The Declaration of Independence, Lesson 2: The Lee Resolution and the Committee of Five

Virginia Instructs Its Delegates, May 15, 1776

The motion that started the Declaration was not an impulse of one man. It came with an instruction from a convention. On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention at Williamsburg passed two resolutions, both recorded as unanimous. The first told Virginia's delegates in Congress "to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain." It told them to give the colony's assent to that declaration "and to whatever measures may be thought proper and necessary by the Congress for forming foreign alliances, and a Confederation of the Colonies." A proviso followed: "the power of forming Government for, and the regulations of the internal concerns of each Colony, be left to the respective Colonial Legislatures."¹

The second resolution appointed a committee "to prepare a Declaration of Rights, and such a plan of Government as will be most likely to maintain peace and order in this Colony, and secure substantial and equal liberty to the people."¹ The Avalon text lists twenty-eight members, among them Archibald Cary, Edmund Randolph and Thomas Ludwell Lee.¹ The Virginia Declaration of Rights, which Avalon's copy says was adopted unanimously on June 12, 1776, and drafted by George Mason, came out of that convention, and Lesson 7 covers it.² The point for this lesson is the pairing. The convention that told its delegates to declare independence in Philadelphia also set about writing the colony's own government in Williamsburg, and the proviso about internal concerns kept the second task with the colony.

The convention gave reasons, in a preamble longer than most such texts. It said that "all the endeavours of the United Colonies, by the most decent representations and petitions to the King and Parliament of Great Britain" had produced "increased insult, oppression, and a vigorous attempt to effect our total destruction." It said that "By a late act all these Colonies are declared to be in rebellion, and out of the protection of the British Crown," and that the King's representative in Virginia had retired on board an armed ship and was "tempting our slaves by every artifice to resort to him, and training and employing them against their masters." The conclusion followed: "we have no alternative left but an abject submission to the will of those overbearing tyrants, or a total separation from the Crown and Government of Great Britain."¹

Several of these phrases return in the Declaration's list of grievances. The statement that the colonies were "declared to be in rebellion, and out of the protection" of the Crown prefigures the grievance that the King "has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us."³ The Virginia preamble's complaint that the royal governor was "tempting our slaves" to join him stands behind the grievance about slaves in Jefferson's draft, which Lesson 3 treats. Lessons 3 and 5 return to both.

The Virginia delegates carried the instruction to Philadelphia. The Journal of May 27, 1776 records that the delegates from North Carolina "laid before Congress certain instructions they have received from their convention," and that the delegates from Virginia did the same, and that these "were read."⁴ North Carolina's instruction was that of April 12, the Halifax Resolves, which empowered its delegates "to concur with the other delegates of the other Colonies in declaring Independency."⁵ The Journal does not print either text, and it does not record a motion that day. The next step came after a gap of eleven days.

Congress Prepares: The May 10 and May 15 Resolutions

Congress had already moved toward the question by another road. On May 10, 1776 it resolved "That it be recommended to the respective assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs have been hitherto established, to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general." A committee of three, John Adams, Edward Rutledge and Richard Henry Lee, was chosen to prepare a preamble.⁶

The preamble was reported and agreed to on May 15, the same day Virginia's convention acted. The text recites that the King, "in conjunction with the lords and commons of Great Britain, has, by a late act of Parliament, excluded the inhabitants of these United Colonies from the protection of his crown," that no answer to the colonies' petitions had been given or was likely, and that "it appears absolutely irreconcileable to reason and good conscience, for the people of these colonies now to take the oaths and affirmations necessary for the support of any government under the crown of Great Britain." It concludes that "the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed, and all the powers of government exerted, under the authority of the people of the colonies." Congress ordered the preamble published together with the May 10 resolution.⁷

Adams later said that he drew the preamble, that Lee and Rutledge asked him as chairman "to draw something very short," and that when James Duane called the measure "a machine for the fabrication of independence," he answered, smiling, "I thought it was independence itself, but we must have it with more formality yet."⁸ Ford's note in the Journal confirms the authorship, citing the Autobiography.⁷ The conversation with Duane is Adams's recollection and has no corroboration in the Journal, so it is best read as his view of what the resolution meant.

