In January 1776 Thomas Jefferson was working on a long
historical work researching whether the British Ministry’s claim
that they had financed the founding of the American colonies.
He studied the early voyages of Humphrey Gilbert and
Walter Raleigh and the writing of Hakluyt.
Jefferson wrote,
Vice is a foul blemish, not pardonable in any character.
A king who can adapt falsehood and solemnize it
from the throne, justifies the revolution of fortune
which reduces him to a private station.1
On February 4 Jefferson received a copy of Common Sense by Thomas Paine.
When Jefferson learned that the British had shelled and burned the port of Norfolk,
he noted that Paine in Common Sense had written this
to awaken people to the need for revolution:
Stand forth!
Every spot of the world is overrun with oppression.
Freedom has been hunted round the globe.
Asia and Africa have long expelled her.
Europe regards her like a stranger …
and England has given her warning to depart.
O! receive the fugitive and prepare
in time an asylum for mankind.2
Jefferson also agreed with Paine on this:
The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth.
’Tis not the affair of a city, a county, a province,
or a kingdom; but of a continent—of at least
one-eighth part of the habitable globe.
’Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age;
posterity are virtually involved in the contest,
and will be more or less affected, even to
the end of time, by the proceedings now.3
On March 31 Jefferson’s mother died of a stroke.
On 6 April 1776 John Page wrote this to his childhood friend Thomas Jefferson,
I wish you would use your Interest
in behalf of Dr. McClurg.
He offers his Service as Physician to
the Continental Forces in Virginia.
Such a Person is much wanted.
Col. Grayson who behaved admirably well at Hampton and
who has taken great Pains to improve himself in the Military
Science intends to offer his Service to the Congress.
He is highly deserving of Encouragement.
Do introduce him and recommend him to your Friends.
He will make a Figure at the Head of a Regiment.
He displayed Spirit and Conduct at Hampton.
For God’s sake declare the Colonies
independent at once, & save us from ruin.4
On May 14 Thomas Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia.
The Virginia convention on May 15 proposed that Congress declare
its independence of Great Britain, and all 112 delegates voted for that.
On that day the Congress completed their debate on a resolution by
John Adams that the colonies should establish their own governments.
The next day Jefferson wrote to Thomas Nelson that he had found that
in the upper counties of Virginia nine out of ten favored independence,
and on May 27 Virginia’s delegates proposed that Congress in
Philadelphia declare the united colonies free and independent.
On June 12 the Congress appointed a committee with one member
from each colony to organize a confederation.
John Dickinson of Pennsylvania was designated the chairman,
and his draft became the basis for debate starting July 12.
Jefferson also in June proposed this draft of a Constitution for Virginia:
A Bill for new-modelling the form of Government and for
establishing the Fundamental principles thereof in future.
Whereas George Guelf king of Great Britain and Ireland
and Elector of Hanover, heretofore entrusted with the
exercise of the kingly office in this government has
endeavored to pervert the same into a detestable
and insupportable tyranny;
by putting his negative on laws the most
wholesome & necessary for ye public good;
by denying to his governors permission to pass laws
of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended
in their operations for his assent, and, when so suspended,
neglecting to attend to them for many years;
by refusing to pass certain other laws, unless the
person to be benefited by them would relinquish the
inestimable right of representation in the legislature
by dissolving legislative assemblies repeatedly and
continually for opposing with manly firmness
his invasions on the rights of the people;
when dissolved, by refusing to call others for
a long space of time, thereby leaving the
political system without any legislative head;
by endeavoring to prevent the population of our
country, & for that purpose obstructing the laws
for the naturalization of foreigners & raising
the condition lacking appropriations of lands;
by keeping among us, in times of peace,
standing armies and ships of war;
lacking to render the military independent
of & superior to the civil power;
by combining with others to subject us
to a foreign jurisdiction, giving his assent
to their pretended acts of legislation.
for quartering large bodies of troops among us;
for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
for imposing taxes on us without our consent;
for depriving us of the benefits of trial by jury;
for transporting us beyond seas to be tried
for pretended offences; and
for suspending our own legislatures &
declaring themselves invested with power
to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever;
by plundering our seas, ravaging our coasts, burning
our towns and destroying the lives of our people;
by inciting insurrections of our fellow subjects
with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation;
by prompting our negroes to rise in arms among us;
those very negroes whom he has from time to time
by an inhuman use of his negative he hath refused
permission to exclude by law;
by endeavoring to bring on the inhabitants of our
frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known
rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction
of all ages, sexes, & conditions of existence;
by transporting at this time a large army of foreign
mercenaries to complete the works of death,
desolation & tyranny already begun with
circumstances of cruelty & perfidy so
unworthy the head of a civilized nation;
by answering our repeated petitions for
redress with a repetition of injuries;
and finally by abandoning the helm of government
and declaring us out of his allegiance & protection;
by which several acts of misrule the said George Guelf
has forfeited the kingly office and has rendered it
necessary for the preservation of the people that
he should be immediately deposed from the same, and
divested of all its privileges, powers, & prerogatives:
And forasmuch as the public liberty may be more certainly
secured by abolishing an office which all experience has
shown to be inveterately inimical thereto and it will
thereupon become further necessary to re-establish
such ancient principles as are friendly to the rights
of the people and to declare certain others which
may co-operate with and fortify the same in future.
Be it therefore enacted by the authority of the people
that the said, George Guelf be, and he hereby is deposed
from the kingly office within this government and absolutely
divested of all its rights, powers, and prerogatives: and that
he and his descendants and all persons acting by or through
him, and all other persons whatsoever shall be and forever
remain incapable of the same: and that the said office
shall henceforth cease and never more either in name
or substance be re-established within this colony.
And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid
that the following fundamental laws and principles
of government shall henceforth be established.
The Legislative, Executive and Judiciary offices shall be kept
forever separate; no person exercising the one shall be
capable of appointment to the others, or to either of them.
- LEGISLATIVE
Legislation shall be exercised by two separate houses,
to wit a house of Representatives, and a house of Senators,
which shall be called the General Assembly of Virginia.
The House of Representatives shall be composed of
persons chosen by the people annually on the 1st day of
October and shall meet in General assembly on the 1st day
of November following and so from time to time on their
own adjournments, or at any time when summoned
by the Administrator and shall continue sitting so long
as they shall think the public service requires.
Vacancies in the said house by death or disqualification
shall be filled by the electors under a warrant from
the Speaker of the said house.
All male persons of full age and sane mind having a
freehold estate in one fourth of an acre of land in any
town, or in 25 acres of land in the country, and all elected
persons resident in the colony who shall have paid scot and
lot to government the last two years shall have right to give
their vote in the election of their respective representatives.
And every person so qualified to elect shall be capable
of being elected, provided he shall have given no bribe
either directly or indirectly to any elector, and shall take
an oath of fidelity to the state and of duty in his office,
before he enters on the exercise thereof.
During his continuance in the said office he
shall hold no public pension nor post of profit,
either himself, or by another for his use.
The number of Representatives for each county or
borough shall be so proportioned to the numbers of its
qualified electors that the whole number of representatives
shall not exceed 300 nor be less than 125 for the
present there shall be one representative for every
qualified electors in each county or borough:
but whenever this or any future proportion shall be
likely to exceed or fall short of the limits beforementioned,
it shall be again adjusted by the house of representatives.
The house of Representatives when met shall be free
to act according to their own judgment and conscience.
The Senate shall consist of not less than
15 nor more than 50 members who shall be
appointed by the house of Representatives.
One third of them shall be removed out of office
by lot at the end of the first three years and their
places be supplied by a new appointment;
one other third shall be removed by lot in like
manner at the end of the second three years
and their places be supplied by a new appointment;
after which one third shall be removed annually
at the end of every three years according to seniority.
