By the summer of 1776, the American colonies had reached a point of no return. More than a year had passed since the battles of Lexington and Concord ignited armed conflict with Great Britain. British troops had occupied Boston, King George III had declared the colonies to be in open rebellion, and hopes for reconciliation were rapidly fading.

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In January 1776, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense transformed public opinion by arguing that independence was both practical and morally necessary. By June, several colonial governments had instructed their delegates to support independence. On June 7, Richard Henry Lee introduced his famous resolution declaring that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”

Congress recognized that independence required more than a vote. The world needed an explanation, and future generations needed a statement of the principles upon which the new nation would be founded. On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to prepare that declaration.

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The Committee of Five

The Committee of Five consisted of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert R. Livingston of New York.

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John Adams later explained why Jefferson was selected to write the first draft. Jefferson possessed, in Adams’s words, “a happy talent of composition.” He wrote with uncommon clarity, elegance, and precision. As a Virginian, he also represented the South, giving the document broader acceptance throughout the colonies.

Working in rented rooms on Market Street in Philadelphia, the thirty-three-year-old Jefferson spent nearly two weeks crafting what would become one of the most influential political documents in history.

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Every Word Carefully Chosen

Jefferson did not write casually. Drawing upon English common law, colonial declarations, the writings of John Locke, and the natural rights tradition, he carefully selected language that would express timeless truths rather than temporary political grievances.

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His greatest achievement was not inventing new ideas but expressing familiar principles with extraordinary power.

He declared that “all men are created equal” and are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” By grounding rights in the Creator rather than government, Jefferson affirmed that liberty is God’s gift, not a privilege granted by kings or legislatures. Governments exist not to create rights but to protect those already possessed by every person.

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After Jefferson completed his draft, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin suggested only modest revisions. Franklin’s most famous change replaced Jefferson’s phrase “sacred and undeniable” with the now-famous words “self-evident.” The Committee of Five approved the revised draft and submitted it to Congress on June 28, 1776.

Jefferson’s Original Condemnation of the Slave Trade

One of the most significant portions of Jefferson’s original draft never appeared in the final Declaration. In a lengthy indictment of King George III, Jefferson condemned the transatlantic slave trade in some of the strongest language written by any American leader during the Revolutionary era.

The deleted passage deserves to be read in Jefferson’s own words:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce; and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

Jefferson argued that the Crown had repeatedly prevented colonial legislatures from restricting or ending the importation of enslaved Africans. Several colonies, including Virginia, had attempted to limit the trade, only to have their laws vetoed by royal authority. (This meant that even those who wanted to free their slaves could not.)

Why Congress Removed It

The Committee of Five did not delete Jefferson’s anti-slavery passage. After only minor editorial changes by Adams and Franklin, the draft went before the full Continental Congress.

During debates between July 1 and July 4, delegates from South Carolina and Georgia strongly objected to the language because their economies depended heavily upon the continued importation of enslaved laborers. Some northern delegates also represented commercial interests that had profited from the slave trade and were unwilling to condemn practices connected to their own regions.

To preserve the fragile unity needed to declare independence, Congress removed the entire passage.

Jefferson later expressed disappointment over the deletion, but the delegates believed unanimous support for independence was essential. They chose national unity over language that might have divided the colonies before the Revolution had even been won.

Congress Strengthens the Declaration

Between July 1 and July 4, Congress debated Jefferson’s draft line by line, making approximately eighty-six changes. Roughly one-fourth of his original wording was revised or deleted. Most edits simplified sentences, softened rhetoric, or clarified meaning.

Although Jefferson disliked many of the revisions, Congress preserved every foundational principle. The Declaration continued to proclaim that rights come from the Creator, governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and the people retain the right to alter or abolish governments that become destructive of those rights.

Those principles formed the enduring heart of the document.

Adoption and Signing

On July 2, 1776, Congress approved Richard Henry Lee’s resolution, declaring the colonies independent. John Adams believed Americans would forever celebrate July 2 as the nation’s great anniversary.

Instead, history remembers July 4—the day Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence.

Most delegates signed the engrossed parchment on August 2, although several added their signatures later. By signing, they knowingly committed what Britain considered high treason, punishable by death. They pledged to one another “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor,” fully aware of the risks they were accepting.

A Legacy That Changed the World

The Declaration of Independence did far more than announce America’s separation from Great Britain. It proclaimed universal principles that have inspired movements for liberty around the world for nearly 250 years.

Jefferson’s remarkable prose, Franklin’s wisdom, Adams’s counsel, the Committee of Five’s review, and Congress’s careful revisions combined to produce one of history’s greatest statements of human freedom.

Although written by imperfect men, the Declaration’s central truths have endured: that our rights come from the Creator; that governments exist by the consent of the governed; and that liberty is worth defending, even at the greatest personal cost. Those principles remain the foundation of the American experiment and one of the nation’s greatest gifts to the world.

Craig Seibert is the director of www.UnitedStates250.org, www.DeclarationOfIndependence250.org, and www.ChristianCivicsTraining.org, where you will find an abundance of free resources, as well as two recent books: God’s Providence in the Affairs of Men and Nations and Documents of Freedom: The American Way of Life and Liberty Craig serves as a Coach Mentor for www.PatriotAcademy.com, and www.ServeGodDefendLiberty.com. Learn more about free Patriot Academy Courses here Rebuilding Liberty.

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