The resolutions of May 10 and 15 matter for the Declaration because they changed the question before Congress. A vote to tell colonies to set up governments "under the authority of the people" and to suppress "every kind of authority under the said crown" is a vote on where authority lies. By June 7 the open question was how to say so to the world. In his notes of the June debate Jefferson records that opponents of the Lee motion argued that the resolution of May 15 "had shown, by the ferment into which it had thrown these middle colonies, that they had not yet accommodated their minds to a separation from the mother country," while supporters answered that its effect "has proved" that the freer part of the people in Pennsylvania and Maryland were the majority.⁹

Lee's Motion, June 7, 1776

On Friday, June 7, 1776, the Journal records a short entry among reports about a sloop, a powder mill and counterfeit bills of credit: "Certain resolutions respecting independency being moved and seconded." Three resolutions follow.¹⁰ The first reads: "Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." The second: "That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances." The third: "That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation."¹⁰

The three resolutions are the program of the next fifteen months in outline. The first became the Declaration of Independence. The second produced the plan of treaties that went to the committee named on June 12. The third produced the Articles of Confederation, the subject of a separate course on this site. Congress took up all three in June and in the following months.

The Journal does not say who moved or seconded. Ford's note to the entry, drawn from Lee's original draft in the Papers of the Continental Congress, says the motion was seconded by John Adams.¹¹ The National Archives agrees that Adams seconded.¹² Jefferson's account says only that "The delegates from Virginia moved, in obedience to instructions from their constituents."⁹ Adams himself explained the silence of the Journal in his Autobiography: "Mr. Hancock was President, Mr. Harrison, chairman of the committee of the whole house, Mr. Thomson, the secretary, was cousin to Mr. Dickinson, and Mr. R. H. Lee and Mr. John Adams were no favorites of either."¹³ That is Adams's explanation, written years later, about the men who kept the record. The Journal gives no reason, and a reader should hold the explanation as his opinion.

The entry ends with a scheduling order: "Resolved, That the consideration of them be referred till to morrow morning; and, that the members be enjoined to attend punctually at 10 o'Clock."¹⁰ Lee's own draft carries a later endorsement in three hands recording what was decided on June 10, which is the postponement described below.¹⁰

Two features of the motion are worth noticing. It is in the language of Virginia's instruction, which said the colonies "free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown."¹ And the phrase "of right ought to be" gives the claim as a statement of right as well as of fact. The same phrase appears in the Declaration's final resolution of July 4, where the Congress "solemnly publish and declare" that the colonies "are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States." Lee's text from June 7 and the Declaration's conclusion share the wording, which is why the vote of July 2 on Lee's text is often treated as the decision for independence and the adoption of the Declaration two days later as the explanation.

June 8 to 10: Committee of the Whole and the Postponement

On Saturday, June 8, the Journal records that "The Congress took into consideration the resolutions moved yesterday" and resolved "That they be referred to a committee of the whole." The president left the chair and Benjamin Harrison of Virginia took it. After "some time spent thereon," Harrison "reported, that the committee have taken into consideration the matter to them referred, but not having come to any resolution thereon, desired leave to sit again on Monday next."¹¹

In a committee of the whole the members debated without the formality of a Congress vote, and the Journal's record of what happens there is minimal. On Monday, June 10, the Journal again records only that the committee "have had under consideration the resolutions to them referred, and have come to a resolution, which he read," and that Congress then resolved "That the consideration of the first resolution be postponed to this day, three weeks [July 1], and in the mean while, that no time be lost, in case the Congress agree thereto, that a committee be appointed to prepare a declaration to the effect of the said first resolution." The Journal then quotes the first resolution in full and records that the committee was discharged.¹¹ The entry gives no count of votes.

The arguments of the two days survive in Jefferson's notes, which he included in his Autobiography. Opponents of an immediate vote, whom he names as "Wilson, Robert R. Livingston, E. Rutledge, Dickinson, and others," did not oppose separation. They said "though they were friends to the measures themselves, and saw the impossibility that we should ever again be united with Great Britain, yet they were against adopting them at this time." They argued that the people of the middle colonies "were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to British connection, but that they were fast ripening," that some delegations had been forbidden to consent to a declaration, and that "if the delegates of any particular colony had no power to declare such colony independent, certain they were, the others could not declare it for them."⁹

The other side, according to Jefferson, was "J. Adams, Lee, Wythe, and others." They said that "the question was not whether, by a Declaration of Independence, we should make ourselves what we are not; but whether we should declare a fact which already exists." They said that allegiance to the King had been dissolved by his assent to the last act of Parliament, "it being a certain position in law, that allegiance and protection are reciprocal, the one ceasing when the other is withdrawn."⁹ The reciprocity argument also appears in Rhode Island's act of May 4 and in the Declaration itself, and it reached Congress by more than one road. Lesson 4 sets out the arguments of both sides at greater length, together with the votes by colony.

