Season 3, Episode 11 | Not Just Jefferson: How Congress's Red Pen Helped Create the Declaration We Know

Who really wrote the Declaration of Independence? Was it Thomas Jefferson’s carefully crafted vision, or the outcome of an intense, compromise-driven process inside Congress?

In this episode of This Constitution, host Savannah Eccles Johnston is joined by Matthew Brogdon to examine how Congress transformed Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence into the document the world would come to know.

The conversation traces the Declaration’s path from the Committee of Five to the Committee of the Whole, where Congress cut a quarter of Jefferson’s draft. Savannah and Matthew unpack the most significant changes, including the removal of the slavery passage, the shift from emotionally charged rhetoric to a more legal tone, and the deliberate decision to aim grievances at the Crown rather than the British people. These revisions, they argue, were driven by prudence, diplomacy, and the need to persuade both domestic and foreign audiences.

The episode also highlights Congress’s surprising additions. References to divine providence and a Supreme Judge of the world were strengthened, shaping a civil religious language that would echo throughout American political life. In the end, Savannah and Matthew argue that while Jefferson’s genius is undeniable, the Declaration is best understood as Congress’s declaration. It is a democratic document, forged through collaboration, compromise, and representation, and a model for how Americans would speak and govern themselves from the very beginning.

In This Episode

• (00:00) Opening and introduction
• (00:17) Background to the Declaration
• (01:00) Drafting and committee process
• (02:12) Congressional revision process
• (03:23) Major edits and reactions
• (04:34) Removal of the slave passage
• (06:57) Strengthening legal arguments
• (07:31) Toning down emotional language
• (08:30) Example of emotional language removed
• (10:41) Toning down anti-British rhetoric
• (12:06) Example of anti-British language removed
• (15:07) Summary of major changes
• (15:17) Addition of religious language
• (16:22) Significance of religious additions
• (20:27) Motivations for religious language
• (20:45) Is Congress’s version better?
• (23:00) Examples of improved rhetoric
• (25:00) The Declaration as a collaborative product
• (26:44) Conclusion and podcast outro

Notable Quotes

• (04:25) “25% Congress slashes and burns. I mean, they took a red pen to the thing.” — Matthew Brogdon
• (01:34) "So this wasn't just Jefferson's hand. You know, it wasn't like Jefferson the author. Everybody else is a clerk. There's actually quite a lot of collaboration." — Matthew Brogdon
• (07:32) “By making it more legally efficacious, some of that means making the document a little more boring.” — Matthew Brogdon
• (08:07) "Adam says he defended every word of the draft like he didn't want to see any of this change, as though he grudgingly admits to Abigail later that maybe some of this was prudent, making this less personal, less antagonistic." — Matthew Brogdon
• (14:10) “The road to glory and happiness is open to us too. We will climb it in a separate state and acquiesce in the necessity which pronounces our everlasting adieu." — Matthew Brogdon
• (22:41) "All the changes seem to be for the better." — Savannah Eccles Johnston
• (25:05) "Yes, Jefferson is the primary author of the declaration, but it's actually Congress's declaration." — Savannah Eccles Johnston
• (26:30) “I think the best way to sum this up is with the title of the declaration itself.” — Matthew Brogdon
• (26:42) "It's Congress's declaration. It's not the committee's, and it's not Jefferson's. It's not Adams's. It's Congress's declaration speaking for the United States of America." — Matthew Brogdon

Transcript

Narrator:

[00:00:00 - 00:00:10]

We the people, do ordain and establish this Constitution. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:10 - 00:00:16]

Welcome to This Constitution. My name is Savannah Eccles Johnston.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:00:16 - 00:00:17]

And I'm Matthew Brogdon.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:17 - 00:01:00]

And today we are going to talk about Congress's Declaration of Independence. And we're really asking or trying to answer two questions here. And the first is, is the Declaration of Independence a Jefferson production or is it the result of an intense collaborative, compromise driven process? And then second, was Congress's Declaration superior to Jefferson's original Declaration? He was very unhappy about it. But was Congress's final product better? So first, let's give a quick recap. We've done a little bit of this in a previous episode. How do we get to the Declaration? Starts with the Lee resolution. These colonies are not to be free and independent states. And then the Committee of Five.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:01:00 - 00:04:22]

