The Story of the Declaration of Independ- 

 ence Desk and How It Came to the 

 National Musenm 



By Margaret W. Brown 



Associate Curator, Division of Civil History 

 U. S. National Museum 



[With 5 plates] 



In the halls of the United States National Museum, surrounded by 

 such significant relics of American history as the sword of George 

 Washington, the original Star-Spangled Banner flag of Fort 

 McHenry, and the life mask of Abraham Lincoln, is another historical 

 relic— perhaps the most important of them all. It is the desk on which 

 Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. Because 

 it is the great charter of our freedom, the document itself, the man 

 who wrote it, and any object associated with its composition have 

 acquired a historical interest that has increased through the years. 



The story of this desk, of its claim to a place in history, and of how 

 it came to the National Museum is a fascinating sidelight on the history 

 of the Declaration of Independence and its author. 



Thomas Jefferson was identified with the aggressive, anti-British 

 element in the Virginia Assembly from the beginning of his public 

 service as a member of the House of Burgesses in 1769. He was a 

 member of the committee that drew up the resolution creating the 

 Virginia Committee of Con-espondence, and he served also as member 

 of that committee. In 1774 he was also a champion of the resolution 

 to make the day on which the Boston Port Act was to go into effect, 

 one of fasting and mourning. Jefferson was unable to attend the 

 Virginia Convention of 1774, but he sent a paper, later published as 

 "A Summary View of the Eights of British America," which outlined 

 his point of view of the coming struggle, presenting the right of the 

 Colonies as being derived from the laws of nature; it asserted that 

 such allegiance as the colonists showed to the King was a matter of 

 natural right of choice, and denied the British Government any parlia- 

 .mentary authority over the Colonies. The views embodied in the 



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