The compromise was a delay of three weeks and a committee to write a declaration meanwhile. Jefferson summarizes the reason in the sentence quoted above: six colonies, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina, "were not yet matured," and "it was thought most prudent to wait a while for them."⁹ The delay was meant to let delegations in those colonies obtain instructions, and Ford's note to the Journal says so in its own words.¹¹

Two secondary accounts of this step contain errors that a careful reader should not repeat. The National Archives history says that "On June 11 consideration of the Lee Resolution was postponed by a vote of seven colonies to five, with New York abstaining" and that "Congress then recessed for 3 weeks."¹⁴ The Journal dates the postponement to June 10, records no vote count, and shows Congress meeting on fourteen separate days between June 12 and June 28.¹¹¹⁵ A companion Archives article says a "twenty-day recess was called."¹² Neither statement matches the printed Journal. The count of seven to five may come from a source this lesson did not find. Until someone produces it, the safe wording is that the Journal records a postponement without a tally.

The Committee of Five, June 11

On Tuesday, June 11, the Journal records the decision that made the Declaration. Between entries about letters from General Washington, a payment to an Indian interpreter, and orders to march regiments to New York, it says: "Resolved, That the committee, to prepare the declaration, consist of five members: The members chosen, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. J. Adams, Mr. Franklin, Mr. Sherman, and Mr. R. R. Livingston."¹⁶ The Journal does not say how the five were chosen or how many votes each received.

The five came from five colonies. Jefferson represented Virginia, Adams Massachusetts, Franklin Pennsylvania, Sherman Connecticut and Livingston New York, according to the National Archives, which describes the committee as "two New England men," "two men from the Middle Colonies" and "one southerner."¹⁴ The Journal itself gives only the names. The Library of Congress says that Congress "appointed" them on June 11 and that "The committee then delegated Thomas Jefferson to undertake the task."¹⁷

The explanation of the choice comes from Adams. In his 1822 letter to Timothy Pickering he said that Jefferson was placed at the head of the committee because of "the Frankfort advice, to place Virginia at the head of every thing," and he described the voting: "I think he had one more vote than any other, and that placed him at the head of the committee. I had the next highest number, and that placed me the second."¹⁸ That is a recollection from sixteen years after the fact, and the Journal does not confirm the vote count. Adams also said that Lee "might be gone to Virginia, to his sick family, for aught I know, but that was not the reason of Mr. Jefferson's appointment."¹⁸ The editor of Adams's Works wrote in 1850 that Lee "was called home on the tenth of June."¹⁹ The National Archives says Lee returned home "to help Virginia form its state government or to attend to his ailing wife or for both reasons, according to various historical accounts."¹² This lesson found no Journal entry recording the date of Lee's departure, so the date and the reason are both left as stated by these authors.

Adams's letter contains a statement the Journal contradicts. He said that "Mr. Lee was chosen for the Committee of Confederation, and it was not thought convenient that the same person should be upon both."¹⁸ The Journal's June 12 entry names the confederation committee, one member from each colony: Josiah Bartlett, Samuel Adams, Stephen Hopkins, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, John Dickinson, Thomas McKean, Thomas Stone, Thomas Nelson, Joseph Hewes, Edward Rutledge and Button Gwinnett, with the New Jersey line blank.¹⁶ Thomas Nelson, not Lee, is the Virginia member. A reader who knows this can see how a vivid recollection from 1822 drifts from the record of 1776 in its details while keeping the main outline.

The committee was also Congress's first answer to a second question, which was who would speak for the colonies in writing. The reconstruction of Jefferson's "original Rough draught" opens "A Declaration of the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled."²⁰ The closing paragraph the Congress adopted on July 4 begins "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled."³ Virginia's instruction had spoken of the "United Colonies," and the title in Jefferson's draft already used "States."

Three Committees in Two Days

The declaration committee was one of three. On June 11 Congress resolved "That a committee be appointed to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be entered into between these colonies" and "That a committee be appointed to prepare a plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers."¹⁶ The next day, June 12, it named the members. The confederation committee had one member from each colony, listed above. The treaties committee had five: John Dickinson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Benjamin Harrison and Robert Morris.¹⁶ These two committees correspond to the second and third of Lee's resolutions.

The membership has a pattern. Franklin and Adams sat on both the declaration and the treaties committees, and Sherman and Robert R. Livingston sat on both the declaration and the confederation committees, as the Journal shows by the names.¹⁶ Dickinson, who opposed an immediate declaration, sat on the confederation and treaties committees and not on the committee that drafted the Declaration. The Journal does not give reasons for any of these choices.