That's right. So this is like the last verse in a long song that we've been talking through in a number of ways. We've seen the way that people outside of Congress wrote declarations and grievances against the Crown. We've seen the way that people like Adams and Richard Henry Lee played a formative role in bringing a resolution for independence in front of Congress and sort of getting that ball rolling. And we've looked at the way that Adams himself and others, the committee, played a role in drafting the Declaration. So this wasn't just a Jefferson's hand. You know, it wasn't like Jefferson's the author. Everybody else are clerks. There's actually quite a lot of collaboration. So this sort of brings that home. Right, because this comes at the end of that process, formally speaking, we get a resolution on June 6 from Richard Henry Lee. They put it aside to wait a month for a lot of the states to figure out are they even okay with it. Certain delegates to Congress had instructions not to take any formal step in favor of independence. They had to go get new instructions from places. So they put it off for a month. And while they're doing that, they go through the drafting process. We talked about that a little bit. Now we fast forward to July 2nd. The committee's done with its work. It's come up with a draft. It has reported this parliamentary term. The Committee is reporting its draft to Congress, which Congress is going to take up over the space of a couple of days between July 2nd and July 4th. And Congress resolves itself into something called the Committee of the Whole. Anybody that's familiar with founding era deliberative processes, the Constitutional Convention, the Continental Congress, a committee of the whole, was a way to have they call it the whole because everybody in the legislature is also on the committee. So this is a way committees can do work informally. Right. The legislative body itself can only take, like, formal proposals, vote on them to adopt them, and take actions. That's a really cumbersome way to edit a document. Like if you need to make dozens of changes to something, you can't vote on all that on the floor of the legislature and all this. So they have this thing called the committee of the whole. We'll just take everybody and stick them on a committee, and then people can just make recommendations sort of on the fly. And that's what they do. So they spend a couple of days resolving into the committee of the whole, which means the president comes out of the chair. Right. John Hancock is the president of Congress at that point. So he comes out of the chair, and instead you have a temporary chair for the committee of the whole. 

So that's where all this is happening. If you go look in the journals of the Continental Congress, you can go look these up on the Quill Project, you can go to the Library of Congress website, see the actual images of the pages. The journals of the Continental Congress will have this language. You know, the Congress resolved itself to the committee of the whole to consider the report of the committee on a Declaration of Independence. So they're going to tinker with it. They've got some choice terms. Adams and Jefferson, even some of their friends, like Richard Henry Lee, are not thrilled with all the changes that Congress makes. They think, we just spent a few weeks writing this. Feel like it's good. Can you really do better than Ben Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson? Who do you people think you are?

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:04:22 - 00:04:24]

And not only edit it, but cut down a quarter of it.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:04:24 - 00:04:31]

Yes. 25 percent. Congress slashes and burns. I mean, they took a red pen.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:04:31 - 00:04:31]

Yeah.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:04:31 - 00:04:35]

To the thing and they did. They cut out huge swaths of it.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:04:35 - 00:05:10]

So the first and big change that everyone knows about, not first, in order of actual timeline, is the cut of the slave passage. So basically, in Jefferson's original draft, which makes it through committee, there is this line condemning the British monarchy for introducing the evil of the slave trade and kind of forcing it upon the people of the colonies. This is not going to make it past Congress's review. And we have a whole episode on this with the wonderful Dr. Nicholas Cole. So let's just do a quick summary of what we suspect, though do not know the reasons were for this.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:05:10 - 00:06:24]

