92 HAYS — DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF IXDEPENDEXCE. [Ap. 1, 



a declaration of independence. Lee's absence, which was of 

 necessity to be of uncertain duration, precluded his being selected 

 to serve on this Committee, in accordance with parliamentary prac- 

 tice, and as the resolution was offered under instructions from the 

 Virginia colony, another of its representatives, Thomas Jefferson, 

 was selected to head the Committee, with, as the other members, 

 John Adams, the seconder of the resolution in the Congress, Frank- 

 lin, Sherman and R. R. Livingston, the last representing those 

 who thought that the time had not yet arrived for such an extreme 

 measure/ 



The Committee unanimously requested Jefferson to prepare the 

 draught, but before reporting it to the Committee he communicated 

 it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, because he says" " they 

 were the two members whose judgments and amendments I wished 

 most to have the benefit before presenting it to the Committee. 

 .... Their alterations were two or three only, and mostly verbal. 

 I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the Committee, and from 

 them unaltered, to Congress." 



Jefferson reported the draught to the Congress on Friday, June 

 28, when it was read and ordered to lie on the table. On July i, 

 the Congress resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole and 

 resumed the consideration of the original motion of Lee "respect- 

 ing independency," which, after being debated through the day, 

 was carried and was reported to the House and further considera- 

 tion postponed to July 2, when it was adopted. The Congress, 

 sitting in Committee of the Whole, then proceeded to the con- 

 sideration of the Declaration reported by Jefferson, which had 

 been referred to it on July i, and examined, debated and amended 

 it during the 2d, 3d and 4th of July. 



Jefferson, in his Autobiography, says :' " 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 offense. The clause, too, reprobating the 

 enslaving the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in complaisance 



^ See E. Rutledge to John Jay, June 8, 1776, Jeffersoii's Autobiography, 

 Ford's ye O'er son. Vol. i, p. 19. 



2 Jefferson to J. Madison, August 30, 1823, Ford's Jefferson, \, p. 26. On this 

 point see also Autobiography of John Adams, quoted by Ford, ibid, \, 24. 



•^ Randolph's Jefferson, Vol. i, p. 15. 



