Authors: John Ferling
37
. Clark to Elias Dayton, July 4, 1776,
LDC
4:379.
CHAPTER 14: “THIS WILL CEMENT THE UNION”: AMERICA IS SET FREE
1
. JA wrote two letters to his wife on this day. See JA to AA, July 3, 1776,
AFC
2:27–28, 30.
2
.
JCC
5:510.
3
.
Am Archives
4th series, 6:1728, 1731–32.
4
. GW to Hancock, July 3, 1776,
PGWR
5:191, 193.
5
. Pauline Maier,
American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
(New York, 1997), 144.
6
. Maier,
American Scripture
, 145–46.
7
. TJ, Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress, [June 7–August 1, 1776],
PTJ
1:314–15. TJ did not specify the Rhode Islanders as among those who wished to strike the section on African slavery, though he wrote in his notes that “our Northern brethren also … felt a little tender … for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”
8
. This section on Congress’s editing of the draft declaration draws on Maier,
American Scripture
, 143–48, which in magnificent detail chronicles each and every alteration made by Congress.
9
. The best accounts concerning how Congress edited the draft document are Julian Boyd,
The Declaration of Independence: The Evolution of the Text as Shown in Facsimiles of Various Drafts by Its Author
(Washington, D.C., 1943); Carl Becker,
The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas
(reprint, New York, 1960), 160–71; and Maier,
American Scripture
, 235–41.
10
. See Paul Leicester Ford, ed.,
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1892–99), 10:120n. BF made clear in his prefatory remarks that his parable was also intended to persuade TJ that any work of a “draughtsman … to be reviewed by a public body” would inevitably face rough sledding.
11
. TJ to Lee, July 8, 1776,
PTJ
1:456; Lee to TJ, July 21, 1776, ibid., 1:471.
12
. JA to Pickering, August 6, 1822, in
WJA
2:514n.
13
. TJ, Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress, [June 7–August 1, 1776],
PTJ
1:315;
LDC
4:381–82n.
14
. Rodney to Thomas Rodney, July 4, 1776,
LDC
4:388; ibid., 4:390n.
15
. Paine, Diary, July 4, 1776,
LDC
4:386; Paine to Joseph Palmer, July 6, 1776, ibid., 4:399; Ellery to Benjamin Ellery, July 10, 1776, ibid., 4:430; Gerry to Warren, July 5, 1776, ibid., 4:392; SA to Hawley, July 9, 1776, ibid., 4:416; JA to Mary Palmer, July 5, 1776,
AFC
2:34; JA to AA, July 3, 1776, ibid., 2:30.
EPILOGUE
1
. Pauline Maier,
American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
(New York, 1997), 153; David Hawke,
A Transaction of Free Men: The Birth and Course of the Declaration of Independence
(New York, 1964), 186.
2
. Hawke,
Transaction of Free Men
, 207–8; John Hazleton,
The Declaration of Independence: Its History
(New York, 1906), 242, 156–57; Gerry to Joseph Trumbull, July 8, 1776,
LDC
4:406; JA to Chase, July 9, 1776,
PJA
4:372.
3
. Silas Deane to C. W. F. Dumas, August 18, 1776,
Am Archives
5th series, 1:1021; Claude Crespigny to Ralph Izard, August 25, 1776, ibid., 1:1148; Hazleton,
Declaration of Independence
, 258–81.
4
. GW, General Orders, July 9, 1776,
PGWR
5:246; ibid., 5:247n; GW to Hancock, July 10, 1776, ibid., 5:258; Lt. Col. Thomas Seymour to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, July 11, 1776,
Am Archives
5th series, 1:205; Col. Thomas Hartley to Gen. Gates, ibid., 1:630.
5
. AA to JA, July 21, 1776,
AFC
2:56.
6
. Jay Fliegelman,
Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance
(Stanford, Calif., 1993), 4–28. The quotation can be found on page 10.
7
. Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg,
Madison and Jefferson
(New York, 2010), 36–39.
8
. Maier,
American Scripture
, 157–59;
Am Archives
5th series, 1:847.
9
. Hazleton,
Declaration of Independence
, 266–71, 561; Maier,
American Scripture
, 157; Stanley Weintraub,
Iron Tears: America’s Battle for Freedom, Britain’s Quagmire, 1775–1783
(New York, 2005), 70–71.
10
. Joseph Barton to Henry Wisner, July 9, 1776,
Am Archives
5th series, 1:139; Meshech Weare to President of Congress, July 16, 1776, ibid., 1:381; Col. Ogden to Aaron Burr, July 26, 1776, ibid., 1:603; GW, General Orders, July 9, 1776,
PGWR
5:246; AA to JA, July 21, 1776,
AFC
2:56.
11
. Action of the New York Provincial Convention, July 9, 1776, in Alexander C. Flick, ed.,
The American Revolution in New York
(reprint, Port Washington, N.Y., 1967), 325; N.Y. Convention to Congress, July 11, 1776,
Am Archives
5th series, 1:205; Bartlett to Langdon, July 15, 1776,
LDC
4:459.
