Franke: The Declaration Parchment
by Mark Franke
With the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence, there is a plethora of new books written about this major event. Most focus on the Declaration’s language and its meaning, especially its most memorable sentence in the second paragraph.
That’s understandable but I am a contrarian by nature so I have been wondering about the process of writing, editing and publishing the Declaration. For example, is the document on display at the National Archives the original or a later copy? Not that it really matters but enquiring minds want to know, as the National Enquirer used to scream in its marketing.
The short answer to the question about the originality of the official document on display is more or less “Yes.” I came to this conclusion after reading an interesting book by Stanford University historian Michael Auslin entitled “National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America.”
Auslin told the Declaration’s story by following its physical existence since 1776. Long story short, the Declaration parchment has been on the move, spending time in storage, hidden during wartime and sometimes available only for private display before finding its permanent home at the National Archives.
What I found most interesting is its original drafting and adoption by the Congress in 1776. Unfortunately the Founding Fathers didn’t have copy machines, cloud storage or PC direct printing. Auslin does a good job of unpacking a poorly documented process to trace its movement.
Anyone who has seen the musical “1776” knows that Thomas Jefferson was delegated the task of writing a first draft of a declaration. How he had time to do that with all the singing involved is beyond me but he did accomplish it. This happened sometime after June 7 when Congress authorized a draft to be written.
Jefferson finished his draft and submitted it to the rest of this five-man committee on June 28. The committee (John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston) made a few simple edits and forwarded it on to the full Congress on June 28 as a “fair” copy. Our earliest saved documents are from this point. Jefferson’s original with committee edits is now with the Library of Congress and John Adams’ personally copied version is held by the Massachusetts Historical Society.
But there was a procedural problem in that Congress had not yet voted to become independent. This it did on July 2, not July 4 as is generally believed, and then took up editing the document as a committee of the whole. The edits were scrawled by hand on the committee’s copy.
Writing by committee is a sketchy proposition at best but in this case, Congress did itself proud. Eighty-six individual edits were approved and the full document was reduced in length by one-quarter. Most of the edits were directed at Jefferson’s list of the king’s usurpations but a few were in his most quoted second paragraph, improving his language. (To learn how that important paragraph was improved from Jefferson’s version, see Walter Isaacson’s “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.”)
One might imagine Jefferson’s resentment at these changes, but then writers have always resented their editors.
This is where there is a gap in the historical record. The Secretary of Congress, Charles Thomson, did not record these edits as they were approved but simply left a spot in his journal to insert the final version.
The reason we celebrate July 4 is that it was on that day that Congress approved the language of the Declaration. This hand-edited version was sent to a local printer, John Dunlap, who likely cut it up to distribute to his typesetters. A proof copy was sent to Congress, which found several errors to be corrected. There are 26 extant copies of this broadside version.
Preparation of the official or engrossed copy was assigned to Timothy Matlock, who executed it with his careful calligraphy. It was returned to Congress on August 4, when the iconic signing ceremony did not happen except in patriot legend. Actually it took several years to get every Congressman’s signature because many delegates had already left Philadelphia by then.
This engrossed copy with everyone’s signature is the official copy now at the National Archives. It has the edits approved by Congress on July 4 but contains one overlooked misspelling as well as some late corrections quite visible today.
So we can acknowledge that the displayed copy is in fact the original, at least in terms of being the official version signed by nearly all Congressmen. The document that Congress passed on July 4, the fair copy, is unfortunately lost but does that really matter to anyone but a history nerd like me?
It is the timeless principles asserted by the Declaration that truly matter and we have Jefferson’s original words, albeit moderately edited, to remind us of that glorious cause for individual liberty within self-government.
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
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