1898.1 HAYS — DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 93 



to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to re- 

 strain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still 

 wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also, 1 believe, felt 

 a little tender under these censures, for though their people had 

 very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable 

 carriers of them to others." 



In the afternoon of the fourth the debate was closed and the 

 Declaration as agreed to in the Committee of the Whole was re- 

 ported by Mr. Harrison as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole 

 and was adopted by the House. ^ 



With the view of ascertaining more definitely the historic rela- 

 tion of the copy in the possession of this Society to the original 

 draught, Mr. John Vaughan, the Librarian of the Society, upon the 

 receipt of the document from Mr. Lee, wrote to Mr. Jefferson, ask- 

 ing him concerning this point, and received the following reply :^ 



*'To John Vaughan, Esq. 



" MoNTiCELLO, September i6, 1825. 



'■^ Dear Sir : — I am not able to give you any particular account of 

 the paper handed you by Mr. Lee, as being either the original or a 

 •copy of the Declaration of Independence, sent by myself to his 

 grandfather. The draught, when completed by myself, with a few 

 verbal amendments by Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, two members 

 of the Committee, in their own handwriting, is now in my own 

 possession, and a fair copy of this was reported to the Committee, 

 passed by them without amendment, and then reported to Congress. 

 This latter should be among the records of the old Congress ; and 

 whether this or the one from which it was copied and now in my 

 hands, is to be called the original is a question of definition. To 

 that in my hands, if worth preserving, my relations with our L^ni- 

 versity gives irresistible claims. 



"Whenever in the course of the composition, a copy became 

 overcharged, and difficult to be read with amendments, I copied it 

 fair, and when that also was crowded with other amendments, 

 another fair copy was made, etc. These rough draughts I sent to 



^ For a full review of the circumstances leading up to the Declaration and its 

 adoption and signing, see Frothingham's Rise of the Republic of the United 

 States, Boston, 1872. 



2 The IVritir7gs of Thomas Jefferson ^ edited by H. A. Washington, Vol. vii, 

 New York, 1854, pp. 409, 410. 



