English 102

The Drafting of the Declaration of Independence

(by Randy Schiff)

MWF 11:00-11:50 l Girvetz 1004 l office hours: M 11-12, W 2-3l office: South Hall 2503 l 893-3349 l ecook@english.ucsb.edu l
TAs: Billy Hall l Paxton Hehmeyer l Alex McKee l Laura Miller

06/11/76: 2nd Continental Congress appoints the Committee of Five (John Adams, B. Franklin, T. Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman.
Jefferson prepares a draft, basing his writing on:

George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights (publ. 06/12/76)
his own drafts for the preamble to the Virginia Constitution and the Summary View of the Rights of British Americans.

Jefferson makes a clean (“fair”) copy of the original composition.
Jefferson ’s copy revised by Adams and Franklin.
revised copy then revised by the full Committee of Five.
06/2876: revised text is presented to the 2nd Continental Congress.
)7/2-7/4: copy revised in Congress, by the Committee of the Whole, w/ many changes, including 2 major ones: excision of paragraph on slave trade,

substitution of the July 2 Resolution

adopted by Congress (last par.)

07/4: Broadsides of original copy made by the printer John Dunlap; copy has signatures of President John Hancock and Secretary Charles Thomson.
07/9: large, parchment version of the Declaration is made (after NY agrees)

10) 07/19: Congress orders an engrossed copy, probably inscribed by Timothy Matlack; Congressional order that all members must sign

11) Most but not all members of Congress sign the engrossed copy

Boyd, Julian. The Evolution of the Text of the Declaration of Independence. Washington, D.C.:

Library of Congress, 1947.

Meier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf,

1997.

National Archives and Records Administration. Washington, DC.