[Thomas] Jefferson produced a superb draft [of the Declaration of Independence], for which his 1774 pamphlet was a useful preparation. All kinds of philosophicaland political influences went into it. They were all well-read men and Jefferson, despite his comparative youth, was the best read of all, and he made full use of the countless hours he had spent poring over books of history, political theory and government.
The Declaration is a powerful and wonderfully concise summary of the best Whig thought over several generations. Most of all, it has an electrifying beginning. It is hard to think of any way in which the first two paragraphs can be improved: the first, with its elegiac note of sadness at dissolving the union with Britain and its wish to show “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind” by giving its reasons; the second, with its riveting first sentence, the kernel of the whole: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” After that sentence, the reader, any reader — even George III — is compelled to read on. The Committee found it necessary to make few changes in Jefferson’s draft. [Benjamin] Franklin, the practical man, toned down Jefferson’s grandiloquence — thus truths, from being “sacred and undeniable” became “self-evident,” a masterly improvement. But in general the four others were delighted with Jefferson’s work, as well they might be.
Congress was a different matter because at the heart of America’s claim to liberty there was a black hole. What of the slaves? How could Congress say that “all men are created equal” when there were 600,000 blacks scattered through the colonies, and concentrated some of them in huge numbers, who were by law treated as chattels and enjoyed no rights at all. Jefferson and the other members of the Committee tried to up-end this argument — rather dishonestly, one is bound to say — by blaming American slavery on the British and King George. The original draft charged that the King had “waged a cruel war against human nature” by attacking a “distant people” and “captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere”. But when the draft went before the full Congress, on June 28, the Southern delegates were not having this. Those from South Carolina, in particular, were not prepared to accept any admission that slavery was wrong and especially the acknowledgement that it violated the “most sacred rights of life and liberty”. If the Declaration said that, then the logical consequence was to free all the slaves forthwith.
So the slavery passage was removed, the first of the many compromises over the issue during the next eighty years, until it was finally resolved in an ocean of tears and blood. However, the word “equality” remained in the text, and the fact that it did so was, as it were, a constitutional guarantee that, eventually, the glaring anomaly behind the Declaration would be rectified.
–Paul Johnson, A History of the American People