When once removed, they shall be forever
incapable of being re-appointed to that house.
Their qualifications shall be an oath of fidelity to the state,
and of duty in their office, the being 31 years
of age at the least, and the having given no bribe
directly or indirectly to obtain their appointment.
While in the senatorial office they shall be incapable
of holding any public pension or post of profit
either themselves, or by others for their use.
The judges of the General court and of the High court
of Chancery shall have session and deliberative voice,
but not suffrage in the house of Senators.
The Senate and the House of Representatives shall
each of them have power to originate and amend bills;
save only that bills for levying money bills shall be
originated and amended by the representatives only:
the assent of both houses shall be requisite to pass a law.
The General Assembly shall have no power to pass any law
inflicting death for any crime, excepting murder, & those
offences in the military service for which they shall think
punishment by death absolutely necessary: and all capital
punishments in other cases are hereby abolished.
Nor shall they have power to prescribe torture in any
case whatever: nor shall there be power anywhere
to pardon crimes or to remit fines or punishments:
nor shall any law for levying money be in force longer
than ten years from the time of its commencement.
Two thirds of the members of either house
shall be a Quorum to proceed to business.II. EXECUTIVE.
The executive powers shall be
exercised in manner following.Administrator
One person to be called the Administrator shall be
annually appointed by the house of Representatives on the
second day of their first session, who after having acted one
year shall be incapable of being again appointed to that
office until he shall have been out of the same three years.Deputy Administrator
Under him shall be appointed by the same house and at
the same time, a Deputy-Administrator to assist his principal
in the discharge of his office, and to succeed in case of
his death before the year shall have expired, to the
whole powers thereof during the residue of the year.
The administrator shall possess the power formerly
held by the king: save only that, he shall be bound
by acts of legislature though not expressly named;
he shall have no negative on the bills of the Legislature;
he shall be liable to action, though not to personal
restraint for private duties or wrongs;
he shall not possess the prerogatives of dissolving,
proroguing or adjourning either house of Assembly;
of declaring war or concluding peace;
of issuing letters of marque or reprisal;
of raising or introducing armed forces,
building armed vessels, forts or strongholds;
of coining monies or regulating their values;
of regulating weights and measures;
of erecting courts, offices, boroughs, corporations,
fairs, markets, ports, beacons, lighthouses, seamarks;
of laying embargoes, or prohibiting the exportation
of any commodity for a longer space than 40 days;
of retaining or recalling a member of the state
but by legal process pro delicto vel contractu;
of making denizens;
of creating dignities or granting rights of precedence.
But these powers shall be exercised by the legislature
alone, and excepting also those powers which by these
fundamentals are given to others or abolished.
A Privy council shall be annually appointed by the
House of Representatives whose duties it shall be to
give advice to the Administrator when called on by him.
With them the Deputy Administrator
shall have session and suffrage.
Delegates to represent this colony in the
American Congress shall be appointed when
necessary by the House of Representatives.
After serving one year in that office they
shall not be capable of being re-appointed
to the same during an interval of one year.
A Treasurer shall be appointed by the
House of Representatives who shall issue
no money but by authority of both houses.
An Attorney General shall be appointed
by the House of Representatives
High Sheriffs and Coroners of counties shall be annually
elected by those qualified to vote for representatives:
and no person who shall have served as high
sheriff one year shall be capable of being
re-elected to the said office in the same county
till he shall have been out of office five years.
All other Officers civil and military shall be appointed by
the Administrator; but such appointment shall be subject
to the negative of the Privy Council, saving however
to the Legislature a power of transferring to any other
persons the appointment of such officers or any of them.III. JUDICIARY
The Judiciary powers shall be exercised
First, by County courts and other inferior jurisdictions:
Secondly, by a General court & a High court of Chancery:
Thirdly, by a Court of Appeals.County Courts, &c.
The judges of the county courts and other inferior
jurisdictions shall be appointed by the Administrator,
subject to the negative of the privy council.
They shall not be fewer than five in number.
Their jurisdictions shall be defined from time to time
by the legislature: and they shall be removable
for misbehavior by the court of Appeals,
General Court and High Court of Chancery.
The Judges of the General court and of the
High court of Chancery shall be appointed
by the Administrator and Privy council.
If kept united they shall be 5 in number,
if separate, there shall be 5 for the General court
& 3 for the High court of Chancery.
The appointment shall be made from the faculty of the law,
and of such persons of that faculty as shall have actually
exercised the same at the bar of some court or
courts of record within this colony for seven years.
They shall hold their commissions during
good behavior, for breach of which they
shall be removable by the court of Appeals.
Their jurisdiction shall be defined
from time to time by the Legislature.Court of Appeals
The Court of Appeals shall consist of not less
than 7 nor more than 11 members, to be appointed
by the house of Representatives: they shall hold
their offices during good behavior, for breach of which
they shall be removable by an act of the legislature only.
Their jurisdiction shall be to determine finally all causes
removed before them from the General Court or
High Court of Chancery, or of the county courts or other
inferior jurisdictions for misbehavior: to try impeachments
against high offenders lodged before them by the house
of Representatives for such crimes as shall hereafter
be precisely defined by the Legislature, and for the
punishment of which, the said legislature shall have
previously prescribed certain and determinate pains.
In this court the judges of the General court
and High court of Chancery shall have session
and deliberative voice, but no suffrage.Juries
All facts in causes whether of Chancery, Common,
Ecclesiastical, or Marine law, shall be tried by a jury
upon evidence given viva voce, in open court:
but where witnesses are out of the colony
or unable to attend through sickness or
other invincible necessity, their deposition
may be submitted to the credit of the jury.Fines, &c.
All Fines or Amercements shall be assessed,
& Terms of imprisonment for Contempts &
Misdemeanors shall be fixed by the verdict of a Jury.Process
All Process Original & Judicial shall run in
the name of the court from which it issues.Quorum
Two thirds of the members of the General court,
High court of Chancery, or Court of Appeals
shall be a Quorum to proceed to business.IV. RIGHTS, PRIVATE AND PUBLIC
Lands
Unappropriated or Forfeited lands shall be appropriated
by the Administrator with the consent of the Privy Council.
Every person of full age, neither owning nor having owned
50 acres of land, shall be entitled to an appropriation
of 50 acres or to so much as shall make up what he
owns or has owned 50 acres in full and absolute dominion.
And no other person shall be
capable of taking an appropriation.
Lands heretofore held of the crown in fee simple,
and those hereafter to be appropriated shall be held
in full and absolute dominion, of no superior whatever.
No lands shall be appropriated until purchased
of the Indian native proprietors; nor shall any
purchases be made of them but on behalf of
the public, by authority of acts of the General
Assembly to be passed for every purchase specially.
The territories contained within the charters erecting
the colonies of Maryland, Pennsylvania, North and
South Carolina, are hereby ceded, released, & forever
confirmed to the people of those colonies respectively,
with all the rights of property, jurisdiction and government
and all other rights whatsoever which might at
any time heretofore have been claimed by this colony.
The Western and Northern extent of this country shall in all
other respects stand as fixed by the charter of until by act
of the Legislature one or more territories shall be laid off
Westward of the Allegheny mountains for new colonies,
which colonies shall be established on the same
fundamental laws contained in this instrument, and shall
be free and independent of this colony and of all the world.
