Chapter 1.0. Jefferson’s Draft: The Preamble and Conclusion, Introduction
This chapter provides Maier’s discussion of the Declaration’s four “framing” paragraphs (pp. 123-43). This first section consists of an introduction to the preamble (paragraphs A and B) (Maier, pp. 123-29.)
Jefferson’s Draft: A Revolutionary Manifesto
“Of the preamble [to the Declaration of Independence] I have taken little or no notice,” John Lind wrote in 1776. “The truth is, little or none does it deserve.” Hutchinson gave it scarcely more attention, devoting less than a paragraph to the Declaration’s opening paragraphs before moving on to “the facts which are alleged to be the evidence of injuries and usurpations.” [On Lind and Hutchinson, see above, Module 5, ch. 2.1 – 2.2.]
Most prominent modern studies have taken the opposite course, devoting little serious attention to the charges against the King, whose origins too often lay in the obscure quarrels of provincial politics, and focusing instead on the document’s preface, or on words or phrases within it. From there they jump to the more familiar and perhaps more congenial intellectual world of eighteenth century Europe.
The observation that Jefferson borrowed ideas from other writers was not original to the twentieth century. Richard Henry Lee, Jefferson recalled, said the Declaration had been “copied from Locke’s treatise on government,” and John Adams, in his 1822 letter to Timothy Pickering, asserted that there was “not an idea in it, but what had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before.” But then Jefferson had been appointed not as an author in the modern sense but as a draftsman to realize on paper a declaration outlined in general terms by the Committee of Five. Jefferson told Madison in 1823 that he “did not consider it part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether, and to offer no sentiment which had been expressed before.” Whether he had gathered his ideas from reading or reflection, he added, “I do not know. I know only that I turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it.” There his memory was probably accurate.
Jefferson did have in hand two texts that he used in drafting the Declaration of Independence, neither of which qualified as a book or a pamphlet. One, of course, was his draft constitution for Virginia, which was particularly important for the charges against the King, and the other, which fed into the document’s opening paragraphs, was a draft of Virginia’s Declaration of Rights as written by George Mason and modified by a committee of the Virginia Convention. The committee version of Virginia’s Declaration of Rights appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette on June 12, 1776, the day after the Committee of Five was appointed, and possibly the same day it first met. The document might have caught the approving eyes of committee members, who asked their draftsman to incorporate language like Mason’s into the Declaration of Independence; or perhaps Jefferson decided to do that on his own.
In any case, his use of those particular texts suggests that the Declaration of Independence should be understood first and foremost not as a philosophical but, in the language of the day, as a constitutional document, that is, one that concerned the fundamental authority of government. The Committee of Five had been asked to compose a declaration “to the effect of Richard Henry Lee’s first, resolution, “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown: and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
Both Jefferson’s draft preamble to the Virginia constitution and Mason’s draft Declaration of Rights were direct descendants of another constitutional document, the English Declaration of Rights, which was ratified as the English Bill of Rights of 1689. The lineage is obvious in Mason’s case, since the child bore its ancestor’s name, and a few other features as well. But Jefferson’s preamble corresponded to the first part of the English Declaration, which formally ended the reign of James II, while Mason’s Declaration fulfilled the second function of the English document in stating “which rights do pertain to us and our posterity, as the basis and foundation of government.”
Mason’s Declaration was far more radical than its parent, which set out simply to reaffirm “ancient rights and Liberties.” It began with three clauses that stated key political principles:
- That all men are born equal, free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
- That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from all people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.
- That government is, or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation or community. Of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best, which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.
The draft Virginia Declaration of Rights also included provisions denouncing hereditary office-holding, affirming separation of powers and the importance of “frequent recurrence to fundamental principles,” and asserting a series of more specific rights and principles. Some of those specific provisions, such as that calling for “the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion,” went far beyond anything in its English ancestor. And before ratifying the document, the Virginia Convention revised that provision so it asserted an even more radical right to “the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.”
Family resemblances, however, remained. The draft Virginia Declaration of Rights included eighteen provisions, which the Virginia Convention later cut to sixteen, only a few more than the thirteen in the English document. Moreover, the wording of several provisions resembled others in the English Declaration, and its assertion “That excessive bail ought not to be required; nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted,” which Mason added to the text during committee deliberations, was exactly the same except in spelling and punctuation. Mason also retained the English Declaration’s use of the verb forms “should” and “ought to,” as, for example, in the provision on bail.
There was, of course, nothing in the English Declaration of Rights like Mason’s opening clauses. Nonetheless, the ideas and even language resembling Mason’s most memorable phrases were familiar to colonial readers. For example, the fifty-ninth number of Cato’s Letters, a set of newspaper essays published in England in the early 1720s and widely reprinted in America, asserted that “All men are born free.”
But why did the Declaration of Independence need a preface? It could have begun like the English Declaration of Rights and Jefferson’s preamble to his draft Virginia constitution, with a simple “whereas” clause stating that George III had endeavored to establish a tyranny or that he had violated Americans fundamental rights and liberties, then gone on to present examples to substantiate that proposition, assert that by those acts he had forfeited authority over the Americans, and, finally, declare that the United Colonies were free and independence states. Many states followed that formula.
Instead Jefferson, whether under the direction of the Committee of Five or on his own inspiration, composed those first paragraphs that have attracted enduring attention and almost entirely explain descriptions of the Declaration of Independence as a document of “transcendent importance,” “the foundation of American political philosophy,” a statement of “immortal” principles, “the most sacred of all American political scriptures.”
He – or they – might have had in mind a previous “Declaration” issued by Congress on July 6, 1775. The “Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms” had begun with a preface drafted by John Dickinson that was, however, extraordinarily cumbersome. It opened with a long sentence that remains almost unreadable. In 1775 Jefferson also improved on Dickinson, but not by much. His draft “Declaration on Taking Up Arms” started with an assertion that,
The large strides of late taken by the legislature of Great Britain towards establishing over these colonies their absolute rule, and the hardiness of the present attempt to effect by force of arms what by law or right they could never effect, render it necessary for us also to change the ground of opposition, and to close with their last appeal from reason to arms. And as it behooves those, who are called to this great decision, to be assured that their cause is approved before supreme reason, so is it of great avail that it’s justice be made known to the world, whose affections will ever take part with those encountering oppression.
He had not yet mastered the genre, but was on the right track.