Yeah. The passage had said that he had waged cruel war on human nature through the traffic in Human beings, and described this, as you said, as an inheritance. The British Crown that sort of saddled the colonies with this, and they do get rid of it. It is controversial. The largest slave trading port in the North American colonies is actually Rhode Island. New England ships are providing most of the bottoms, the actual hulls, for doing this trade. So economically, a lot of parts of the Union are implicated in this. And while most Americans, it would seem, are uncomfortable with the slave trade, there's growing opposition to it. That certainly is the case. You're actually going to see it dealt with by way of a ban eventually by the federal government. There are still some defenders of it. There are certain quarters of the Union that are dependent on the international slave trade, and we want to see it denounced, especially in the deep. South Carolina and Georgia tend to be in this camp, even though the Virginians are happy to get rid of it, a lot of others. So there are a lot of reasons for discomfort. It also is a little bit awkward to levy this charge against the Crown when the colonies are not necessarily prepared to just scrap it. Right. So it was an odd fit.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:06:24 - 00:06:25]

Yes.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:06:25 - 00:06:56]

It also was hard to trace it to direct royal action. So while most of the indictments, most of the grievances against the Crown are things that the Crown had actually done and done in fairly close proximity. Right. These aren't just sort of recent, distant memory, but discrete actions that the Crown or Parliament had taken in recent years. It was a little difficult to point to some discreet action that the Crown or Parliament had taken that had sort of perpetuated or caused this. So it felt distant.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:06:56 - 00:07:31]

Right. So this can really be summarized with. It's an awkward clause for everybody, north and south, and gets us to the next big set of changes that Congress makes, which is strengthening the legal arguments in this list of grievances. They really kind of fine tune these. It has to be something that is, as you said, approximate. That has been spoken of before. We had a whole previous episode on other declarations which included these lists of grievances. That's where they're pulling these from. You have to be able to say to the world, no, this one really is on the King. We can say, this is this guy who did this.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:07:31 - 00:07:37]

Yeah. And by making it more legally efficacious, I mean, some of that means making the document a little more boring.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:07:37 - 00:07:37]

Yes.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:07:37 - 00:08:30]

Legal indictments are not inspiring things. And there is a bit of this. If you look at the alterations. You know, they drop some of the personal language that's in it. They adopt a more sort of Abstract, more neutral sort of tone, sort of laying out the charges in a more dispassionate way that's less satisfying. And, in fact, you can imagine we've talked about Adams before, and we've talked about Jefferson. They're passionate individuals. They tend to write in fairly passionate terms. So Adam says he defended every word of the draft like he didn't want to see any of this change, as though he grudgingly admits to Abigail later that maybe some of this was prudent, making this less personal, less antagonistic. So they're passionate individuals, so they're not particularly inclined to soften their language about British encroachment on American liberties. But it is a prudent move.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:08:30 - 00:08:55]

You have the draft there with you. Actually, I think the best example of toning down the emotional and dramatic language in favor of a more legalistic argument is actually found in the slave passage itself, which, of course, is struck for different reasons. But will you just read the language so people can see kind of the emotional tone this takes on and how that is simply absent in the rest of the Declaration?

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:08:55 - 00:09:55]

Yeah. 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 and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere and 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 and 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. He is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us and to purchase that liberty for which he has deprived them in 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.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:55 - 00:09:59]

So the keywords here. Execrable, prostituted.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:09:59 - 00:10:25]

Yeah. He also says about the infidel powers that the opprobrium of infidel powers is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. They're making reference there to the Mediterranean slave trade by the Ottomans and others which were accused of kidnapping Europeans and impressing them into slavery on slave galleys. So they're saying, basically the king of Great Britain is no better than. Than these Mediterranean pashas.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:10:25 - 00:11:15]

You're right. So this language is kind of excised from the Declaration, it's going to take on a more legal tone. And actually when you read the list of grievances, it can get pretty boring with students. You have to do a lot of interpretation. A lot of this emotional stuff is gone from Jefferson. Third category that I think is really significant is the Congress is going to tone down anti British rhetoric. And this seems in for a couple of reasons. One, to allow for reconciliation in the future, especially with loyalists who are there in the colonies and who still consider themselves British. So you're looking to the future with this one. You've got to tone down the anti British rhetoric and not just reconciliation with loyalists here, but also we're gonna have to have a relationship with this country again at some point. So they tone down the rhetoric.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:11:15 - 00:12:54]