Descents shall go according to the laws Gavelkind,
save only that females shall have equal rights with males.Slaves
No person hereafter coming into this county shall be held
within the same in slavery under any pretext whatever.Naturalization
All persons who by their own oath or affirmation, or by
other testimony shall give satisfactory proof to any court of
record in this colony that they propose to reside in the same
7 years at the least and who shall subscribe the
fundamental laws, shall be considered as residents
and entitled to all the rights of persons natural born.Religion
All persons shall have full and free liberty
of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled
to frequent or maintain any religious institution.Arms
No freeman shall be debarred the
use of arms within his own lands.Standing Armies
There shall be no standing army but in time of actual war.Free Press
Printing presses shall be free,
except so far as by commission of private
injury cause may be given of private action.Forfeitures
All Forfeitures heretofore going to the king,
shall go to the state; save only such as the
legislature may hereafter abolish.Wrecks
The royal claim to Wrecks, waifs, strays, treasure-trove,
royal mines, royal fish, royal birds, are declared
to have been usurpations on common right.Salaries
No Salaries or Perquisites shall be given to any
officer but by some future act of the legislature.
No salaries shall be given to the Administrator, members
of the legislative houses, judges of the court of Appeals,
judges of the County courts, or other inferior jurisdictions,
Privy counsellors, or Delegates to the American Congress:
but the reasonable expenses of the Administrator,
members of the house of representatives, judges of the
court of Appeals, Privy counsellors, & Delegates for
subsistence while acting in the duties of their office, may
be borne by the public, if the legislature shall so direct.Qualifications
No person shall be capable of acting in any office
Civil, Military or Ecclesiastical who shall have
given any bribe to obtain such office, or who shall
not previously take an oath of fidelity to the state.
None of these fundamental laws and principles
of government shall be repealed or altered, but by
the personal consent of the people on summons to
meet in their respective counties on one and the same day
by an act of Legislature to be passed for every special
occasion: and if in such county meetings the people
of two thirds of the counties shall give their suffrage
for any particular alteration or repeal referred to them
by the said act, the same shall be accordingly repealed
or altered, and such repeal or alteration shall take its place
among these fundamentals and stand on the same footing
with them, in lieu of the article repealed or altered.
The laws heretofore in force in this colony shall remain
in force, except so far as they are altered by the
foregoing fundamental laws, or so far as they may
be hereafter altered by acts of the Legislature.5
George Mason drafted this Declaration of Rights that
the Virginia legislature adopted on June 12:
I That all men are by nature equally free and
independent, and have certain inherent rights,
of which, when they enter into a state of society,
they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their
posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty,
with the means of acquiring and possessing property,
and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
II That all power is vested in, and consequently
derived from, the people; that magistrates are their
trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.
III 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
has 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.
IV That no man, or set of men, are entitled to exclusive
or separate emoluments or privileges from the community,
but in consideration of public services; which, not being
descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate,
legislator, or judge be hereditary.
V That the legislative and executive powers of the
state should be separate and distinct from the judicative;
and that the members of the two first may be restrained
from oppression by feeling and participating the burthens
of the people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced
to a private station, return into that body from which
they were originally taken, and the vacancies be
supplied by frequent, certain, and regular elections
in which all, or any part of the former members,
to be again eligible, or ineligible, as the laws shall direct.
VI That elections of members to serve as representatives
of the people in assembly ought to be free;
and that all men, having sufficient evidence of
permanent common interest with, and attachment to,
the community have the right of suffrage and cannot
be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses
without their own consent or that of their representatives
so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not,
in like manner, assented, for the public good.
VII That all power of suspending laws, or the execution
of laws, by any authority without consent of the
representatives of the people is injurious
to their rights and ought not to be exercised.
VIII That in all capital or criminal prosecutions
a man has a right to demand the cause and nature
of his accusation to be confronted with the accusers
and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favor, and to
a speedy trial by an impartial jury of his vicinage,
without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found
guilty, nor can he be compelled to give evidence against
himself; that no man be deprived of his liberty except
by the law of the land or the judgement of his peers.
IX That excessive bail ought not to be required,
nor excessive fines imposed;
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
X That general warrants, whereby any officer or
messenger may be commanded to search suspected
places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize
any person or persons not named, or whose offense is
not particularly described and supported by evidence,
are grievous and oppressive and ought not to be granted.
XI That in controversies respecting property and
in suits between man and man, the ancient trial by jury
is preferable to any other and ought to be held sacred.
XII That the freedom of the press is one
of the greatest bulwarks of liberty and can
never be restrained but by despotic governments.
XIII That a well regulated militia, composed of the body
of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural,
and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies,
in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty;
and that in all cases the military should be under strict
subordination to, and be governed by the civil power.
XIV That the people have a right to uniform government;
and therefore, that no government separate from,
or independent of, the government of Virginia, ought
to be erected or established within the limits thereof.
XV That no free government or the blessings of liberty
can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence
to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue
and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
XVI That religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator
and the manner of discharging it can be directed by
reason and conviction, not by force or violence;
and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free
exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience;
and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian
forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.6
Mason also drafted a constitution for Virginia, and the
Virginia Convention unanimously approved that constitution
on June 29 with this preamble that was written by Jefferson:
Whereas George the Third, King of Great Britain and
Ireland and Elector of Hanover heretofore entrusted with
the exercise of the Kingly Office in this Government,
has endeavored to pervert the same into a detestable and
insupportable Tyranny; by putting his negative on laws
the most wholesome and necessary for the public good;
by denying his Governors permission to pass Laws of
immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended
in their operation for his assent, and when so suspended,
neglecting to attend to them for many Years;
by refusing to pass certain other laws unless the persons
to be benefited by them would relinquish the inestimable
right of representation in the legislature;
by dissolving legislative assemblies repeatedly
and continually, for opposing with manly firmness
his invasions of the rights of the people;
when dissolved, by refusing to call others
for a long space of time, thereby leaving the
political system without any legislative head;
by endeavoring to prevent the population
of our Country, and for that purpose obstructing
the laws for the naturalization of foreigners;
by keeping among us, in times of peace,
standing Armies and Ships of War;
by affecting to render the Military independent of
and superior to the civil power;
by combining with others to subject us
to a foreign Jurisdiction, giving his assent
to their pretended Acts of Legislation;
for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
for cutting off our Trade with all parts of the World;
for imposing Taxes on us without our Consent;
for depriving us of the Benefits of Trial by Jury;
for transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for
pretended Offences; for suspending our own Legislatures,
and declaring themselves invested with power
to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever;
by plundering our Seas, ravaging our Coasts, burning
our Towns and destroying the lives of our People;
by inciting insurrections of our fellow Subjects,
with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation;
by prompting our Negroes to rise in Arms among us,
those very negroes whom by an inhuman use of his
negative, he has refused us permission to exclude by Law;
by endeavoring to bring on the inhabitants of our Frontiers
the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule
of Warfare is an undistinguished Destruction
of all Ages, Sexes, and Conditions of Existence;
by transporting at this time a large Army of foreign
Mercenaries to complete the Works of Death,
desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy unworthy
the head of a civilized Nation;
by answering our repeated Petitions for
Redress with a Repetition of Injuries;
and finally by abandoning the Helm of Government,
and declaring us out of his Allegiance and Protection;
by which several Acts of Misrule, the Government
of this Country, as formerly exercised under the
Crown of Great Britain, is totally dissolved.
We therefore, the Delegates and Representatives
of the good People of Virginia, having maturely
considered the Premises, and viewing with great
concern the deplorable condition to which this once
happy Country must be reduced, unless some regular
adequate Mode of civil Polity is speedily adopted,
and in Compliance with a Recommendation of the General
Congress, do ordain and declare the future
Form of Government of Virginia to be as follows:7
On June 11 the Continental Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson,
John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston
to be on the committee to write a declaration of rights.
They chose Jefferson to write a draft, and then
they discussed it and made a few alterations.
On January 28 Congress began debating and amending it,
and on July 2 they approved the Declaration of Independence.
On 7 June 1776 Richard Henry Lee had proposed in the
Second Continental Congress the first resolution for independence:
The delegates from Virginia moved in obedience
to instructions from their constituents
that the Congress should declare
Resolved, 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.
