Far from his mountaintop Monticello, 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson sat in a hot and humid rented room at 700 Market Street 250 years ago this week. He was charged with the monumental responsibility of crafting thoughts capable of governing a nation.
The 2nd Continental Congress had actually appointed a “Committee of Five” to draft the Declaration of Independence, including Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.
Historians say Adams and Franklin knew Jefferson was an accomplished writer, so they mostly edited the drafts while Livingston and Sherman were there as observers from crucial states, New York and Connecticut, respectively.
Franklin, while old enough to be Jefferson’s dad, admired the mind of young Jefferson, the Virginian. Adams already knew Jefferson was the man to draft the document so while he pushed incessantly for independence inside the Continental Congress, he made sure Jefferson was appointed to draft the Declaration.
Franklin, at that point in history, was perhaps the most famous man in the world. Frankly, it made him wise enough to let Jefferson’s prose soar on its own, only making minor changes.
Franklin’s substantive contribution was a small change in a key line that has immeasurable impact. He replaced Jefferson’s original phrase “sacred and undeniable” with “self-evident” in the final draft.
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Though the entire draft is 1,320 words long, its overriding principal is set in these immortal words.
“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…they should declare the causes which impel them to separation.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” it proclaimed.
“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 or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.”
The resolution passed with approvals from 12 of the 13 colonies. New York abstained but eventually signed on. A total of 56 men eventually signed the document, though not all were in Philadelphia that day.
Revolutions are hard. Transforming them into republics is even harder. The brilliance in Jefferson’s words, however, are their bedrock nature and timeless value.
From the guiding principles of the Declaration came the debates over the next decade as our Constitution took shape. And on July 4, we will together celebrate a framework that has withstood war, protest, woman’s suffrage, racial segregation and today, a government that has never been so divided.
Yes, we are a divided nation, perhaps more than ever before in our history. Scattered outrage only makes it worse.
Yet, our framework holds. As disappointing as the torn fabric of our society may be, we can be reassured that the wisdom of the nation’s silent majority will continue to guide us back to the center like the framers designed it to do 250 years ago.
“Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech,” said Franklin. Even then, the great Franklin knew the blessing of this nation was the inherit wisdom and its power to default to the collective good.
Our American Revolution is alive today as much as it was in 1776. Our nation changes by the day and our government must change with it.
Government, then, as now, is not some finite set of rules; it is an ever-changing, living document of self-governance that only WE have the power to change.
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman,” wrote Thomas Paine, rallying the colonies in 1776.
Fast forward 250 years and little has changed. Though problems exist and technology has advanced, the American citizen still seeks the same as Jefferson. He sat, with pen in hand, in a tiny room in the humid conditions on Market Street in Philadelphia to make lives better.
In fact, Jefferson bought his first thermometer while writing the declaration and kept a detailed weather journal thereafter.
From Jefferson, we know it was 68 degrees on July 4, 1776 when these brave men first celebrated America’s independence. The Declaration was approved on July 2, but the Continental Congress did not receive it from the printer to be signed until July 4.
Adams argued for a July 2 holiday, but he was overridden. Adams and Jefferson, nonetheless, continued their correspondence and ironically, if providentially, both passed away on July 4, 1826.
While each of us have our own opinions about the state of America on its 250th Anniversary, that’s exactly the way it should be. The deep thoughts of brave and learned men in that small room on Market Street gave us a dynamic framework for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for generations to come.
If only we could collectively understand that, in a way, the debates that began in the humidity of Philadelphia in 1776, still rage today, as they should, and we, as citizens have every right and a responsibility to lend our voices towards the creation of an even better nation now and 250 years from today.