And by anti British, we mean the British people. So the Declaration very deliberately, in its final form, aims all of the grievances at the Crown and at Parliament. Originally there was a very long passage about sort of the hard heartedness of the British people, sort of blaming the British public for not giving credence to their previous pleasure to their petitions. Right. These petitions that the Americans sent to the Crown were sort of public documents that got republished. People knew what was in them. And while they got formal replies from the King, it was quite important what they did in terms of public opinion. And the committee and the draft that it sends out to the Congress has this long passage near the end, blaming the British people. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity 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 and foreign mercenaries to invade and deluge us in blood. These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. I mean, this is, you know, criticism of the British people. You all are supporting the Crown, you're putting people in Parliament who will do this. You're tolerating this. It's really pointing the finger.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:12:54 - 00:13:00]

And we considered you our brothers, right? We're common blood. And you're sending the Scotch here and.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:13:00 - 00:13:02]

Other foreigners, foreign mercenaries.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:13:02 - 00:13:13]

So there's hard feelings here. And so you take this out of the document, one, so that you're focused on the Crown and Parliament and two, so there can be a reconciliation and this is effective.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:13:13 - 00:13:40]

I think Congress's point is proven here because the Declaration gets widely republished and British opinion is by no means in favor of the Crown's policy by some counts, as much of a third of the British public is actually sympathetic to the American cause. So quite a lot of opposition in Great Britain. So criticizing the folks from whom you might actually get some help is not wise.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:13:40 - 00:13:48]

Well, but it goes back to in a previous episode, we had spoken about how Adams had a real propensity to criticize his otherwise allies.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:13:48 - 00:13:48]

Yeah.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:13:48 - 00:13:56]

That is what this would have been is why turn away those who you might not like, how quickly they've come around to your side of things, but who could be turned.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:13:56 - 00:14:51]

I do like this too. We might have been a free and great people together, but a communication of grandeur and of freedom, it seems, is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it, the road to glory and happiness is open to us too. We will climb it in a separate state and acquiesce in the necessity which pronounces our everlasting adieu. So this is a bit much. Congress replaces this with they too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. They get rid of almost all the other stuff said. We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and to hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war and peace. Friends, notice how much less personal this is. We're going to be an independent nation, going to be like all the other people of the earth. We've got nothing against you.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:14:51 - 00:14:52]

We can be friends.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:14:52 - 00:14:55]

We can be friends or we can be enemies.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:14:55 - 00:14:55] 

Right.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:14:55 - 00:15:04]

So no special. It's devoid of all the sort of bitterness. The previous language from the committee just smacked of a kind of bitterness and.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:04 - 00:15:06]

Resentment, much less family feud kind of stuff.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:06 - 00:15:07]

Right.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:07 - 00:15:43]

Okay. So so far we have removal of the slave passage, which gets us into point two, which is just reducing the emotional language in general in favor of more legal tone. And then three, getting rid of a lot of anti British rhetoric for assortment of reasons. And then we get to this fourth and really interesting addition. This isn't something they take out and they take out a lot. Remember a quarter. But now they're going to add a few things in and many of those are going to deal with religion. So first in the introduction and then finally in our concluding actual separating from Great Britain paragraph, Congress is going to add it in. So give us some of those examples.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:43 - 00:17:25]

In Jefferson's original draft, or at least from what we know of his original draft, Jefferson originally had a reference to the laws of nature and of nature's God. In his original sort of rough draft, the committee added a reference to the Creator. In the second paragraph when they say the self-evident truths, all men are created equal. Jefferson already had that. But then they add this. Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. So assigning this agency to a personal creator who's taken the trouble to make human beings endowed them with rights. You get an active verb. The Creator endowed us with our natural rights, much more active, attributing it to divine action. The committee had done that. It's a bit of a step past Jefferson. And that was all the mention of the deity that there was. Then it gets out to Congress, Congress decides they want a little more in the way of piety to show up in the document, especially in its operative provision at the end. Right. So the real Declaration of Independence is in the last paragraph. We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in general Congress assembled, originally this read, do, in the name and by authority of the good people of these states, reject and renounce all allegiance and subjection to the king of Great Britain and so on. They replace it with this, a little insertion. 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. So we get a reference to the Supreme Judge. God is a superintending judicial authority.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:25 - 00:17:27]