That it is expedient forthwith to take the most
effectual measures for forming foreign alliances.
That a plan of confederation be prepared and
transmitted to the respective Colonies for
their consideration and approbation.8
In his Autobiography Jefferson wrote about the process that
brought about the famous Declaration of Independence:
In Congress, Friday June 7, 1776 the delegates from
Virginia moved in obedience to instructions from their
constituents that the Congress should declare that
these United colonies are & of right ought to be
free & independent states, that they are absolved
from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all
political connection between them & the state of
Great Britain is & ought to be, totally dissolved;
that measures should be immediately taken for procuring
the assistance of foreign powers, and a Confederation
be formed to bind the colonies more closely together.
The house being obliged to attend at that time to some
other business, the proposition was referred
to the next day, when the members were
ordered to attend punctually at ten o’clock.
Saturday June 8.
They proceeded to take it into consideration and
referred it to a committee of the whole, into which
they immediately resolved themselves, and passed
that day & Monday the 10th in debating on the subject.
It was argued by Wilson, Robert R. Livingston,
E. Rutledge, Dickinson and others.
That though they were friends to the measures
themselves, and saw the impossibility that we should
ever again be united with Great Britain,
yet they were against adopting them at this time:
That the conduct we had formerly observed was wise
& proper now, of deferring to take any capital step
till the voice of the people drove us into it:
That they were our power, & without them
our declarations could not be carried into effect;
That the people of the middle colonies
(Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, the Jerseys & New York)
were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to British connection,
but that they were fast ripening & in a short time
would join in the general voice of America:
That the resolution entered into by this house
on the 15th of May for suppressing the exercise of
all powers derived from the crown, had shown,
by the ferment into which it had thrown these
middle colonies, that they had not yet accommodated
their minds to a separation from the mother country:
That some of them had expressly forbidden their
delegates to consent to such a declaration,
and others had given no instructions,
& consequently no powers to give such consent:
That if the delegates of any particular colony had
no power to declare such colony independent,
certain they were the others could not declare it for them;
the colonies being as yet
perfectly independent of each other:
That the assembly of Pennsylvania was now sitting
above stairs, their convention would sit within a few days,
the convention of New York was now sitting, & those
of the Jerseys & Delaware counties would meet on the
Monday following, & it was probable these bodies would
take up the question of Independence & would
declare to their delegates the voice of their state:
That if such a declaration should now be agreed to,
these delegates must retire & possibly
their colonies might secede from the Union:
That such a secession would weaken us more
than could be compensated by any foreign alliance:
That in the event of such a division, foreign powers
would either refuse to join themselves to our fortunes,
or, having us so much in their power as that desperate
declaration would place us, they would insist
on terms proportionably more hard and prejudicial:
That we had little reason to expect an alliance
with those to whom alone as yet we had cast our eyes:
That France & Spain had reason to be jealous of
that rising power which would one day certainly
strip them of all their American possessions:
That it was more likely they should form a connection
with the British court, who, if they should find themselves
unable otherwise to extricate themselves from their
difficulties, would agree to a partition of our territories,
restoring Canada to France, & the Floridas to Spain,
to accomplish for themselves a recovery of these colonies:
That it would not be long before we should receive certain
information of the disposition of the French court, from
the agent whom we had sent to Paris for that purpose:
That if this disposition should be favorable,
by waiting the event of the present campaign,
which we all hoped would be successful, we should
have reason to expect an alliance on better terms:
That this would in fact work no delay of any effectual aid
from such ally, as, from the advance of the season &
distance of our situation, it was impossible
we could receive any assistance during this campaign:
That it was prudent to fix among ourselves the terms
on which we should form alliance,
before we declared we would form one at all events:
And that if these were agreed on, & our Declaration of
Independence ready by the time our Ambassador
should be prepared to sail, it would be as well as
to go into that Declaration at this day.
On the other side it was urged
by J. Adams, Lee, Wythe, and others.
That no gentleman had argued against the policy
or the right of separation from Britain, nor had supposed
it possible we should ever renew our connection;
that they had only opposed its being now declared:
That the question was not whether, by a declaration
of independence, we should make ourselves
what we are not; but whether we should declare
a fact which already exists:
That as to the people or parliament of England,
we had always been independent of them,
their restraints on our trade deriving efficacy
from our acquiescence only, & not from any rights
they possessed of imposing them, & that
so far our connection had been federal only &
was now dissolved by the commencement of hostilities:
That as to the King, we had been bound to him
by allegiance, but that this bond was now dissolved
by his assent to the late act of parliament,
by which he declares us out of his protection,
and by his levying war on us, a fact which had long ago
proved us out of his protection; it being a certain position
in law that allegiance & protection are reciprocal,
the one ceasing when the other is withdrawn:
That James the 2d never declared the people of England
out of his protection; yet his actions proved it
& the parliament declared it:
No delegates then can be denied, or ever want,
a power of declaring an existing truth:
That the delegates from the Delaware counties
having declared their constituents ready to join,
there are only two colonies Pennsylvania & Maryland
whose delegates are absolutely tied up,
and that these had by their instructions only reserved
a right of confirming or rejecting the measure:
That the instructions from Pennsylvania might be
accounted for from the times in which they were drawn,
near a twelvemonth ago, since which
the face of affairs has totally changed:
That within that time it had become apparent that Britain
was determined to accept nothing less than a carte-blanche,
and that the King’s answer to the Lord Mayor Aldermen
& common council of London, which had come to hand
four days ago, must have satisfied every one of this point:
That the people wait for us to lead the way:
That they are in favor of the measure,
though the instructions given by some
of their representatives are not:
That the voice of the representatives is not always
consonant with the voice of the people, and that
this is remarkably the case in these middle colonies:
That the effect of the resolution of the 15th of May
has proved this, which, raising the murmurs of some
in the colonies of Pennsylvania & Maryland,
called forth the opposing voice of the freer part
of the people, & proved them to be the majority,
even in these colonies:
That the backwardness of these two colonies might
be ascribed partly to the influence of proprietary power
& connections & partly to their having
not yet been attacked by the enemy:
That these causes were not likely to be soon removed,
as there seemed no probability that the enemy
would make either of these the seat of this summer’s war:
That it would be vain to wait either weeks or months
for perfect unanimity, since it was impossible that all men
should ever become of one sentiment on any question:
That the conduct of some colonies from the beginning
of this contest, had given reason to suspect
it was their settled policy to keep in the rear
of the confederacy, that their particular prospect
might be better, even in the worst event:
That therefore it was necessary for those colonies who
had thrown themselves forward & hazarded all
from the beginning, to come forward now also,
and put all again to their own hazard:
That the history of the Dutch revolution,
of whom three states only confederated at first
proved that a secession of some colonies
would not be so dangerous as some apprehended:
That a declaration of Independence alone could render it
consistent with European delicacy for European powers
to treat with us, or even to receive an Ambassador from us:
That till this they would not receive our vessels
into their ports, nor acknowledge the adjudications
of our courts of admiralty to be legitimate,
in cases of capture of British vessels:
That though France & Spain may be jealous of
our rising power, they must think it will be much more
formidable with the addition of Great Britain;
and will therefore see it their interest to prevent a coalition;
but should they refuse, we shall be but where we are;
whereas without trying we shall never know
whether they will aid us or not:
That the present campaign may be unsuccessful,
& therefore we had better propose an alliance
while our affairs wear a hopeful aspect:
That to await the event of this campaign will certainly
work delay, because during this summer France may
assist us effectually by cutting off those supplies of
provisions from England & Ireland on which the enemy’s
armies here are to depend; or by setting in motion the great
power they have collected in the West Indies, & calling our
enemy to the defense of the possessions they have there:
That it would be idle to lose time in settling the terms
of alliance, till we had first determined
we would enter into alliance:
That it is necessary to lose no time in opening a trade
for our people, who will want clothes,
and will want money too for the payment of taxes:
And that the only misfortune is that we did not enter
into alliance with France six months sooner,
as besides opening their ports for the vent of our
last year’s produce, they might have marched an army
into Germany and prevented the petty princes there
from selling their unhappy subjects to subdue us.
