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After lots of talking, delegates to the Second Continental Congress voted for independence from Britain.
On June 11, 1776, they agreed to form a committee. It would write a report that explained why the colonies wanted to be independent from Britain. The delegates chose John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson. The others helped. But the brilliant young Jefferson wrote most of the Declaration of Independence.
▲ Thomas Paine was a colonial writer. He’d come to America from England just a few years earlier. But he helped get people thinking about separation from Britain. His pamphlet Common Sense said that the colonies should become independent. It also said that monarchy was a bad form of government. Common Sense sold over 500,000 copies. It was America’s first bestseller. It convinced many colonists that they had the right to form their own government.
◀ Jefferson wrote most of the nation’s first famous document in a rented room in Philadelphia. At 33, he was one of the youngest delegates. The Virginia lawyer was shy. He didn’t say much during the Second Continental Congress. When the others asked him to write the first draft of the document, he said no. But John Adams talked him into doing it.
Jefferson wrote a section that attacked King George III for supporting the slave trade. In Africa, British slave sellers traded goods for people. They took millions of Africans in chains across the Atlantic Ocean. Then they sold them in the American colonies. They also sold them in the West Indies and Brazil. The Africans were crowded into small spaces underneath the decks of ships. They got hardly any food or water. Many died on the long trip. Once they reached shore, they were treated as property. They had no rights. Many colonial leaders, including Thomas Jefferson, owned enslaved Africans. ▶
◀ Jefferson took his job seriously. For 17 days, he got up early. He worked at a desk that he designed himself. He wrote simply. He never liked to “use two words, when one would do.” He wanted to include important ideas. And he worked hard to write the complaints against Britain and the king in clear, plain language.
Most delegates signed the Declaration on August 2, 1776. A few never signed it at all. Some waited. They said it was too early for independence. Thomas McKean, from Delaware, didn’t sign it until 1781. Representatives from northernmost New Hampshire were first to sign. The last to sign were from Georgia. ▶
▲ Some delegates made changes to Jefferson’s work. Most important, they took out the part that attacked King George III for the slave trade. Slavery had become a big part of colonial life. Especially in the southern colonies. Large farms in the South, called plantations, used the free labor of enslaved people. They were made to plant and harvest crops. They also did household chores. Some people at the Congress were afraid to keep the section on slavery. They thought it would make southern colonists mad, because they liked slavery.
◀ Jefferson and John Adams were friends and rivals. They wrote lots of letters to each other. Adams died on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the signing of the Declaration. His last words were: “Thomas Jefferson survives.” But he was wrong. Jefferson had died the same day, a few hours earlier.
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▲ Today, thousands visit Monticello. That’s the Virginia plantation home that Jefferson designed and lived in. The house is filled with interesting things. He kept big clocks in almost every room, so he wouldn’t waste time. He had inventions that helped him get more work done. There’s a machine that copies handwriting and a bookstand that you can spin around.
