As we saw, after two sessions in a committee of the whole, the Second Continental Congress came to a stalemate on the Lee resolution for independence. It would be tabled for three weeks, until July 1.

But, as both Thomson’s journal entry and Jefferson’s notes agree, Congress also agreed to appoint a committee to draft a declaration, in the (likely) event that the resolution passed. In short, the stalemate was to the advantage of the pro-Independence group, and appointing a drafting committee might even have seemed to make the resolution’s passage a foregone conclusion.

But, if we follow Thomson’s journal entry, that was not the first order of business. As usual, Thomson noted the reception of various letters (including two from General Washington, who at this time was writing daily), a prisoner matter, and a compensation matter. And then an interaction with an Iroquois group that had been in Philadelphia since late May. The Congress was eager to forge good relations with the Iroquois and had approved both a “present” and a speech to be delivered – and that speech, as recorded by Thomson, was delivered on June 11 (although he doesn’t say by whom or just how, except that the Iroquois delegates “were called in”).

I won’t include all of that speech here, but here’s the opening:

Brothers, We hope the friendship that is between you and us will be firm, and continue as long as the sun shall shine, and the waters run, that we and you may be as one people, and have but one heart, and be kind to one another as brethren.

Part of what makes the speech fascinating is that it then explains to the Iroquois the reasons for the present conflict, viz. that

The king of Great-Britain hearkening to the evil council of some of his foolish young men, is angry with us, because we will not let him take away from us our land and all that we have, and give it to them, and because we will not do every thing that he bids us, and hath hindered his people from bringing goods to us, but we have made provision for getting such a quantity of them, that we hope we shall be able to supply your wants as formerly.

The Declaration, when it came, naturally would echo some of the same bitterness toward George III.

After that Congress heard a letter from Brigadier General John Sullivan, at St. John’s. While its contents were not described, we’ll want to keep an eye on Sullivan, as Jefferson later served on a committee dealing with his resignation; Jefferson’s drafting of the committee report will play a small role in our understanding of the drafting of the Declaration.

And next – “Resolved, That the committee for preparing the declaration consist of five: / The members chosen, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. J. Adams, Mr. Franklin, M. Sherman, and Mr. R.R. Livingston.”

Congress next agreed to appointing two other committees, one that would eventually produce the Articles of Confederation and the other to “prepare a plan of treatise” – these were the other two planks of the Lee resolution.

And so, we have reached the beginning of the text formation of the Declaration of Independence – although no more than that. In future days, I’ll consider – based on skimpy, decades-later material – how the committee functioned over the next two-and-a-half weeks, bearing in mind other business and matters they were also tending to.

But for now we need only note that we have no record of any particular charge given to the drafting committee as to structure or exact contents of the draft it would produce. There’s been no discussion of guiding principles and no comprehensive catalog of George III’s offenses and failings. The speech to the Iroquois gives us a kind of bare-bones account of the rationale for the conflict, and so the grounds of independence, but it assumes violations of shared values of some kind – taking away land and possessions, unfettered authority, trade restrictions.

We can note that the committee included geographical diversity: Massachusetts (Adams), Connecticut (Sherman), New York (Livingston), Pennsylvania (Franklin), and Virginia (Jefferson).

Countdown to Semiquincentennial: Number 5, June 11, 1776
By Michael G. Ditmore