Adams described the treaties committee in his Autobiography and says he drew up the plan, arguing "that we should avoid all alliance which might embarrass us in after times, and involve us in future European wars."²¹ Jefferson's Autobiography also mentions the three committees: "Committees were also appointed, at the same time, to prepare a plan of confederation for the colonies, and to state the terms proper to be proposed for foreign alliance."²² On June 28, the same day the Declaration committee reported, Congress added Francis Hopkinson of New Jersey to the confederation committee, as the Journal shows.¹⁵ New Jersey's delegates had been elected on June 21, and the credentials Hopkinson presented that day empowered them to join in "declaring the United Colonies independent of Great Britain, entering into a Confederacy for Union and common Defence, making Treaties with foreign Nations for Commerce and Assistance."¹⁵

June 12 to 27: Jefferson Drafts

The Library of Congress timeline gives "June 12-27" as the period in which "At the request of the committee, Jefferson drafts a declaration that is the basic text of his 'original Rough draught.'"²³ Little is known about where or how Jefferson worked on it day to day. What survives is the documents, and the Library of Congress describes them in stages. The first is a fragment of the "earliest known draft," a composition draft that Jefferson wrote "on the top half of sheets of paper thus allowing space for notes." None of the deleted words in the fragment appear in the later draft, but "all of the undeleted 148 words including those carreted and interlined were copied into the 'original Rough draught' in a clear form."²⁴

The second stage is a clean or "fair" copy, which Jefferson labeled the "original Rough draught." The Library of Congress says that "Revised first by Adams, then by Franklin, and then by the full committee, a total of forty-seven alterations including the insertion of three complete paragraphs was made on the text before it was presented to Congress on June 28." The Library adds that after the vote for independence Congress made "thirty-nine additional revisions" before adoption on the morning of July 4.¹⁷ Lesson 3 sets these changes out in detail. For this lesson, the point is the sequence: composition draft, fair copy, readings by Adams and Franklin, committee report on June 28. Jefferson's later letter, quoted by the Archives, describes the same sequence: "I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections," and then "I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress."¹⁴

On Friday, June 28 the Journal records the report in a single line, among entries about claims for lumber and the credentials of New Jersey's new delegates: "The committee appointed to prepare a declaration, &c. brought in a draught, which was read: Ordered, To lie on the table."¹⁵ The text of the draft is printed after that entry in Ford's edition, with an editorial note that the "first draft" he prints comes from a manuscript in Adams's hand and the "second draft" from the manuscript in the Department of State.¹⁵ Jefferson's Autobiography gives the same date: "I reported it to the House on Friday, the 28th of June, when it was read, and ordered to lie on the table."²²

The delay from June 28 to July 1 was a weekend and a Monday. Congress had set July 1 for the question of independence itself, and it took up the Declaration only after that question was decided. The sequence of those three days is the subject of Lesson 4.

Who Wrote What: Three Accounts That Disagree

The accounts of the committee's work come from Jefferson and Adams, written 40 or more years later, and they differ on specific points. The differences are worth setting out one by one, because later writers have repeated both versions as fact.

Jefferson's 1821 Autobiography says: "The committee for drawing the Declaration of Independence, desired me to do it. It was accordingly done, and being approved by them, I reported it to the House on Friday, the 28th of June."²² In his 1823 letter, quoted by the Archives, he adds that the committee "unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught" and that he sent his draft separately to Franklin and Adams before reporting it.¹⁴ On this account there was one drafter, two private readers and a committee that approved.

Adams's earlier Autobiography says: "The committee had several meetings, in which were proposed the articles of which the declaration was to consist, and minutes made of them. The committee then appointed Mr. Jefferson and me to draw them up in form." The sub-committee met, and Jefferson "desired me to take them to my lodgings, and make the draught." Adams declined and "gave several reasons for declining." Among them were that Jefferson was "a Virginian, and I a Massachusettensian" and that he had "a great opinion of the elegance of his pen, and none at all of my own."²¹ On this account there was a committee discussion, a two-man sub-committee, and a drafter chosen by his colleague.

