#Declaration of independence year drivers

Like it or not, this is the state of things as the nation celebrates its 245th birthday. (National Park Service)Whether this new angry condemnation of Jefferson is just and proportional is a question for sober and careful debate, but it is undeniable that he has been seriously diminished. There has been talk of pulling down the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., and in more radical circles of razing his visage at Mount Rushmore. Schools and other institutions have changed their names from Jefferson to something less offensive. His statues have been vandalized or in some cases plucked down. Given all this, and more, JeffersonвЂ™s reputation has suffered, even plummeted, in the last 20 years. Prospects for Redemption of Jefferson's Plummeting Reputation As he grew older, Jefferson experienced a hardening of his spiritual arteries and wound up being a more or less typical member of the southern slaveocracy, finding what now seem like casuistical rationales for doing precisely nothing. But Jefferson freed only eight slaves, three in his lifetime, five at the time of his death on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1826. We know that Jefferson вЂњtalked a good game,вЂќ and frequently wrote letters saying, вЂњnobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition not only of the trade but of the condition of slavery: and certainly nobody will be more willing to encounter every sacrifice for that objectвЂќ (1788), or вЂњnothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be freeвЂќ (1821). Still, we all know that Jefferson owned several hundred slaves, bought and sold enslaved people all of his life, clandestinely while serving as the president of the United States. JeffersonвЂ™s words are stirring: George III вЂњhas 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, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.вЂќ JohnsonвЂ™s charge of contemptible hypocrisy among southern patriots and revolutionaries. The United States has never fully lived up to its promise, but if the promise of America is embodied anywhere, it is in JeffersonвЂ™s famous preamble.Historians believe that Jefferson understood the true dynamics of slavery (and profited from the institution himself), but earnestly wanted to find a way to insert an anti-slavery manifesto into the birth certificate of the United States.

#Declaration of independence year drivers

It was the British curmudgeon Samuel Johnson who pointedly quipped, вЂњHow is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?вЂќ This was sort of true, but no lofty rhetoric could disguise the fact that the colonies, especially southern colonies, had welcomed the importation of slaves, prospered from their unpaid labor and intended to perpetuate the slave labor system at least for the foreseeable future.

One of the passages that wound up on the cutting room floor, the longest single passage in the Declaration, accused King George III and the parliament of Britain of stymieing occasional colonial efforts to restrain or abolish the slave trade.

The wits of Congress saw fit to change (he said вЂњmangledвЂќ) some things in JeffersonвЂ™s draft before it could achieve unanimous consent. Moreover, Jefferson leaned heavily on previous human rights documents, including John LockeвЂ™s Second Treatise on Government and fellow Virginian George MasonвЂ™s Virginia Declaration of Rights.

Benjamin Franklin and John Adams each played a minor role. Thomas Jefferson was the principal author, though in some limited respects it was a committee effort. My answer? Without question the Declaration of Independence, unanimously adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.