Americans were mad about “taxation without representation” in 1776, so they declared their independence, then started the American Revolution, right?
Well, no. The sequence of events leading to American independence was much more complicated. John Ferling tells the story well in the book Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free. Those who haven’t studied the subject outside the context of brief school textbook essays might not remember that the declaration arrived more than a year after the war started and more than a decade after Americans started agitating about taxation from the British Parliament. Ferling spends much of his time discussing how the war itself pushed more Americans toward support for independence.
You’ll also learn that Thomas Jefferson’s declaration was more a product of committee work than you might realize. Jefferson certainly drafted the document, but his Continental Congress colleagues were not willing to leave it untouched.
The bulk of the sessions on July 2, 3, and 4 — probably ten hours or more altogether — were devoted to scrutiny of Jefferson’s draft. It is likely that Congress had ordered the draft document to be printed. If so, the delegates were able to read in advance what the Committee of Five had submitted and could follow the dissection of the draft line by line as the editing proceeded.
That Congress devoted so much time to editing and revising the Declaration of Independence is an indication of just how important it understood this document to be. Fancifully, some congressmen thought the Declaration would somehow motivate America’s friends in Great Britain to bring down the war ministry and make peace. Others, no less optimistic, believed that a document that rang with the passionate rhetoric of freedom might inspire the most-enlightened Europeans, perhaps quickening support for America’s cause. But every member of Congress knew that the Declaration’s primary audience resided in America. Its task was to proclaim for Americans the credo of the new nation, stating what the yet-to-be created government stood for and against. Inescapably, too, Congress hoped that the declaration would sustain Americans through what was certain to be the fiery trial of war that lay ahead. They wanted a ringing statement that would with crystal clarity lay bare for every American the reasons why the war was being fought.
The congressmen who pored over Jefferson’s draft were keen, unsparing editors. They altered nearly half of the introductory paragraph, though the changes were only stylistic, and they made a handful of similar modifications to the second and best-remembered paragraph. For instance, “We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable” became “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” These congressmen-editors wished both to find just the right phrases and to strike out all unnecessary words. …
… Jefferson’s draft was improved by Congress’s attention. Congress made the Declaration of Independence a leaner document, one that was more forceful and, in its brevity, more likely to be read. Altogether, Congress pruned the draft by nearly a third.