And he's on our side.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:17:27 - 00:20:27]

And he's on our side. That's right. Then we get one more. When we get to the famous line about mutually pledging each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor, the Congress inserts a phrase there and says, 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. So there are these. What was initially a fairly passing reference to the deity in Jefferson's original draft, the laws of nature and nature's God, which a lot of ink has been spilled, especially by some of our friends in political philosophy, on just what Jefferson means by this and how deistic it is and so forth. The eventual document is much more pervasively pious and religious in character. A lot of people have observed this is not an original observation by any stretch of the imagination, that it's also important that they mention the deity in different roles, especially in roles with respect to governing. There's a sort of suggestion of the Supreme Judge of the world, God in the judicial Right capacity, judging right and wrong, providence and creation. This idea of God as a sort of legislative and executive character. Right sort of setting the universe in motion, determining the laws of nature in a legislative capacity, and then as a providential force sort of governing the affairs of men like an executive as things go forward. So Congress is insistent on this. It's interesting to me that the committee, even with Sherman, Livingston, Franklin, Adams, it's not just Jefferson's aversion to this. The committee itself doesn't think it's as important to have this sort of thing. So Congress insists that they want a more express reliance on divine providence, which is something. We've talked about this in some previous episodes. It's something that's going to pervade the rhetoric of American presidents later. Washington is going to utilize this a great deal. A fairly non sectarian expression of reliance on Providence. Gratitude for blessings every Thanksgiving. Of course, the really geeky among us might actually read Washington or Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation. If you want to get truly obscure, you can go read Calvin Coolidge's Thanksgiving proclamation, which is pretty fascinating. But this is going to be a pervasive trend in American politics. And in a way, the Declaration of Independence sets the tone. It's not sectarian. There's not a reference directly to Christianity. Actually it's much more in the mode of the sort of Judeo Christian tradition. So that's an important element of American political culture that gets established by Congress here. And I think it's important that it's not just an author, it's not Jefferson, it's Congress. It's a representative deliberative body that decides as Americans. This is the way we come down in terms of our civil religion, so to speak.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:27 - 00:20:44]

Right. Well, there's kind of two ways to look at this. Are they doing it so that it goes over better with the people? You use this religious language. They've heard this in the pews, they take the cues, this works. Or is it an expression of actually, this is what Congress thinks. They had also heard this in the pews and it's less of a. Efficient, useful.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:20:44 - 00:20:45]

I frankly don't know.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:45 - 00:21:23]

Yeah, I don't know. But it's an. It raises an interesting question. Okay, so we've got these litany of changes, first by the committee and then much more extensively by the committee of the whole. Is that version which will become the final version, the version that they will vote on and sign. Is it better than Jefferson's original draft? Did Congress deface it? Did they mutilate it? Do violence upon Jefferson's great language? Or is it actually a better expression of the American mind? A more effective document as a result of Congress's changes?

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:23 - 00:21:41] 

It's definitely a more rhetorically pleasing document. A lot of the deletions are deletions of either. Long winded passages. Aside from the other controversial elements about the slavery provision, it's far longer than any other grievance listed. Most of the grievances can be listed on one line.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:21:41 - 00:21:41] 

Right.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:41 - 00:21:46]

They're fairly pithy. Then you get to this thing that constitutes a paragraph.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:21:46 - 00:21:46]

Right.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:46 - 00:22:04]

If we think about the second paragraph, the self-evident truths and all that, the whole passage on slavery is almost as long as that. So that and the passage I read about the grievance against the British people, I think there was a sense of if it takes you this long to say it, then it's not clear enough.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:22:04 - 00:22:05]

Right, right, right.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:22:05 - 00:22:14]

You're getting long winded because you don't know exactly what you want to say. And so it does certainly make it a more effective document in the sense of this is something you want reprinted in newspapers.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:22:14 - 00:22:15]