It appearing in the course of these debates that the
colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
Maryland, and South Carolina were not yet matured
for falling from the parent stem, but that they were
fast advancing to that state, it was thought most prudent
to wait a while for them, and to postpone the final decision
to July 1; but that this might occasion as little delay
as possible a committee was appointed to prepare
a declaration of independence.
The committee were J. Adams, Dr. Franklin,
Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston & myself.
Committees were also appointed at the same time
to prepare a plan of confederation for the colonies, and to
state the terms proper to be proposed for foreign alliance.
The committee for drawing the declaration of Independence
desired me to do it.
It was accordingly done, and being approved by them,
I reported it to the house on Friday the 28th of June
when it was read and ordered to lie on the table.
On Monday, the 1st of July the house resolved itself into
a committee of the whole & resumed the consideration of
the original motion made by the delegates of Virginia,
which being again debated through the day, was carried
in the affirmative by the votes of New Hampshire,
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey,
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, & Georgia.
South Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it.
Delaware having but two members present,
they were divided.
The delegates for New York declared they were for it
themselves & were assured their constituents were for it,
but that their instructions having been drawn near a
twelvemonth before, when reconciliation was still the
general object, they were enjoined by them to do nothing
which should impede that object.
They therefore thought themselves not justifiable in voting
on either side, and asked leave to withdraw
from the question, which was given them.
The committee rose & reported
their resolution to the house.
Mr. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina then requested
the determination might be put off to the next day,
as he believed his colleagues, though they disapproved
of the resolution, would then join
in it for the sake of unanimity.
The ultimate question whether the house would agree
to the resolution of the committee was accordingly
postponed to the next day, when it was again moved
and South Carolina concurred in voting for it.
In the meantime a third member had come post
from the Delaware counties and turned
the vote of that colony in favor of the resolution.
Members of a different sentiment attending that morning
from Pennsylvania also, their vote was changed,
so that the whole 12 colonies who were authorized
to vote at all, gave their voices for it; and within a few days,
the convention of New York approved of it
and thus supplied the void occasioned by
the withdrawing of her delegates from the vote.
Congress proceeded the same day to consider the
declaration of Independence which had been reported
& lain on the table the Friday preceding,
and on Monday referred to a committee of the whole.
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 offence.
The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants
of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina
and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain
the importation of slaves, and who
on the contrary still wished to continue it.
Our northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender
under those censures; for though their people have
very few slaves themselves, yet they had been
pretty considerable carriers of them to others.
The debates having taken up the greater parts of
the 2d, 3d & 4th days of July were, in the evening
of the last, closed the declaration was reported
by the committee, agreed to by the house and signed
by every member present except Mr. Dickinson.9
When the committee met, Jefferson proposed that John Adams make a draft.
Adams later wrote that he replied,
I will not. Why? Reasons enough….
Reason 1st. You are a Virginian and a Virginian
ought to appear at the head of this business.
Reason 2nd. I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular;
you are very much otherwise.
Reason 3rd. You can write ten times better than I can.10
Jefferson then worked on the Declaration by himself,
and after much debating only a few minor changes,
which
had been made by Adams and Franklin, were accepted.
He also designed a swivel chair and used it when he wrote the declaration.
The Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2.
Here is the text that was revised and accepted by the Congress on July 4:
The unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen United States of America
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to assume
among the powers of the earth, the separate
and equal station to which the Laws of Nature
and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed,—
That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People
to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem
most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments
long established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and accordingly all experience
hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves
by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design
to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right,
it is their duty, to throw off such Government,
and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies;
and such is now the necessity which constrains them
to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain
is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,
all having in direct object the establishment
of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws,
the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of
immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended
in their operation till his Assent should be obtained;
and when so suspended,
he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation
of large districts of people, unless those people would
relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature,
a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places
unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository
of their public Records, for the sole purpose of
fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly,
for opposing with manly firmness
his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions,
to cause others to be elected; whereby
the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation,
have returned to the People at large for their exercise;
the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the
dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population
of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws
for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others
to encourage their migrations hither and raising
the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice,
by refusing his Assent to Laws
for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone,
for the tenure of their offices,
and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices,
and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people,
and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace,
Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military
independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws;
giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment
for any Murders which they should commit
on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases,
of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas
to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws
in a neighboring Province, establishing therein
an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries
so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument
for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters,
abolishing our most valuable Laws,
and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures,
and declaring themselves invested with power
to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here by declaring us
out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts,
burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies
of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death,
desolation and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled
in the most barbarous ages,
and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive
on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country,
to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren,
or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us,
and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants
of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages,
whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished
destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions
We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms:
Our repeated Petitions have been answered
only by repeated injury.
A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which
may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions
to our British brethren.
We have warned them from time to time
of attempts by their legislature to extend
an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances
of our emigration and settlement here.
We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity,
and we have conjured them by the ties
of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations,
which, would inevitably interrupt
our connections and correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice
of justice and of consanguinity.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity,
which denounces our Separation, and hold them,
as we hold the rest of mankind,
Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the
United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled,
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world
for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name,
and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies,
solemnly publish and declare,
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;
and that as Free and Independent States,
they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace,
contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do
all other Acts and Things which
Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration,
with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,
we mutually pledge to each other our Lives,
our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.11
In July 1776 Jefferson wrote in this letter to George Wythe on judicial policy:
The dignity and stability of government in all its branches,
the morals of the people, and every blessing of society,
depend so much upon an upright and skillful administration
of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct
from both the legislature and executive, and independent
upon both, that so it may be a check upon both,
as both should be checks upon that.
The judges, therefore, should always be men of learning
and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great
patience, calmness and attention; their minds should
not be distracted with jarring interests; they should
not be dependent on any man, or body of men.
To these ends they should hold estates for life in
their offices, or, in other words, their commissions
should be during good behavior, and their salaries
should be ascertained and established by law.
For misbehavior, the grand inquest of the colony, the
house of representatives, should impeach them before
the governor and council, when they should have time
and opportunity to make their defense; but if convicted,
should be removed from their offices, and subjected
to such other punishment as shall be thought proper.12
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Edmund Pendleton on 13 August 1776 wrote,
The opinion that our lands were allodial possessions
is one which I have very long held and had in my eye
during a pretty considerable part of my law reading
which I found always strengthened it.
It was mentioned in a very hasty production,
intended to have been put under a course
of severe correction, but produced afterwards
to the world in a way with which you are acquainted.
This opinion I have thought and still think to prove
if ever I should have time to look into books again.
But this is only meant with respect to the English law
as transplanted here.
How far our acts of assembly or acceptance of grants
may have converted lands which were allodial
into feuds I have never considered.
This matter is now become a mere speculative point;
and we have it in our power to make it
what it ought to be for the public good.
It may be considered in two points of view:
1st. As bringing a revenue into the public treasury.
2. As a tenure I have only time to suggest hints
on each of these heads.
Is it consistent with good policy or free government
to establish a perpetual revenue?
Is it not against the practice of our wise British ancestors?
Have not instances in which we have departed from this
in Virginia been constantly condemned
by the universal voice of our country?
Is it safe to make the governing power
when once seated in office, independent in its revenue?
