Every American schoolchild learns that it was Thomas Jefferson who penned the mighty words "We hold these truths to be self-evident ...." But recently there has been more than a little confusion on this point.In part the confusion is an honest and long-standing uncertainty due to the fact that in addition to Jefferson, both John Adams and Benjamin Franklin helped to forge the final version of the Declaration of Independence that was ratified by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. And in addition to Jeferson, Adams and Franklin there were also two lesser known members of drafting committee: Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.
But Walter Isaacson has greatly exacerbated this honest uncertainty by stupidly declaring, in his biography of Benjamin Franklin, the following:
Franklin made only a few changes, some of which can be viewed written in his own hand on what Jefferson referred to as the "rough draft" of the Declaration. (This remarkable document is at the Library of Congress and on its Web site.) The most important of his edits was small but resounding. He crossed out, using the heavy backslashed that he often employed, the last three words of Jefferson's phrase 'We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable' and changed them to the words now enshrined in history: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident.'"The only people who agree with Isaacson on this issue are those who rely exclusively on Isaacson as their only source on the question. Everyone who has done independent research on the matter is either meticulously equivocal, or tends toward the accepted attribution of the words to Jefferson.
[pp. 311-312]
"Possibly it was Franklin, or Jefferson himself, who made the small but inspired change in the second paragraph. Where, in the initial draft certain 'truths' were described as 'sacred and undeniable,' a simpler, stronger 'self-evident' was substituted."
[David McCullough, John Adams, p. 122. Look here for a much longer excerpt of the relevant passage in McCullough.]
"The phrase 'sacred & undeniable' was changed to 'self-evident' before Adams made his copy. This change has been attributed to Franklin, but the opinion rests on no conclusive evidence, and there seems to be even stronger evidence that the change was made by TJ or at least that it is in his handwriting."Pauline Maier, in her "American Scripture: The Making of Declaration of Independence" simply says "the phrase is perhaps Franklin's". [p. 136]
[Boyd, Declaration of Independence, 1945, p. 22-3." (link)]
Carl Lotus Becker, in his 1922 classic The Declaration of Independence: A Study on the History of Political Ideas, states that in his opinion the phrase "self-evident" was already in place before Benjamin Franklin had seen the working draft:
"Jefferson first wrote 'we hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable.' In the Rough Draft as it now reads, the words 'sacred & undeniable' are crossed out, and 'self-evident' is written in above the line. Was this correction made by Jefferson in process of composition? Or by the Committee of Five? Or by Congress? There is nothing in the Rough Draft itself to tell us. As it happens, John Adams made a copy of the Declaration which still exists. Comparing this copy with the corrected Rough Draft, we find that it incorporates only a very few of the corrections: one of the two corrections which Adams himself wrote into the Rough Draft; one, or possibly two, of the five corrections which Franklin wrote in; and eight verbal changes apparently in Jefferson’s hand. This indicates that Adams must have made his copy from the Rough Draft when it was first submitted to him; and we may assume that the eight verbal changes, if in Jefferson’s hand, which we find incorporated in Adams’ copy, were there when Jefferson first submitted the Draft to Adams — that is, they were corrections which Jefferson made in process of composing the Rough Draft in the first instance. With Adams’ copy in hand it is therefore possible to reconstruct the Rough Draft as it probably read when first submitted to Franklin."
[Chapter Four: Drafting the Declaration: link]
This is a case where there is room for some small amount of reasonable doubt. But there is in fact very little evidence against the traditional and accepted attribution of the phrase "We hold these truths to be self-evident" to Thomas Jefferson.
Nice screenshot from "John Adams".
ReplyDeleteI didn't know there was ever any controversy about it.
Truth be told, I've always had a soft spot for the Loyalists. I certainly appreciate the freedoms of the USA, don't get me wrong. But...Southern slave owners lecturing the British Empire about the rights of man, and New England bankers lecturing the British Empire about economic justice, even as teenager seemed a bit much to me.
Stephen Dillane was magnificent as Jefferson.
ReplyDeleteHe really was great.
ReplyDeleteAetius
Is Isaacsons statement part of a specific ideological agenda, or what some may view as an isolated scholary "lapse of judgement" of sorts?
ReplyDeleteSuecae Sounds: That is an excellent question, and I will address it soon (I hope!) in a follow-up post. The short answer is that Iaacson does have an agenda, and he is attempting to paint Jefferson as an irrational romanticist whose ideas are overly influenced by religion, whereas Franklin is (according to Isaacson) more of a clear-thinking rationalist. Isaacson, it should be kept in mind, is third-rate intellectual at best, and he is working on the basis of a very muddled understanding of the Enlightenment.
ReplyDeleteGOD=7_4, 7/4=July 4th
ReplyDeleteIn the 'Committee of Five', Benjamin Franklin was the Grand Master Mason of Pennsylvania. Robert Livingston of New York was a Grand Master later and may have been in 1776. I don't believe Roger Sherman of Connecticut was and I know that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were not Masons. John Hancock - the President of Continental Congress - was the GMM of Massachusetts. And of course, General George Washington was the GMM of Virginia(?), the Continental Army, and unofficially all of North America.
"Freemasons encode everything" - two programs on History Channel
Freemasons have been connected to sacred geometry and architecture since Solomon's Temple, Egyptian Pyramids and temples, and Babylonan zigurrats. They were the architects of the Declaration of Independence and encoded GOD=7_4, 7/4=July 4th; please google GOD=7_4 algorithm/code. Masons practice English(7,74) Gematria(8,74) - google that.
5th graders in Philadelphia are taught during field trips to Independence Hall that "Liberty(7 letters) Bell(4) is symbolic of 7/4=July 4th". They should include that John(4,47=J10+O15+H8+N14) Hancock(7,40=H8+A1+N14+C3+O+C3+K11) was the only representative of Congress to actually sign the Declaration on 7/4 - the other 55 men signed it later. Charles Thomson(74=T20+H8+O+M13+S19+O+N14) the Secretary of Congress attested Hancock's signature. Hancock's and Thomson's signatures can be seen on the copies of the Dunlop Broadsides.
It's 50-50 as to whether it was Jefferson or Franklin that added "self-evident". But it's 100% that if it was Franklin's editor's pen, he was aware that he was encoding self(4 letters)-evident(7).