Yes.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:22:15 - 00:22:19]

You want shared. You want it to fit in a fairly efficient space.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:22:19 - 00:22:20]

Yeah.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:22:20 - 00:22:33]

Can you print it in a broadside, like a single sheet of paper in a readable fashion? So I do think it's quite important that Congress does some work saying, yeah, you gotta be a lot more parsimonious here. Right. Cut out the fluff.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:22:33 - 00:23:00]

Yeah. I think with the exception of that slave passage, which is more controversial, there's more that could be said. Of course, we have that other episode that could be set on that. All the changes seem to be for the better. All of them, as you said, more rhetorically pleasing. It's better in terms of foreign relations, not just hopefully winning over some of the British people to the American cause, but also winning US friends and allies abroad. It does a better job of tapping into American political thought with its religious elements. It's better.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:23:00 - 00:23:10]

Let me read a couple of passages that were changes. It may seem minor, but just. I'll read it as it came from the committee and then read it as Congress changes. So this is the first paragraph. Opening line.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:23:10 - 00:23:11]

Okay.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:23:11 - 00:24:33]

We're familiar with 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. That's the familiar passage. It came from the committee before Congress changed it this way. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained and to assume among the powers of the earth the equal and independent station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them. It's just something a bit more cumbersome. I mean, just rhetorically it's better, it's clearer. Also, our most famous passage, self evident truths we're familiar with. 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. And so on. The committee had written, we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal and independent, and that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So it's not bad, it's just not as good. This is not the most famous phrase Americans have ever written.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:33 - 00:24:34]

Right, Right.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:24:34 - 00:25:00]

So I do think this is sort of chalk one up for larger bodies of people for a sort of democratic drafting process. Daniel Allen likes to call it this. Right. A more democratic drafting process. Individuals are really attached to their own style. They have their phrases they love. And sometimes it takes a larger group of people to say, yeah, I know that's not how you want to say it, but it just sounds better this way.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:00 - 00:25:38]

This kind of gets to the, what we hope to be the heart of this episode, which is that, yes, Jefferson is the primary author of the Declaration, but it's actually Congress's declaration. It's the people's declaration because it's the result of a long, collaborative, often compromise driven document. In the same way that the Constitution after it is a collaborative and compromise driven document. And all laws in American public life are this way and better for it. That we are practicing this and believing in this process from the very inception of the country. We didn't do this by a single hand. And government has not been by single hand at any point since then. And we're better for it.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:38 - 00:25:43]

Although I have to admit, the counterpoint to this is Lincoln. Lincoln did write his own speeches, but.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:43 - 00:25:45]

Their speech is not law.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:45 - 00:25:49]

They are, they are speeches, not law. They're not the same kind of document.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:25:49 - 00:25:51]

Yes. They're not expressions of the public mind.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:51 - 00:26:11]

Right. Americans have been capable of a kind of individual. Americans have been capable of an eloquence born of their own convictions. But when it comes to speaking the public mind, speaking for the people. You need a committee to give you a draft, and then you need the people's representatives to give you the finished product.

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:26:11 - 00:26:30]

And this particular draft is so important because it is literally the creation of America. This is the founding document, the Declaration, and it's done by committee. As Danielle Allen says, in this democratic process, that tells you something about the nation. And that's a very different thing than a speech by a very good president.

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:26:30 - 00:26:51]

I think the best way to sum this up is with the title of the Declaration itself. A lot of times we don't read it, but its actual title is the Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America. It's Congress's declaration. It's not the committee's, and it's not Jefferson's. It's not Adams's. It's Congress's declaration. Speaking for the United States of America. 

Outro

00:26:51 - 00:27:37]

The Constitution is more than parchment under glass at the National Archives Archives. It's a blueprint for American self government that shapes every part of our civic life. From the rights we cherish to the laws we live under. We explore the ongoing battle over the meaning and relevance of America's founding document. This Constitution will equip you to engage the most pressing political questions of our time. Join us every two weeks as we hash out constitutional questions together. This podcast is ordained and established by the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, the home of Utah's Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative.