No business in Congress on June 22, 1776, as it adjourned for both Saturday and Sunday. During the break, William Ellery (for the the Rhode Island delegation) wrote an update about Congress to Governor Nicholas Cooke, which included a brief but accurately detailed account of the “Grand Question of Independence” – but no details about the Declaration’s drafting.

John Adams wrote several reply letters, including to Nathanel Greene, mainly on war and military matters; Benjamin Kent on religious toleration and the fate of Benjamin Church; and Samuel Parsons, on military matters.

But I’d like to turn the clock backward for a moment, to June 6, the day BEFORE Richard Henry Lee introduced the independence resolution that more directly kickstarted the Declaration itself. On that day, the Pennsylvania Evening Post published among its news items a copy of a draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. This was not recorded in Congress’s journals or in any of the surviving delegates’ letters, but it may have had profound consequences for the Declaration’s drafting – and by extension for the entire history of the United States of America.

Before getting into some of the weeds, however, let’s recall that we have no record how the Declaration drafting committee was expected to design or structure its document. It simply needed to have a document ready to go in the event that the independence resolution passed on July 1 or shortly afterward. To get an idea of what the document could have been, we need only look backward to Congress’s momentous May 15 resolution to the colonies, but we need to back up even further to May 10 (and even to May 6). On that day, after meeting as committee of the whole, Congress agreed to the following resolution:

That it be recommended to the respective assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs hath been hitherto established, to adopt such government as shall in the opinion of the representatives of the people best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general.

While the language was fairly controlled and cautious (it’s all one winding sentence), the substance was quite bold – but short of outright confederated independence. All the same, had just this set of words been broadcast in just this way, the effect would have been enormous. And while we have no minutes from the committee of the whole, we have to assume there was a fair amount of jawing and wordsmithing that went into just this production as is.

But Congress wasn’t done. The next resolution was to appoint a committee of three to compose a preamble for this recommendation, led by John Adams. I won’t copy all of that here – it’s about three times as long as the recommendation alone – but you can read through it here.

The main point is that the preamble, in highly condensed forms, summarizes the rationale for the recommendation, because, we must infer, the recommendation – sufficient though it may have been – did not in its own wording adequately explain why Congress recommended such drastic action to the United Colonies. And so the resolution for independence was published and broadcast in this dual form: a preamble about the rationale for the various colonies. You can see in it on p. 3, col. 2 of the Pennsylvania Evening Post for May 16, 1776.

The Declaration could have begun in a similar way. In other words, it might have done no more than record the wording of the Lee resolution and then have indicated that the resolution had been approved by the Congress. Even something so bare and minimalist would have been earthshaking.

But, as we know, that is not how Jefferson proceeded. Different readers and critics have described the final Declaration in slightly different ways. Here’s mine, indebted in large part to scholar Wilbur Howell who first described the Declaration’s structure as a conditional syllogism with connecting tissue. I’m not going to define a conditional syllogism in any detail except to say that it is a three-part logic form that, if constructed properly, issues in a necessary conclusion, the traditional logical terms for these three parts are Major Premise, Minor Premise, and Conclusion.

Jefferson’s Major Premise focuses on abstract human rights and principles that all governments must honor and protect; the Minor Premise introduces evidence, by way of several grievances against George III, that the English government has failed to honor and protect the rights and principles of the American people; so, the Conclusion asserts that separation is necessary, along with the institution of new government that will honor and protect those rights – or else.

By far, the most famous and studied of these three sections is the Major Premise, which tells us that all men are created equal and that among their unalienable rights are those of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As I’ve noted, very strictly speaking, Jefferson’s draft need not have opened this door – but it did. And it is possible that the Pennsylvania Evening Post of June 6 and its reprinting of the Virginia Declaration of Rights draft can help us to understand better why.

For the moment, I will pass by the background and context here, other than to note that the Fifth Virginia Convention had approved the formation of a declaration of rights in its May 15 resolutions in which it both declared its own separation and directed its delegates to Congress to propose independence for all of the colonies together. Although a large committee was appointed to work out this document, George Mason undertook to write it himself with the committee’s eyes and approval.

The result is an 18-point document that begins with abstract rights and principles and proceeds to lay out in more detail particular rights. For our purposes, however, we need focus only on the first three points:

1. That all men are borne equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring, and possessing property, and pursuing happiness and safety.
2. 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.
3. That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and securityof 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 dangers of mal-administration; and, that whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath 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 …

Sound familiar? It should. I don’t think I’ve encountered any serious Declaration reader familiar with both documents who hasn’t frankly concluded that Jefferson was drafting, so to speak, off of Mason’s drafted document (there was shortly afterward a final version, but the first reported draft was the one most widely circulated). It goes well beyond mere similarity (or identity) of thought to include particular words and phrases, literally or in paraphrase (“are born,” “rights,” “life and liberty,” “pursuing and obtaining happiness,” “the people,” “instituted,” “whenever any government,” “unalienable”) but also the order and even just the tone of the language. If Jefferson didn’t have a copy before him while working up the Major Premise and liberally paraphrased from it – which makes complete sense, given what both writers held to be universal truths about government and society – well, if he didn’t have a copy in front of him, that verbal and structural coincidences would be astounding.

But if Jefferson DID have a copy of Mason’s Declaration before him, first, he exercised excellent judgement because the Virginia Declaration of Rights is one of the most astute articulations of limited government and human rights ever produced (and it was hot off the presses), but, second, that also means both of the first two parts of the Declaration of Independence – the Major and Minor Premises – derive from Virginia-based documents: the Virginia Declaration of Rights (by Mason) and Jefferson’s draft of a Virginia Constitution (authored by Jefferson).

What then of the third and final part, the Conclusion? That will require further, and head scratching, consideration. We will come to that shortly …

Countdown to Semiquincentennial: Number 16, June 22
By Michael G. Ditmore