Should we not have in contemplation and prepare for
an event (however deprecated) which may happen
in the possibility of things; I mean a re-acknowledgement
of the British tyrant as our king and previously
strip him of every prejudicial possession?
Remember how universally the people run into the idea
of recalling Charles the 2d after living many years
under a republican government.
As to the second was not the separation of the property
from the perpetual use of lands a mere fiction?
Is not its history well known, and the purposes
for which it was introduced, to wit,
the establishment of a military system of defense?
Was it not afterwards made
an engine of immense oppression?
Is it wanting with us for the purpose of military defense?
May not its other legal effects
(such of them at least as are valuable)
be performed in other more simple ways?
Has it not been the practice of all other nations to hold
their lands as their personal estate in absolute dominion?
Are we not the better for what we have
hitherto abolished of the feudal system?
Has not every restitution of the ancient Saxon laws
had happy effects?
Is it not better now that we return at once into
that happy system of our ancestors, the wisest and
most perfect ever yet devised by the wit of man,
as it stood before the 8th century?13
Near the end of that letter he also wrote,
The Shawnees and Delawares are disposed to peace.
I believe it for this reason.
We had by different advice information from the Shawnees
that they should strike us, that this was against their will,
but that they must do what the Senecas bid them.
At that time we knew the Senecas meditated war.
We directed a declaration to be made to the Six Nations
in general that if they did not take the most decisive
measures for the preservation of neutrality,
we would never cease waging war with them
while one was to be found on the face of the earth.
They immediately changed their conduct,
and I doubt not have given corresponding information
to the Shawnees and Delawares.
I hope the Cherokees will now be driven beyond
the Mississippi, and that this in future will be declared to the
Indians the invariable consequence of their beginning a war.
Our contest with Britain is too serious and too great
to permit any possibility of avocation from the Indians.
This then is the season for driving them off,
and our Southern colonies are happily rid of every other
enemy and may exert their whole force in that quarter.14
Jefferson then continued his Autobiography by displaying the
Declaration of Independence he wrote with those passages, which
were removed from what he wrote, underlined.
He also sent copies of his original draft to some of his friends.
Here are the longer passages that Congress removed:
He has incited treasonable insurrections
of our fellow-citizens, with the allurements
of forfeiture & confiscation of our property.
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself,
violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty
in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,
captivating & carrying them into slavery
in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable
death in their transportation thither.
This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers,
is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain.
Determined to keep open a market where MEN
should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his
negative for suppressing every legislative attempt
to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.
And that this assemblage of horrors might want
no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting
those very people to rise in arms among us,
and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them,
by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them:
thus paying off former crimes committed against
the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which
he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another….
Future ages will scarcely believe that the
hardiness of one man adventured, within
the short compass of twelve years only, to lay
a foundation so broad & so undisguised for tyranny
over a people fostered & fixed in principles of freedom….
no one of which could warrant so strange a pretension:
that these were effected at the expense of our own blood
& treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength
of Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our several
forms of government, we had adopted one common king,
thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league
& amity with them: but that submission to their
parliament was no part of our constitution,
nor ever in idea, if history may be credited:…
and when occasions have been given them,
by the regular course of their laws, of removing
from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they
have by their free election re-established them in power.
At this very time too they are permitting
their chief magistrate to send over not only
soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch &
foreign mercenaries to invade & destroy us.
These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection,
and manly spirit bids us to renounce
forever these unfeeling brethren.
We must endeavor to forget our former love for them,
and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind,
enemies in war, in peace friends.
We might have been a free and a great people together;
but a communication of grandeur & of freedom
it seems is below their dignity.
Be it so, since they will have it.
The road to happiness & to glory is open to us too.
We will tread it apart from them …
states reject & renounce all allegiance & subjection to the
kings of Great Britain & all others who may hereafter claim
by, through or under them: we utterly dissolve all political …
connection which may … heretofore have subsisted …
between us & the people or … parliament of Great Britain:
… & finally we do assert & … declare these
colonies to be free … & independent states.15
During the summer of 1776 Jefferson drafted rules of procedure
for the Congress, and his Manuel was 330 pages.
Included were these rules of civility in regard to speaking:
No Member shall read any printed paper in the House
during the sitting thereof without Leave of the Congress….
No Member in coming into the House or in
removing from his Place shall pass between
the President and the Member then speaking….
When the House is sitting, no Member shall speak
or whisper to another as to interrupt any Member
who may be speaking in the Debate.16
Jefferson in his Autobiography wrote this about the debates
on the proposed Articles of Confederation in the next two years:
On Friday July 12 the Committee appointed to
draw the articles of confederation reported them,
and on the 22d the house resolved themselves
into a committee to take them into consideration.
On the 30th & 31st of that month & 1st of the ensuing,
those articles were debated which determined the
proportion or quota of money which each state
should furnish to the common treasury,
and the manner of voting in Congress.
The first of these articles was expressed
in the original draught in these words.
“Art. XI. All charges of war & all other expenses that shall
be incurred for the common defense, or general welfare,
and allowed by the United States assembled, shall be
defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied
by the several colonies in proportion to the number of
inhabitants of every age, sex & quality, except Indians not
paying taxes, in each colony, a true account of which,
distinguishing the white inhabitants, shall be triennially
taken & transmitted to the Assembly of the United States.”
Mr. Samuel Chase moved that the quotas should be fixed,
not by the number of inhabitants of every condition,
but by that of the "white inhabitants.”
He admitted that taxation should be always in
proportion to property, that this was in theory the true rule,
but that from a variety of difficulties, it was a rule
which could never be adopted in practice.
The value of the property in every State
could never be estimated justly & equally.
Some other measure for the wealth of the State
must therefore be devised, some standard
referred to which would be more simple.
He considered the number of inhabitants
as a tolerably good criterion of property,
and that this might always be obtained.
He therefore thought it the best mode which
we could adopt, with one exception only.
He observed that negroes are property, and as such
cannot be distinguished from the lands or personalities
held in those States where there are few slaves, that
the surplus of profit which a Northern farmer is able
to lay by, he invests in cattle, horses, &c.
whereas a Southern farmer lays out that same surplus in slaves.
There is no more reason therefore for taxing the Southern
states on the farmer’s head, & on his slave’s head,
than the Northern ones on their farmer’s heads & the
heads of their cattle, that the method proposed would
therefore tax the Southern states according to their
numbers & their wealth conjunctly, while the Northern
would be taxed on numbers only: that negroes in fact
should not be considered as members of the state
more than cattle & that they have no more interest in it.
Mr. John Adams observed that the numbers of people
were taken by this article as an index of the wealth of the
state, & not as subjects of taxation, that as to this matter
it was of no consequence by what name you called
your people, whether by that of freemen or of slaves.
That in some countries the laboring poor were called
freemen, in others they were called slaves; but that
the difference as to the state was imaginary only.
What matters it whether a landlord employing
ten laborers in his farm, gives them annually
as much money as will buy them the necessaries
of life, or gives them those necessaries at short hand.
The ten laborers add as much wealth annually to the state,
increase its exports as much in the one case as the other.
Certainly 500 freemen produce no more profits, no
greater surplus for the payment of taxes than 500 slaves.
Therefore the state in which are the laborers
called freemen should be taxed no more than
that in which are those called slaves.
Suppose by any extraordinary operation of nature
or of law one half the laborers of a state could in the
course of one night be transformed into slaves: would the
state be made the poorer or the less able to pay taxes?
That the condition of the laboring poor in most countries,
that of the fishermen particularly of the
Northern states is as abject as that of slaves.
It is the number of laborers which produce
the surplus for taxation, and numbers therefore
indiscriminately, are the fair index of wealth.
That it is the use of the word “property” here,
& its application to some of the people of the state,
which produces the fallacy.
