters, came a cabin passenger in Jeremiah Warder's ship, the London Packet, last Christmas twelvemonth, bringing with him two unsealed letters of introduction from Dr. Franklin to his friends here, in which he says, "I recommend the bearer hereof, Mr. —, as a worthy ingenious &c." I have published this at the request, and for the sake of those gentlemen whose acquaintance I am honored with and in my turn call on Cato and his confederates to set forth, as I have done, what rank and recommendation they or their originals made their first appearance in The FORESTER. "Last Christmas twelvemonth was the Christmas of 1774. Among the arrivals noted in the Pennsylvania Gazette of December 14, 1774, is that of the Ship London Packet, J. Cooke, Lewes, on Delaware" (p. 3/3); and a similar entry is printed in the Pennsylvania Journal of December 14, 1774 (p 3/3). “J. Cooke was of course the name of the captain of the ship, while presumably Jeremiah Warder was the name of the owner. If this was the ship that brought Paine and I suppose there can hardly be a doubt on this point it follows that he arrived at Philadelphia between December 7 and December 14, 1774. I do not know whether Dr. Smith replied to Paine's challenge. He might have done so in an effective way, for it was largely through the efforts of Franklin that Dr. Smith was appointed to the charge of the Philadelphia College, though later a bitter quarrel ensued between Franklin and Smith. This schedule, taken from P. L. Ford's edition of Jefferson's Writings, 1. xlii-xliii; 11. xxi-xxii, differs slightly from that in Hazelton's Declaration of Independence: its History, 450. 2 An attempt to ascertain exactly when Jefferson and Paine first met has been unsuccessful. Secondly, that "there can be little doubt that the antislavery clause struck out of the Declaration was written by Paine, or by some one who had Paine's anti-slavery essay before him." Conway does not indicate the source of either of the two extracts he quotes from Paine, though the reader might not unreasonably infer that one was taken from Paine's "Dialogue."1 Such, however, is not the case. The first extract comes from Paine's "African Slavery in America," first printed in the Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal of 1 Conway says that the Dialogue was "printed in pamphlet form about the time of the appointment by Congress of a Committee to draft a Declaration of Independence" (Paine's Writings, 1. 161 note). I have been unable to ascertain its exact date of publication, as it is apparently not advertised in such Philadelphia newspapers as I have been able to examine. The absurd lengths to which the so-called Baconians have gone make one suspicious of Conway's method of jumping at a conclusion as to the authorship of a piece merely because it contains a particular word or phrase; and the danger involved in the method can be well illustrated. The following passage is taken from Paine's Dialogue (p. 14 of the original edition of 1776, of which there is a copy in the library of this Society, and Conway's edition of Paine's Writings, 1. 166): Del. Will not a declaration of independence lessen the number of our friends, and increase the rage of our enemies in Britain? Gen. Mont. Your friends as (you call them) are too few -too divided - and too interested to help you. And as for your enemies, they have done their worst. They have called upon Russians - Hanoverians Hessians -- Canadians -Savages and Negroes to assist them in burning your towns- desolating your country and in butchering your wives and children. In a letter written to her husband on March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams said: I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation. On April 14 John Adams replied to this banter as follows: I begin to think the ministry as deep as they are wicked. After stirring up Tories, land-jobbers, trimmers, bigots, Canadians, Indians, negroes, Hanoverians, Hessians, Russians, Irish Roman Catholics. Scotch renegadoes, at last they have stimulated the to demand new privileges and threaten to rebel (Familiar Letters of John Adams and his Wife, 149, 150, 155). An article in advocacy of independence, printed in the Pennsylvania Evening Post of June 1, 1776, contained these words: Sooner than submit to the chance of these probable evils, we will have our towns burnt, our country desolated, and our fathers, brothers, and children butchered by English, Scotch and Irishmen; by Hanoverians, Hessians, Brunswickers, Walleckers, Canadians, Indians and Negroes. Are we to assume that three of these passages were written by the same person? March 8, 1775;1 the second extract is taken from "Common But a further remark is here pertinent. In his Summary View of the Rights of British America, written in July, 1774, and published at the time, Jefferson said: The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those [the American] colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa; yet our repeated attempts to affect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty's negative: Thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few African [altered in the author's copy to "British "] corsairs to the lasting interests of the American states, and to the rights of human nature deeply wounded by this infamous practice.