12
.
JCC
5:590–91.
13
. Rush to JA, July 20, 1811, in John A. Schutz and Douglass Adair, eds.,
The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, 1805–1813
(San Marino, Calif., 1966), 183.
14
. JA to AA, July 15, 1776,
AFC
2:49; Gerry to Samuel and John Adams, July 21, 1776,
PJA
4:402.
15
. Hazleton,
Declaration of Independence
, 193–219.
16
.
LDC
3:xvi–xxii, 4:xv–xxi, 5:xvi–xxiii.
17
. The Howes’ appraisal is quoted in Weintraub,
Iron Tears
, 69.
18
. Lord Howe to GW, July 13, 1776,
PGWR
5:296, 296–97n; Gen. Howe to GW, July 16, 1776, ibid., 341–42, 342n; Memorandum of an Interview with Lieutenant Colonel James Paterson, July 20, 1776, ibid., 5:398–401, 401–3n.
19
. Lord Howe to BF, June 20[–July 12], 1776,
PBF
, 22:483–84; BF to Lord Howe, July 20, 1776, 22:519–21. Through BF and other sources, Congress had known for nearly three months that the Howe brothers had been named peace commissioners and were en route to America. See Hartley to BF, March 31, 1776, ibid., 22:396–97.
20
. Ira D. Gruber,
The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution
(New York, 1972), 117.
21
. JA to Warren, September 4, 1776,
PJA
5:12; JA to SA, September 14, 1776,
LDC
5:161; Gruber,
Howe Brothers and the American Revolution
, 117.
22
. JA to AA, September 6, 1776,
AFC
2:120–21.
23
. JA, Autobiography,
DAJA
3:419–20.
24
. Henry Strachey’s Notes on Lord Howe’s Meeting with a Committee of Congress, September 11, 1776,
LDC
5:137–42; JA to SA, September 14, 1776, ibid., 5:159–62.
25
. See John Ferling,
Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence
(New York, 2007), 468–545.
26
. Alan Valentine,
Lord North
(Norman, Okla., 1967), 1:509;
PH
19:762–67; Weldon A. Brown,
Empire or Independence: A Study in the Failure of Reconciliation, 1774–1783
(Baton Rouge, La., 1941), 225–26; Peter D. G. Thomas,
Lord North
(London, 1976), 116; Charles Ritcheson,
British Politics and the American Revolution
(Norman, Okla., 1954), 268–69.
27
. Valentine,
Lord North
, 2:274.
28
. George Athan Billias,
Elbridge Gerry: Founding Father and Republican Statesman
(New York, 1976), 70.
29
. See John Ferling,
A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic
(New York, 2003), 222, 238–41.
30
. Clinton Rossiter,
1787: The Grand Convention
(New York, 1966), 247.
31
. JA to Hezekiah Niles, January 14, February 13, 1818,
WJA
10:276, 282; JA to TJ, August 14, 1815, in Lestor J. Cappon, ed.,
The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1959), 2:455.
32
. JA to Mercy Otis Warren, July 20, 27, 1808, in
Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren
, Massachussetts Historical Society,
Collections
(Boston, 1917), 4:339–40, 355; JA to Skelton Jones, March 11, 1809,
WJA
9:611; JA to Tudor, September 18, 1818, ibid., 10:359; JA to TJ, August 24, 1815, in Cappon,
Adams-Jefferson Letters
, 2:455; JA to Benjamin Rush, August 23, 1805, May 21, 1807, in Schutz and Adair,
Spur of Fame
, 34–35, 88.
33
. JA to Rush, June 12, 1812, in Schutz and Adair,
Spur of Fame
, 225.
34
. JA to Benjamin Kent, June 22, 1776,
PJA
4:326. In 1818 JA told a publisher that the “accomplishment of it [a Declaration of Independence], in so short a time and by such simple means, was perhaps a singular example in the history of mankind. Thirteen clocks were made to strike together.” See JA to Niles, February 13, 1818,
WJA
10:283.
35
.
PH
18:1442.
36
. The King’s Speech at the Close of the Session, May 23, 1776,
PH
18:1365.
37
. Maier,
American Scripture
, 160–62.
38
. For TJ’s intent when drafting the Declaration of Independence, see Chapter 12.
39
. The “holy writ” and “sacred text” quotations can be found in Maier,
American Scripture
, 154, 175. This passage on the history of the Declaration of Independence draws on Maier, pages 154–208.
40
. L. H. Butterfield, “The Jubilee of Independence, July 4, 1826,”
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
61 (1953): 135–38; Merrill D. Peterson,
Adams and Jefferson: A Revolutionary Dialogue
(New York, 1976), 3; Andrew Burstein,
American Jubilee
(New York, 2001), 255–86; Daniel Webster, “Adams and Jefferson, August 2, 1826, in
The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster
(Boston, 1903), 1:324.