How does the Southern farmer procure slaves?
Either by importation or by purchase from his neighbor.
If he imports a slave, he adds one to the number
of laborers in his country, and proportionably
to its profits & abilities to pay taxes.
If he buys from his neighbor it is only a transfer
of a laborer from one farm to another, which
does not change the annual produce of the state,
& therefore should not change its tax.
That if a Northern farmer works ten laborers on his farm,
he can, it is true, invest the surplus of ten men’s labor in
cattle: but so may the Southern farmer working ten slaves.
That a state of one hundred thousand freemen can maintain
no more cattle than one of one hundred thousand slaves.
Therefore they have no more of that kind of property.
That a slave may indeed from the custom of speech be
more properly called the wealth of his master,
than the free laborer might be called the wealth of his
employer: but as to the state, both were equally its wealth,
and should therefore equally add to the quota of its tax.
Mr. Benjamin Harrison proposed as a compromise,
that two slaves should be counted as one freeman.
He affirmed that slaves did not do so much work as
freemen, and doubted if two effected more than one.
That this was proved by the price of labor.
The hire of a laborer in the Southern colonies
being from 8 to pound 12 while in the Northern
it was generally pound 24.
Mr. James Wilson said that if this amendment should take
place the Southern colonies would have all the benefit of
slaves, whilst the Northern ones would bear the burthen.
That slaves increase the profits of a state, which the
Southern states mean to take to themselves;
that they also increase the burthen of defense, which
would of course fall so much the heavier on the Northern.
That slaves occupy the places
of freemen and eat their food.
Dismiss your slaves & freemen will take their places.
It is our duty to lay every discouragement on the
importation of slaves; but this amendment would give
the jus trium liberorum to him who would import slaves.
That other kinds of property were pretty equally distributed
through all the colonies: there were as many cattle, horses,
& sheep, in the North as the South, & South as the North;
but not so as to slaves.
That experience has shown that those colonies have been
always able to pay most which have the most inhabitants,
whether they be black or white, and the practice
of the Southern colonies has always been to
make every farmer pay poll taxes upon all
his laborers whether they be black or white.
He acknowledges indeed that freemen work the most;
but they consume the most also.
They do not produce a greater surplus for taxation.
The slave is neither fed nor clothed
so expensively as a freeman.
Again white women are exempted from labor generally,
but negro women are not.
In this then the Southern states have
an advantage as the article now stands.
It has sometimes been said that slavery is necessary
because the commodities they raise would be too
dear for market if cultivated by freemen; but now
it is said that the labor of the slave is the dearest.
Mr. Payne urged the original resolution of Congress to
proportion the quotas of the states to the number of souls.
Dr. John Witherspoon was of opinion that
the value of lands & houses was the best
estimate of the wealth of a nation, and that
it was practicable to obtain such a valuation.
This is the true barometer of wealth.
The one now proposed is imperfect in itself,
and unequal between the States.
It has been objected that negroes eat the food
of freemen & therefore should be taxed.
Horses also eat the food of freemen;
therefore they also should be taxed.
It has been said too that in carrying slaves into the
estimate of the taxes the state is to pay, we do no more
than those states themselves do, who always take slaves
into the estimate of the taxes the individual is to pay.
But the cases are not parallel.
In the Southern colonies slaves pervade the whole colony;
but they do not pervade the whole continent.
That as to the original resolution of Congress
to proportion the quotas according to the souls,
it was temporary only, & related to the monies
heretofore emitted: whereas we are now entering into
a new compact, and therefore stand on original ground.
Aug 1. The question being put, the amendment
proposed was rejected by the votes of New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Rhode island, Connecticut, New York,
New Jersey, & Pennsylvania, against those
of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North & South Carolina.
Georgia was divided.
The other article was in these words
“Art. XVII. In determining questions each colony
shall have one vote.”
July 30. 31. Aug 1. Present 41 members.
Mr. Chase observed that this article was the
most likely to divide us of any one proposed
in the draught then under consideration.
That the larger colonies had threatened they
would not confederate at all if their weight in Congress
should not be equal to the numbers of people they
added to the confederacy; while the smaller ones
declared against a union if they did not retain
an equal vote for the protection of their rights.
That it was of the utmost consequence to bring the
parties together, as should we sever from each other,
either no foreign power will ally with us at all, or
the different states will form different alliances, and
thus increase the horrors of those scenes of civil war
and bloodshed which in such a state of separation &
independence would render us a miserable people.
That our importance, our interests, our peace required that
we should confederate, and that mutual sacrifices should
be made to effect a compromise of this difficult question.
He was of opinion the smaller colonies would lose
their rights, if they were not in some instances
allowed an equal vote; and therefore that a
discrimination should take place among the
questions which would come before Congress.
That the smaller states should be secured
in all questions concerning life or liberty &
the greater ones in all respecting property.
He therefore proposed that in votes relating to money,
the voice of each colony should be proportioned
to the number of its inhabitants.
Dr. Franklin thought that the votes
should be so proportioned in all cases.
He took notice that the Delaware counties had
bound up their Delegates to disagree to this article.
He thought it a very extraordinary language to be
held by any state, that they would not confederate
with us unless we would let them dispose of our money.
Certainly if we vote equally we ought to pay equally;
but the smaller states will hardly purchase
the privilege at this price.
That had he lived in a state where the representation,
originally equal, had become unequal by time & accident
he might have submitted rather than disturb government;
but that we should be very wrong to set out in this
practice when it is in our power to establish what is right.
That at the time of the Union between England
and Scotland the latter had made the objection
which the smaller states now do.
But experience had proved that
no unfairness had ever been shown them.
That their advocates had prognosticated that
it would again happen as in times of old, that
the whale would swallow Jonas, but he thought
the prediction reversed in event and that Jonas had
swallowed the whale, for the Scotch had in fact got
possession of the government and gave laws to the English.
He reprobated the original agreement of Congress
to vote by colonies and therefore was for their voting
in all cases according to the number of taxables.
Dr. Witherspoon opposed every alteration of the article.
All men admit that a confederacy is necessary.
Should the idea get abroad that there is likely to be
no union among us, it will damp the minds of the people,
diminish the glory of our struggle, & lessen its importance;
because it will open to our view future prospects
of war & dissension among ourselves.
If an equal vote be refused, the smaller states
will become vassals to the larger; & all experience has shown
that the vassals & subjects of free states are the most enslaved.
He instanced the Helots of Sparta & the provinces of Rome.
He observed that foreign powers discovering
this blemish would make it a handle for disengaging
the smaller states from so unequal a confederacy.
That the colonies should in fact be considered as individuals;
and that as such, in all disputes they should
have an equal vote; that they are now collected
as individuals making a bargain with each other,
& of course had a right to vote as individuals.
That in the East India company they voted by persons
& not by their proportion of stock.
That the Belgic confederacy voted by provinces.
That in questions of war the smaller states were as much
interested as the larger, & therefore should vote equally;
and indeed that the larger states were more likely
to bring war on the confederacy in proportion
as their frontier was more extensive.
He admitted that equality of representation was an excellent
principle, but then it must be of things which are coordinate;
that is, of things similar & of the same nature: that nothing
relating to individuals could ever come before Congress;
nothing but what would respect colonies.
He distinguished between an incorporating
& a federal union.
The union of England was an incorporating one;
yet Scotland had suffered by that union:
for that its inhabitants were drawn from it
by the hopes of places & employments.
Nor was it an instance of equality of representation;
because while Scotland was allowed nearly
a thirteenth of representation, they were
to pay only one fortieth of the land tax.
He expressed his hopes that in the present
enlightened state of men’s minds we might expect
a lasting confederacy if it was founded on fair principles.
John Adams advocated the voting
in proportion to numbers.