Adams's 1822 letter to Pickering tells the same story with a famous dialogue. Jefferson proposes that Adams make the draft; Adams says "I will not." Jefferson asks "Why?" and Adams gives three reasons: "You are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business"; "I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise"; and "You can write ten times better than I can." Jefferson replies, "if you are decided, I will do as well as I can."¹⁸ The letter has three reasons, and the Autobiography passage written earlier has four, a difference that shows how the same memory shifted between tellings.²¹¹⁸

The editor of Adams's Works addressed the conflict in 1850. He noted that Jefferson in 1823 wrote to Madison denying Adams's account, "particularly in the matter of the sub-committee," and "attributing the error to the failing memory of eighty-eight." The editor pointed out that Adams had made almost the same statement in his Autobiography "nearly twenty years earlier," so the discrepancy could not be put down to age alone. He also observed that Jefferson "disclaims all reliance upon his recollection, and appeals to the unequivocal authority of his notes, made at the time," and that the notes then published "present no evidence, excepting that which may be implied by their affirming nothing in corroboration." He concluded that "The question, in itself, does not rise beyond the character of a curiosity of literature, as the substantial facts in both accounts are the same."²⁵

That last sentence is a fair summary. On the central facts the two men agree: Jefferson drafted the Declaration, Adams and Franklin read it before the committee reported, and Congress cut and changed it. They disagree on whether a sub-committee of two met, on how the choice of Jefferson was made, and on how much the readers changed. They also disagree about the number of changes, as Lesson 3 shows. Carl Becker's study of the Declaration, as summarized by the Online Library of Liberty, quotes Jefferson's 1823 letter to Madison as saying the alterations by Franklin and Adams "were two or three only, and merely verbal," and counts "five" corrections in Franklin's hand and "two" in Adams's on the rough draft, calling Jefferson's statement inaccurate.²⁶ The Library of Congress counts 47 alterations in all before the June 28 report.¹⁷ This lesson treats every one of these later accounts as testimony to be weighed against the documents. Where a document exists, the document controls.

One further point concerns authorship in a wider sense. Adams wrote in 1822 that "there is not an idea in it but what had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before," and that "The substance of it is contained in the declaration of rights and the violation of those rights, in the Journals of Congress, in 1774."¹⁸ Jefferson in 1825 said the Declaration aimed "Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of."²⁷ The two men, who disagreed on process, agreed on this. The Declaration's authorship in the sense of who wrote the sentences is Jefferson's, with changes by Adams, Franklin, the committee and Congress. Its authorship in the sense of where the ideas came from is a longer story, and the First Continental Congress's resolves of 1774, discussed in Lesson 1, are a documented part of it.

Secrecy and the Missing Record

The Continental Congress met behind closed doors, and its published Journal was edited. That fact limits what can be said about June 1776. The Library of Congress says Jefferson drafted the Declaration "behind a veil of Congressionally imposed secrecy."¹⁷ The Journal for June 7 omits the names of mover and seconder, and Adams in his Autobiography explained the omission as a matter of the personal feelings of the men who kept the record.¹³ The Journal for June 10 gives no vote on the postponement. The Journal for July 1 records only that the committee of the whole agreed to the resolution and that "the determination thereof was postponed, at the request of a colony, till to morrow," with no tallies by colony, and the tallies of July 1 and 2 come from later accounts by Jefferson, Adams, McKean and others.²⁸ Lesson 4 sets out the sources for each count.

Idaho's constitution takes the opposite position. Article III, section 12 says "The business of each house, and of the committee of the whole shall be transacted openly and not in secret session," and section 13 says each house "shall keep a journal of its proceedings; and the yeas and nays of the members of either house on any question shall at the request of any three members present, be entered on the journal."²⁹³⁰ The comparison is worth a moment. A researcher who tries to reconstruct a vote in Congress in 1776 must rely on letters and memoirs written decades afterward, and a researcher who wants the vote of the Idaho Senate on a bill can read the journal.

Key Documents

The documents below are listed in date order. The later recollections are marked as such: they were written 40 or more years after the events.

Why This Matters to Idaho Officials and Voters

The record in this lesson was kept in secret, and the loss shows in what historians can say. The Journal omits who moved the resolution, omits vote counts for the postponement, and leaves the choice of the committee unexplained.¹⁰¹¹¹⁶ Idaho's constitution requires the opposite practice. Article III, section 12 bars secret sessions of either house and of the committee of the whole, and section 13 requires a journal in which any three members can have the yeas and nays entered.²⁹³⁰

An Idaho legislator, a county commissioner or a city clerk who wonders why open records and recorded votes matter will find a historical answer here. A body that drafts a founding statement in private, as Congress did, leaves later generations to settle disputes about authorship from letters and memoirs. A body that keeps a recorded journal leaves the dispute shorter.

Using This in Reporting and Civic Life

A reporter facing two memoirs

Reporter Nia Okonkwo of an invented regional paper is writing a Fourth of July feature and wants a vivid story. A colleague suggests the line in which Adams says he told Jefferson, "You can write ten times better than I can." Nia checks. The line comes from Adams's 1822 letter to Pickering, written 46 years after the event, and Jefferson disputed Adams's account of a sub-committee the following year.¹⁸²⁵ She writes it as "Adams later recalled," names the letter and the date, and adds that Jefferson remembered the choice differently. She does not call it what Adams said in the room.

