1S98.] HAYS — DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 101 



by Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee on July 8th following, and pre- 

 sented in 1825, by his grandson, of the same name, to the American 

 Philosophical Society, in whose library it is preserved. 



3. A copy from the rough draught of the Committee of five, made 

 in 1783 for James Madison and reproduced vs\ fac-sbnile in The 

 Madiso7i Papers, Vol. iii., Washington, 1840. Also in the Library 

 of the Department of State. 



4. Another copy from the rough draught of the Committee of five, 

 slightly difi"erent in wording, inserted by Jefferson in the manu- 

 script copy of his Autobiography. This is written on contempora- 

 neous paper and was a copy probably made by Jefferson not long 

 after the adoption of the Declaration. Also in the Library of the 

 Department of State. 



5. A copy in the Emmet collection in the Lenox Library, New 

 York. " This is one of several fair copies made by Jefferson from 

 the original rough draught of the Declaration, after its adoption and 

 publication, in which he gave the wording of the text as reported 

 by the Committee, with the portions underlined that were changed 

 or rejected by Congress. After remaining in the possession of the 

 Lee family of Virginia for many years, with other papers of Jeffer- 

 son, .... was sold by the late Mr. Cassius F. Lee, of Alexan- 

 dria, to Mr. Elliot Danforth, of New York, from whom Dr. Emmet 

 obtained it.'" 



1 have not been able to learn the circumstances under which this 

 copy came into the possession of the Lee family. Dr. Emmet 

 writes me that the only information he " can give is that Mr. Lee 

 stated to me that it was one of the copies Jefferson sent his grand- 

 father, and that it had been sent to some one in lower Virginia by 

 Richard Henry Lee shortly after, and that it was not recovered for 

 many years after. "^ 



This copy is without interlineation and does not contain the 

 additions made by the Congress. It is, with some slight excep- 

 tions, the text of the document as reported to the Congress. 



^Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 1897, P- 355- 



2 Personal communication, April 16, 1898. It does not seem likely that Jeffer- 

 son should have sent two similar autographic copies of the Declaration to Rich- 

 ard Henry Lee, and as the history of the copy possessed by this Society is clear 

 and indisputable, it is probable that the Emmet copy came from another source, 

 and Mr. Paul L. Ford, the learned student of Jefferson's works, informs me 

 that he is inclined to believe that it is the copy sent to John Page. 



