Ask the Historian

This is the first ask the historian column (something that will hopefully take off). It comes from a question from my friend Joey on the Declaration of Independence post last week.

Question: Are there any remaining drafts of the Declaration of Independence? Do the drafts really include a reference to slavery?

I believe the Library of Congress has one? I could be wrong. So far, I've been striking out on an answer I'm happy with.

We do know the text of the original draft, however, from The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. What is here might be similar to what Jefferson, et. al. submitted to the Continental Congress. And yes, there was a reference to slavery. The Virginian wrote:

"[King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & 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 upon 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."

The Continental Congress voted to remove the passage--considering that slavery existed in most of the colonies, it isn't a surprise.

A little more (which, I think, clarifies another question I got via email):

On July 4, the Continental Congress adopted a heavily edited version of the Declaration. It went to John Dunlap, a Philadelphia printer. Though it is unknown exactly how many copies he produced, there are twenty-six remaining: twenty-one in American institutions, two with the British, and three in private hands.

I didn't note that time that on the July 4 vote, New York abstained. By July 9, however, the delegation had the colonial assembly's permission to support independence. There were some minor changes and on July 19, the Continental Congress ordered an embossed copy on parchment. The likely scribe was Timothy Matlack, as I mentioned in the last post. Most of the 56 signers signed this on August 2. A few signed days later. This is the copy that is currently on display at the National Archives. It traveled around quite a bit, thus, if you visit the Archives, you'll see that it is quite faded. The travel and the poor preservation methods in the nineteenth century have done their damage.

If you're interested in more of the Declaration's travels, click here.