Thomas Jefferson Memoirs--Declaration of Independence

     In 1821, at age 77, Thomas Jefferson wrote his memoirs. He detailed the events leading up to the resolution by Congress on July 2, 1776 and the ensuing arguments, adoption and signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Delegations from twelve colonies signed the document on that day. New York was the only holdout for procedural reasons. Receiving updated instructions, the New York delegation finally signed on July 9, 1776.
     Jefferson's words are in italics below:

     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 clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our northern brethen also, I believe, felt a little tender under those censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.
     The debates having taken up the greater parts of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th days of July, were, on 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. Dickerson. 
     As the sentiments of men are known, not only by what they receive, but what they reject also, I will state the form of the Declaration as originally reported. The parts struck out by Congress shall be distinguisehed by a black line drawn under them; and those inserted by them shall be placed in the margin, or in a concurrent column.

     Jefferson then reproduces the original document with edit notations. He concludes:

     The declaration, thus signed on the 4th, on paper, was engrossed on parchment, and signed again on the 2nd of August....
     Some erroneous statements of the proceedings on the Declaration of Independence having got before the public in latter times, Mr. Samuel A. Wells asked explanations of me, which are given in my letter to him of May 12, 1819....

     Jefferson, himself an owner of slaves, was trapped in hypocrisy by his own economic circumstances--ownership of slaves and real property through marriage--and Virginia's laws against manumission.

     Read Jefferson's letter to Mr. Sam A. Wells:  http://www.familytales.org/dbDisplay.php?id=ltr_thj1337
     Read Jefferson's original rough draft of the Declaration of Independence:  http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/declaration/declaration.pdf
     Visit State Capitol 4th of July Exhibit: http://www.hallofgovernors.ny.gov/foj/fourthofjulyexhibit