Years later, Thomas Jefferson said he consulted “neither book nor pamphlet” while working on the Declaration of Independence. He had no desire to find “new principles or new arguments never before thought of.” His purpose was to “place before mankind the common sense of the subject in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent.” He did not aim for “originality of principle or sentiment.” The declaration “was intended to be an expression of the American mind and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.”

Other, more personal emotions were fermenting in Jefferson’s mind. One was the lurking sense that he was risking, perhaps even sacrificing, his beloved Martha to this cause. “Every letter brings me such an account of her health, that it is with great pain I can stay here,” he wrote to John Page. A more immediate worry was the rumor that he was being downgraded by Virginia politicians because his distaste for violent political conflict inclined him to be friendly to men on both sides of the debate.

He wrote to his friend Will Fleming: “It is a painful situation to be 300 miles from one’s country and thereby open to assassination without a possibility of self-defense. I am willing to hope nothing of this kind has been done in my case, and yet I cannot be easy. If any doubt has arisen as to me, my country will have my political creed in the form of a declaration, which I was lately directed to draw.” Along with his intention to express the “American mind,” Jefferson poured deep personal anguish and burning personal conviction into the declaration.

Had we not known his feelings, the emotion would still be visible in the dramatic cadences of the declaration itself. The rhythms of the opening paragraph throb with a deeper, richer timbre than anything else Jefferson ever wrote: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth a separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

How hard he worked in the first days of the declaration’s composition came to light in 1943. A fragment of an early draft was found, and it showed that no less than forty-three of the 156 words were additions or substitutions. In the text that, for almost two centuries, was considered the rough draft, all these corrections appear intact. For Jefferson, the rough draft was almost the final copy, yet he continued to polish it.

In the second paragraph he first wrote, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable.” How much better is his final effort? It reads: “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.”

What were these rights? Jefferson summed them up in words that are forever linked with his name: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Almost as famous are the next words: “That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” That idea was not new; he had not, as he said, aimed at originality of principle or sentiment, but never has there been a more compact or memorable statement of it. Next, he distilled and purified a great principle enunciated by earlier writers, such as his fellow Virginian, George Mason: “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

This magnificent statement of the rights of humankind lies at the heart of the declaration’s immortality. But to Jefferson and his audience, by far the most important part was the indictment of George III for creating the crisis:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance. . . .

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone. . . .

Nineteen times Jefferson repeated “He has” until the phrase became a bell tolling the death of American affection for George III. But the final item in this grim bill of particulars tells us more about Jefferson personally than about the king or Parliament: “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and 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 and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase the 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.”

Thus, Jefferson declared to the world his loathing of slavery.

Jefferson turned to another question that loomed large in the minds of his fellow Americans - their relation with the British people. Jefferson boldly denounced them for supporting Parliament and the king in making war on America. “We might have been a free and a great people together, but a communication of grandeur and of freedom, it seems, is below their dignity.” Finally, Jefferson declared “these colonies to be free and independent states,” ending with the third of his immortal phrases, pledging “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

Jefferson showed a rough draft of the declaration to John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. They suggested a few changes and one or two minor additions. Benjamin Franklin made a few small changes, too. Some scholars think Franklin changed “sacred and undeniable” to “self-evident” in the opening sentences.

Jefferson made what he called a “fair copy” of the declaration and submitted it to Congress on June 28, 1776. It was allowed to “lie on the table” for other members to read, but there was no debate or discussion of it for the next two days. July 1 was the fateful day on which Congress was to reconsider Richard Henry Lee’s resolution for independence. Then they would decide whether Jefferson’s declaration was to be published or consigned to oblivion.

The delegates gathered in the hot, muggy State House. Horseflies buzzed through the open windows, biting through the stockings of the perspiring delegates. The leader of the anti-independence men, John Dickinson, ignored the heat and the flies. Tall and thin, dressed in a plum-colored coat and breeches, he asked for the right to speak first. The survival of the nation was at stake, he told the delegates. To abandon the protection of Great Britain by declaring independence now, he cried, “would be like destroying a house in winter and exposing a growing family before we have got another shelter.”

In one of the greatest speeches of his career, John Adams rose to answer Dickinson. In later years, Jefferson said Adams’ words had “a power of thought and expression that moved us from our seats.” While he spoke, nature added her own drama: a thunderstorm swept down on Philadelphia. As lightning streaked the gloomy sky and delegates lit candles to illuminate the darkened State House, Adams outshouted the thunder.

Benjamin Harrison called for a vote. The four New England states and Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia voted for independence. Delaware canceled itself out - one delegate for, the other against the momentous decision. Two crucial colonies, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, voted a blunt “no.” New York abstained; the state’s Assembly had given them specific instructions against voting for independence and had yet to change them.

The independence men were staggered. Four states, almost a third of the thirteen colonies, were against the idea. Instead of unifying America, the declaration might become the issue that divided and destroyed the nation’s fragile unity.

Fortunately, the vote was not official. It had been taken in “the committee of the whole,” a parliamentary device that enabled Congress to sit and discuss problems informally, without official notes being taken or votes recorded. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina suggested they postpone an official vote until the following day. The men for independence instantly accepted this opportunity to escape disaster.

A night of frantic negotiation began. An express rider galloped to Delaware to summon Caesar Rodney, who had gone home to attend to business. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina was lectured on the dangers of disunity. John Dickinson was told that a majority of his fellow Pennsylvanians no longer shared his stand. Pro-independence men, having won a heavy majority in recent local elections, were now rewriting Pennsylvania’s constitution.

The morning of July 2 the tense delegates reassembled. Stalling desperately, the body’s president, John Hancock, dealt with an assortment of minor matters. Around noon, when Hancock could delay no longer, he called for an official vote. Edward Rutledge announced that he had changed his mind “for the sake of unanimity.” John Dickinson and his friend Robert Morris stayed home, giving Pennsylvania a three-to-two majority in favor of independence. As the delegates were polled, Caesar Rodney, splattered with mud and drenched from an all-night ride through pelting rain, leaped from his horse in front of the State House and stumbled to his seat to bring Delaware into the independence column.

The historic vote was unanimous, except for New York. Its delegates still abstained, but they assured Congress that new instructions would soon permit them to join the other twelve states. John Adams wrote his wife Abigail: “The 2nd day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.”

No one recorded Adams’ great speech, but Thomas Jefferson’s declaration, which Congress now undertook to consider in detail, would be published and republished around the world. That is why July 4, when the declaration was approved, and not July 2, when independence was voted, became America’s Independence Day.

Although Jefferson rejoiced at the vote for independence, he did not enjoy the next two days. The declaration was scrutinized line by line and word by word. To Jefferson’s mortification, whole paragraphs were ripped out. First to go was the criticism of the English people. The congressmen felt it would alienate the many friends America still had in Great Britain.

Next, from north as well as south, came objections to the paragraph Jefferson felt was among the most important in the document - his ferocious attack on slavery. Delegates from Georgia and South Carolina angrily defended their right to own slaves. The northerners, whose ships carried the slaves from Africa, were also hesitant to attack the institution. But the chief reason for removing the passage was the desperate need for unity in the face of Britain’s imperial power. If even one or two states withdrew from the union, the Revolution would begin to crumble.

Jefferson called these changes “mutilations.” Certainly, the loss of the slavery clause justified that word. But in many other ways, Congress improved his declaration by making it a leaner, more forceful document.