A teacher checking a textbook line

Teacher Carlos Vega of an invented high school finds a textbook sentence that says Congress voted seven to five on June 11 to postpone the Lee Resolution and then went home for three weeks. He opens the Journal volume and finds a postponement dated June 10, with no tally, and entries on fourteen different days between June 12 and June 28.¹¹¹⁵ He tells his class that the textbook and the National Archives page repeat a count he could not find in the Journal, and he assigns the Journal pages as the exercise.¹⁴

A county clerk explaining the record

County Clerk Brenda Hollis of an invented Idaho county is asked by a resident why the commissioners' minutes list how each commissioner voted. Brenda points to the history in this lesson. Congress in 1776 left no vote counts for several of its most important decisions, and historians still argue about them. She does not claim the commissioners are bound by the Idaho Constitution's rule for the Legislature, and she says that a recorded vote is a record future residents can check.³⁰

A voter reading a historical claim

Voter Tom Reyes hears at a town meeting that "Jefferson wrote the Declaration alone in seventeen days." He knows from this lesson that the committee was appointed on June 11 and reported on June 28, which is seventeen days, but that the drafting period given by the Library of Congress is June 12 to 27 and that Adams and Franklin made alterations before the report.¹⁶²³¹⁷ He tells the speaker that Jefferson wrote the first text and that others changed it.

Related Modules

• Declaration, Lesson 1: The Road to Independence: the documents of 1763 to 1776 that preceded the Lee motion.
• Declaration, Lesson 3: The Drafts: the composition fragment, the rough draft, the Adams and Franklin changes and Congress's cuts.
• Declaration, Lesson 4: The Debates Day by Day: the votes by colony, the absences and the changes of instruction.
• Declaration, Lesson 5: The Text, Clause by Clause: the sources behind each phrase.
• Declaration, Lesson 6: Colony Charters and the First State Constitutions: the governments Virginia and others began to write in May 1776.
• Declaration, Lesson 7: State Declarations of Rights: the Virginia committee of May 15, 1776 and its product.
• Articles of Confederation: the third of Lee's resolutions, the confederation plan.
• Module 2: Article I, Congress: how the constitutional Congress keeps a journal and records votes.

Sources & Further Reading

Primary Sources

• Avalon Project, Preamble and Resolution of the Virginia Convention, May 15, 1776
• Avalon Project, Journals of the Continental Congress, Lee's Resolution, June 7, 1776
• Avalon Project, Journals of the Continental Congress, June 8, 1776
• Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 4 (1906), Internet Archive
• Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 5 (1906), Internet Archive
• Project Gutenberg, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1 (Autobiography)
• Works of John Adams, vol. 2 (Autobiography and letter to Pickering), Internet Archive
• Works of John Adams, vol. 3 (Autobiography), Internet Archive
• NCpedia, The Halifax Resolves
• Idaho Constitution, art. III, sec. 12
• Idaho Constitution, art. III, sec. 13

Secondary Sources and Further Reading

• National Archives, The Declaration of Independence: A History
• National Archives, Prologue, Lee Resolution
• Library of Congress, Declaring Independence: Timeline
• Library of Congress, Declaring Independence: Essay
• Library of Congress, Declaring Independence: Exhibition
• Library of Congress, Jefferson's "original Rough draught" (Boyd reconstruction)