*. Jefferson was never more happy than when denouncing slavery; and that the author of these words, written four or five months previous to Paine's arrival in America, must, before penning the anti-slavery clause struck out of the Declaration, have had before him an article not printed until March 8, 1775, is a proposition that will be accepted by few. Again, also, we observe the tendency noted above. For though at the beginning Conway says "there can be little doubt," acknowledging that there is some doubt, that the clause "was written by Paine, or by some one who had Paine's anti-slavery essay before him," yet he winds up by calmly assuming that Paine was the author. "Thus," he asserts, "did Paine try to lay at the corner the stone which the 1 Paine's Writings, 1. 5-7. 2 Paine's Writings, 1. 100. Hazelton, in his Declaration of Independence: its History, 450, has fallen into a slight error in saying that both extracts are from the "Essay on African Slavery in America." As stated in the text, the second extract is from Common Sense. Conway's repeated failure to give the sources of his quotations makes it difficult to run them down. 8 Declaration of Independence: its History, 450. 4 Jefferson's Writings, 1. 440. builders rejected.". It would not be easy to find a more glaring instance of begging the question. Let us now turn to other sources of information. On June 7, 1776, it was, on a motion of the Virginia delegates, "Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States." On June 11 a committee to draft the Declaration was chosen consisting of Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston; and on June 28 the draft was read. In a letter to Samuel A. Wells, dated May 12, 1819, Jefferson stated that he had, "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."2 Still later, a controversy arose between Adams and Jefferson in regard to some of the details, and on August 30, 1823, Jefferson thus wrote Madison: 8 The committee of five met; no such thing as a sub-committee was proposed, but they unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee, I communicated it separately to Dr. 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 Dr. 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 sub-committee. Pickering's observations, and Mr. Adams' in addition, "that it contained no new ideas, that it is a commonplace compilation, its sentiments hacknied in Congress for two years before, and its essence contained in Otis' pamphlet," may all be true. Of that I am not to be the judge. Richard Henry Lee charged it as copied from Locke's treatise on government. Otis' pamphlet I never saw, and whether I had gathered my ideas from reading or reflection I do not know. I know only that I turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it. I 1 Journals of the Continental Congress (ed. W. C. Ford), v. 425, 431, 491. 2 Jefferson's Writings, x. 130. 3 This has been reproduced several times in facsimile. Neither Adams nor Franklin made any change in the anti-slavery clause. did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether, and to offer no sentiment which had ever been expressed before.1 Here we have Jefferson's deliberate claim to the sole authorship of the Declaration and his assertion that he "turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it." It will perhaps be said that a statement written forty-seven years after the event cannot be accepted as final. Let us, then, turn to the "written notes, [taken] in my seat, of what was passing." Even if those notes were not, as Jefferson thrice stated they were, taken at the time, the following passage is yet of interest: The committee for drawing the declaration 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. . . . Congress proceeded the same day [July 1] to consider the declaration of Independance which had been reported & lain on the table of Friday preceding, and on Monday 1 Jefferson's Writings, x. 267-268. 2 First, in his letter to Wells of May 12, 1819, as quoted in the text. Secondly, in his letter to Madison of August 30, 1823, where he wrote: "I should then say, that in some of the particulars, Mr. Adams' 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 difference 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." Thirdly, on a slip of paper pasted on the sheet of "written notes," Jefferson, writing certainly after May 12, 1819, said: "I took my notes in my place while these things were going on, and at their close wrote them out in form and with correctness and from 1 to 7 of the two preceding sheets are the originals then written; as the two following are of the earlier debates on the Confederation, which I took in like manner (Writings, 1. 38 note). These "written notes" come to an end on August 1, 1776. Did Jefferson's own memory play him false in regard to those notes? The question appar ently cannot be answered with certainty, Mr. Paul L. Ford remarking: Here end the notes which Jefferson states were taken "while these things were going on, and at their close" were" written out in form and with correctness." Much of their value depends on the date of their writing, but there is nothing to show this, except negative evidence. The sheets were all written at the same time, which makes the writing after Aug. 1, 1776; while the misstatements as to the signing, and as to Dickinson's presence, would seem almost impossible unless greater time even than this had elapsed between the occurrence and the notes. The MS. is, moreover, considerably corrected and interlined, which would hardly be the case if merely a transcript of rough notes (Jefferson's Writings, 1. 47 note). Jefferson at a late date prepared a copy of these notes for Madison, and this copy is in the Madison Papers, in the Library of Congress. |