He said that we stand here as
the representatives of the people.
That in some states the people are many; in others
they are few; that therefore their vote here should be
proportioned to the numbers from whom it comes.
Reason, justice, & equity never had weight enough
on the face of the earth to govern the councils of men.
It is interest alone which does it, and
it is interest alone which can be trusted.
That therefore the interests within doors should be the
mathematical representatives of the interests without doors.
That the individuality of the colonies is a mere sound.
Does the individuality of a colony
increase its wealth or numbers.
If it does, pay equally.
If it does not, add weight in the scale of the confederacy;
it cannot add to their rights nor weigh in argument.
A has pound 50, B pound 500, C pound 1000 in partnership.
Is it just they should equally dispose
of the monies of the partnership?
It has been said we are independent
individuals making a bargain together.
The question is not what we are now, but what
we ought to be when our bargain shall be made.
The confederacy is to make us one individual only;
it is to form us, like separate parcels of metal,
into one common mass.
We shall no longer retain our separate individuality,
but become a single individual as to all
questions submitted to the confederacy.
Therefore all those reasons which prove
the justice & expediency of equal representation
in other assemblies, hold good here.
It has been objected that a proportional vote
will endanger the smaller states.
We answer that an equal vote will endanger the larger.
Virginia, Pennsylvania, & Massachusetts
are the three greater colonies.
Consider their distance, their difference of produce,
of interests & of manners, & it is apparent
they can never have an interest or inclination
to combine for the oppression of the smaller.
That the smaller will naturally divide
on all questions with the larger.
Rhode Island from its relation, similarity & intercourse will
generally pursue the same objects with Massachusetts;
Jersey, Delaware & Maryland with Pennsylvania.
Dr. Benjamin Rush took notice that the decay of the
liberties of the Dutch republic proceeded from three causes.
1. The perfect unanimity requisite on all occasions.
2. Their obligation to consult their constituents.
3. Their voting by provinces.
This last destroyed the equality of representation,
and the liberties of great Britain also
are sinking from the same defect.
That a part of our rights is deposited
in the hands of our legislatures.
There it was admitted there should be
an equality of representation.
Another part of our rights is deposited in the hands
of Congress: why is it not equally necessary
there should be an equal representation there?
Were it possible to collect the whole body
of the people together, they would determine
the questions submitted to them by their majority.
Why should not the same majority decide
when voting here by their representatives?
The larger colonies are so providentially divided in situation
as to render every fear of their combining visionary.
Their interests are different,
& their circumstances dissimilar.
It is more probable they will become rivals
& leave it in the power of the smaller states
to give preponderance to any scale they please.
The voting by the number of free inhabitants
will have one excellent effect, that of inducing
the colonies to discourage slavery & to
encourage the increase of their free inhabitants.
Mr. Stephen Hopkins observed there were 4 larger,
4 smaller, & 4 middle-sized colonies.
That the 4 largest would contain more than half
the inhabitants of the confederated states, & therefore
would govern the others as they should please.
That history affords no instance of
such a thing as equal representation.
The Germanic body votes by states.
The Helvetic body does the same;
& so does the Belgic confederacy.
That too little is known of the ancient
confederations to say what was their practice.
Mr. Wilson thought that taxation should be
in proportion to wealth, but that representation
should accord with the number of freemen.
That government is a collection or result of the wills of all.
That if any government could speak the will of all,
it would be perfect; and that so far as
it departs from this it becomes imperfect.
It has been said that Congress is
a representation of states; not of individuals.
I say that the objects of its care are
all the individuals of the states.
It is strange that annexing the name of
“State” to ten thousand men, should give
them an equal right with forty thousand.
This must be the effect of magic, not of reason.
As to those matters which are referred to Congress,
we are not so many states, we are one large state.
We lay aside our individuality, whenever we come here.
The Germanic body is a burlesque on government;
and their practice on any point is a sufficient
authority & proof that it is wrong.
The greatest imperfection in the constitution
of the Belgic confederacy is their voting by provinces.
The interest of the whole is constantly sacrificed
to that of the small states.
The history of the war in the reign
of Queen Anne sufficiently proves this.
It is asked shall nine colonies put it into
the power of four to govern them as they please?
I invert the question, and ask shall
two millions of people put it in the power
of one million to govern them as they please?
It is pretended too that the smaller colonies
will be in danger from the greater.
Speak in honest language & say the minority
will be in danger from the majority.
And is there an assembly on earth where
this danger may not be equally pretended?
The truth is that our proceedings will then be consentaneous
with the interests of the majority, and so they ought to be.
The probability is much greater that the
larger states will disagree than that they will combine.
I defy the wit of man to invent a possible case or to suggest
any one thing on earth which shall be for the interests
of Virginia, Pennsylvania & Massachusetts, and which
will not also be for the interest of the other states.17
On 3 September 1776 Thomas Jefferson left
Philadelphia and returned to Monticello.
When he went to Williamsburg, he learned on September 26
that he had been appointed a Commissioner to France
along with Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane.
After considering it for three days Jefferson wrote to John Hancock
that family responsibilities kept him from accepting the position.
In October 7 he took his place in Virginia’s House of Delegates.
He worked on revising the laws of Virginia, and on the 11th
he proposed a bill to establish courts of justice.
Also on that day Jefferson wrote this letter
to the Congress President John Hancock:
Your favor of the 30th together with the resolutions
of Congress of the 26th Ult. came safe to hand.
It would argue great insensibility in me could I receive with
indifference so confidential an appointment from your body.
My thanks are a poor return for the partiality
they have been pleased to entertain for me.
No cares for my own person, nor yet for my
private affairs would have induced one
moment’s hesitation to accept the charge.
But circumstances very peculiar in the situation of my
family, such as neither permit me to leave nor to carry it,
compel me to ask leave to decline a service so honorable
and at the same time so important to the American cause.
The necessity under which I labor, and the conflict
I have undergone for three days, during which
I could not determine to dismiss your messenger,
will I hope plead my pardon with Congress; and I am
sure there are too many of that body, to whom they may
with better hopes confide this charge, to leave them
under a moment’s difficulty in making a new choice.18
On October 14 Jefferson introduced a bill to abolish
entails that had been abused by aristocrats, and he
proposed moving Virginia’s government to a safer place.
After many attempts to amend the entails bill were defeated,
it was approved by both houses of Virginia and became law on November 1.
The House asked for five kinds of courts, and Jefferson on November 25
suggested courts of appeals, chancery, and assize,
and on December 4 he added county courts and appeals.
Also in October he helped western settlers by getting
the partitioning of Fincastle County into three counties.
The Transylvania Land Company argued that they had bought land
between the Cumberland and Kentucky rivers from the Cherokees in 1775.
The next meeting of the Assembly was scheduled to meet on 5 May 1777.
Notes
1. Thomas Jefferson: A Life by Willard Sterne Randall, p. 258.
2. Ibid., p. 259.
3. Ibid., p. 260.
4. To Thomas Jefferson from John Page, 6 April 1776 (online)
5. The Balance, and Columbian Repository, 10 May 1803 (Online)
6. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 336-345.
7. Virginia Declaration of Rights (Online)
8. Constitution as Adopted by the Convention, 29 June 1776 (Online)
9. Jefferson and His Time Volume 1 Jefferson the Virginian by Dumas Malone,
p. 219 and Thomas Jefferson: A Biography by Nathan Schachner, p. 124.
10. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 13-18
11. Thomas Jefferson: A Biography by Nathan Schachner, p. 127.
12. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 19-24.
13. Ibid., p. 751-752
14. Ibid., p. 754.
15. Ibid., p. 22-24.
16. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham, p. 111.
17. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 24-31.
18. From Thomas Jefferson to John Hancock, 11 October 1776 (Online)
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