Footnotes

1. Preamble and Resolution of the Virginia Convention, May 15, 1776, Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/const02.asp (quoting Peter Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 6, p. 1523). The text includes both unanimous resolutions: the instruction to propose independence, with the proviso that "the power of forming Government for, and the regulations of the internal concerns of each Colony, be left to the respective Colonial Legislatures," and the appointment of a committee to prepare "a Declaration of Rights, and such a plan of Government as will be most likely to maintain peace and order in this Colony." It names 28 committee members, counted for this lesson.
2. Virginia Declaration of Rights, Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/virginia.asp. A note at the end of the page reads "Adopted unanimously June 12, 1776 Virginia Convention of Delegates drafted by Mr. George Mason."
3. Declaration of Independence, National Archives transcription, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript.
4. Worthington C. Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, vol. 4 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906), entry for May 27, 1776, https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin04unit. The Journal records that the delegates from North Carolina "laid before Congress certain instructions they have received from their convention" and that the delegates from Virginia did the same, and that the instructions "were read." It does not print their text.
5. The Halifax Resolves, April 12, 1776, NCpedia, https://www.ncpedia.org/history/usrevolution/halifax-resolves. The resolve empowers North Carolina's delegates "to concur with the other delegates of the other Colonies in declaring Independency, and forming foreign Alliances."
6. Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 4, entry for May 10, 1776, https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin04unit. The resolution recommends that "the respective assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs have been hitherto established," adopt "such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general," and appoints Adams, Edward Rutledge and Richard Henry Lee to prepare a preamble.
7. Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 4, entry for May 15, 1776, https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin04unit. The Journal prints the preamble and orders it published "with the resolution passed the 10th instant." Ford's note says the preamble was drawn up by John Adams, citing his Autobiography.
8. John Adams, Autobiography, in Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, vol. 3 (Boston, 1851), pp. 44-46, https://archive.org/details/worksofjohnadams0003char. Adams writes that the preamble committee asked him as chairman "to draw something very short," that Duane called the measure "a machine for the fabrication of independence," and that Adams answered, smiling, "I thought it was independence itself, but we must have it with more formality yet." This is Adams's later recollection, not part of the Journal.
9. Jefferson, Autobiography, Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45847, Jefferson's notes for "Friday, June 7, 1776." They state that "The delegates from Virginia moved, in obedience to instructions from their constituents," that the question went to a committee of the whole on June 8 and was debated that day and on Monday, June 10, and that "It appearing in the course of these debates, that the colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina were not yet matured for falling from the parent stem ... it was thought most prudent to wait a while for them, and to postpone the final decision to July 1st." Whether the notes were made in 1776 or written up later is not established in the text this lesson read.
10. Journals of the Continental Congress, entry for June 7, 1776, Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/contcong_06-07-76.asp. The entry records that "Certain resolutions respecting independency" were "moved and seconded," prints the three resolutions, and refers consideration "till to morrow morning." A note says Lee's own draft is in the Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 23, folio 11, and that it carries an endorsement recording the postponement.
11. Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, vol. 5 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906), entries for June 7, 8 and 10, 1776, https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin05unit. Ford's note to the June 7 entry says the postponement was meant to give delegates from colonies that had not yet authorized the step a chance "to consult their constituents," and that "The motion was seconded by John Adams." The entries for June 8 and 10 record the referral to a committee of the whole and the postponement of "the first resolution" to "this day, three weeks [July 1]." They record no vote counts.
12. National Archives, "Lee Resolution," Prologue, Winter 2002, https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/winter/lee-resolution-1776. The article says John Adams seconded the motion, that "on June 11, a twenty-day recess was called," and that Lee had returned home during the break "to help Virginia form its state government or to attend to his ailing wife or for both reasons, according to various historical accounts."
13. Adams, Autobiography, Works, vol. 3, pp. 44 to 45, https://archive.org/details/worksofjohnadams0003char. Adams writes that the resolutions and "the names of the gentlemen who moved and seconded them" were not entered in the Journal and says "Mr. Hancock was President, Mr. Harrison, chairman of the committee of the whole house, Mr. Thomson, the secretary, was cousin to Mr. Dickinson, and Mr. R. H. Lee and Mr. John Adams were no favorites of either." That is Adams's explanation, offered years later, and the Journal itself gives no reason.
14. National Archives, "The Declaration of Independence: A History," https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-history. The page quotes Jefferson in 1823 that the committee "unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections," and that he then "wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress." It also says consideration of the Lee Resolution was postponed on "June 11 ... by a vote of seven colonies to five, with New York abstaining," and that Congress "then recessed for 3 weeks." The Journal does not support those statements (see the text of this lesson).
15. Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 5, https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin05unit. Counted for this lesson from the printed entries: the volume has separate entries for June 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28, fourteen days in all. The June 28 entry records that "The committee appointed to prepare a declaration, &c. brought in a draught, which was read: Ordered, To lie on the table."
16. Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 5, entries for June 11 and 12, 1776, https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin05unit. The June 11 entry records that "the committee, to prepare the declaration, consist of five members: The members chosen, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. J. Adams, Mr. Franklin, Mr. Sherman, and Mr. R. R. Livingston," and orders committees on a confederation and on a plan of treaties. The June 12 entry names the confederation committee (one member from each colony, with New Jersey left blank) and the treaties committee (Dickinson, Franklin, J. Adams, Harrison and R. Morris).
17. Library of Congress, "Declaring Independence: Drafting the Documents," Essay, https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/declara3.html. The essay says Congress appointed the five on June 11, that "The committee then delegated Thomas Jefferson to undertake the task," that Jefferson made a clean copy labeled "original Rough draught," that "a total of forty-seven alterations including the insertion of three complete paragraphs was made on the text before it was presented to Congress on June 28," and that Congress made "thirty-nine additional revisions."
18. John Adams to Timothy Pickering, August 6, 1822, printed in Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, vol. 2, pp. 512-514, https://archive.org/details/worksjohnadams02adamrich (a long note to the Autobiography). Adams writes: "The committee met, discussed the subject, and then appointed Mr. Jefferson and me to make the draught, I suppose because we were the two first on the list. The sub-committee met. Jefferson proposed to me to make the draught. I said, 'I will not.'" He gives three reasons, among them "You are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business" and "You can write ten times better than I can." He also says "Mr. Lee was chosen for the Committee of Confederation," and that "Congress cut off about a quarter of it."
19. Charles Francis Adams, editor's narrative, Works of John Adams, vol. 3, pp. 56-57, https://archive.org/details/worksofjohnadams0003char. The editor says Lee "was called home on the tenth of June" and that his exertions "were suspended, three days after the presentation of his resolution, by his departure for Virginia." This is a nineteenth-century editor's statement; this lesson found no entry in the Journal recording Lee's departure.
20. Library of Congress, Jefferson's "original Rough draught" (Julian Boyd's reconstruction of the text before revision), https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html. The reconstructed text opens "A Declaration of the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled."
21. John Adams, Autobiography, in Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, vol. 2 (Boston, 1850), pp. 512-515, https://archive.org/details/worksjohnadams02adamrich. Adams writes that "The committee had several meetings, in which were proposed the articles of which the declaration was to consist, and minutes made of them," that "The committee then appointed Mr. Jefferson and me to draw them up in form," that Jefferson "desired me to take them to my lodgings, and make the draught," and that Adams declined for four reasons, among them "That he was a Virginian, and I a Massachusettensian" and "I had a great opinion of the elegance of his pen, and none at all of my own." He adds: "Whether I made or suggested any correction, I remember not."
22. Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1 (Washington edition), Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45847. The memoir begins "JANUARY 6, 1821." Jefferson writes that "a committee was appointed to prepare a Declaration of Independence. The committee were John Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, and myself," that "Committees were also appointed, at the same time, to prepare a plan of confederation ... and to state the terms proper to be proposed for foreign alliance," and that "The committee for drawing the Declaration of Independence, desired me to do it. It was accordingly done, and being approved by them, I reported it to the House on Friday, the 28th of June."
23. Library of Congress, "Declaring Independence: Drafting the Documents," Timeline, https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/declara2.html. The timeline gives June 11 for the appointment and "June 12-27" for the drafting period.
24. Library of Congress, "Declaring Independence: Drafting the Documents," Exhibition, https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/declara4.html. The page describes the surviving fragment of the earliest known composition draft, in which "all of the undeleted 148 words" were copied into the "original Rough draught," and says Jefferson wrote the composition draft "on the top half of sheets of paper thus allowing space for notes."
25. Charles Francis Adams, editor's note, Works of John Adams, vol. 2, pp. 514-515, https://archive.org/details/worksjohnadams02adamrich. The editor writes that Jefferson wrote to Madison in 1823 denying Adams's account "particularly in the matter of the sub-committee," attributing it to "the failing memory of eighty-eight," and that the Autobiography shows Adams had made almost the same statement "nearly twenty years earlier," so "if it be an error, it cannot be attributed merely to age." The editor adds that Adams's own copy of Jefferson's draft lacks Franklin's alterations and has "but one of the two suggested by himself."
26. Online Library of Liberty, "1776 Declaration of Independence: Various Drafts," summarizing Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas, https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1776-declaration-of-independence-various-drafts. The page reports that Jefferson's 1823 letter to Madison says the alterations were "two or three only, and merely verbal," that Becker calls this inaccurate, and that it counts "five corrections which Franklin wrote in" and "two corrections which Adams himself wrote into the Rough Draft." This lesson read a summary of Becker's book, not the book.
27. Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825, Teaching American History, https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-henry-lee/.
28. Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 5, entry for July 1, 1776, https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin05unit. The entry records that the committee of the whole "agreed to the resolution" and that "the determination thereof was postponed, at the request of a colony, till to morrow." It also records a resolution of the Maryland convention of June 28 recalling its instructions and authorizing its deputies to concur in declaring the colonies independent.
29. Idaho Constitution, art. III, sec. 12, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtIII/Sect12/: "The business of each house, and of the committee of the whole shall be transacted openly and not in secret session."
30. Idaho Constitution, art. III, sec. 13, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtIII/Sect13/: "Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings; and the yeas and nays of the members of either house on any question shall at the request of any three members present, be entered on the journal."