History of the United States Constitution. George Ticknor Curtis
like the ceaseless action of gravity, weighed on us by night and by day. Yet, on the same ground, we may ask what of these elevated thoughts was new, or can be affirmed never before to have entered the conceptions of man?
"Whether, also, the sentiment of Independence, and the reasons for declaring it, which make so great a portion of the instrument, had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before the 4th of July, 1776, or this dictum of Mr. Adams be another slip of memory, let history say. This, however, I will say for Mr. Adams, that he supported the Declaration with zeal and ability, fighting fearlessly for every word of it. As to myself, I thought it a duty to be, on that occasion, a passive auditor of the opinions of others, more impartial judges than I could be of its merits or demerits. During the debate I was sitting by Doctor Franklin, and he observed that I was writhing a little under the acrimonious criticisms on some of its parts; and it was on that occasion, that, by way of comfort, he told me the story of John Thomson, the hatter, and his new sign." (Jefferson's Works, IV. 376.)
The substantial point of difference in these two accounts of the same transaction, relates to the action of the committee in designating the person or persons who were to prepare the draft of a Declaration. Mr. Adams states that Mr. Jefferson and himself were appointed a sub-committee to prepare it; Mr. Jefferson states that he alone was directed by the committee to write the Declaration. This question is not important, since Mr. Adams's version does not in the least impair Mr. Jefferson's claim to the authorship of the instrument. The latter, it must be allowed, gracefully parries the criticisms of Mr. Adams, by a noble allusion to the eloquence which sustained his compatriots in the difficulties and embarrassments that surrounded them, and which they did not think of analyzing, for the purpose of tracing the exact originality of its sentiments.
It is proper to add, that Mr. Jefferson's account is confirmed by the original manuscript draft of the Declaration, a fac-simile of which was published in 1829, in the fourth volume of his Works, exhibiting the corrections and interlineations made by Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams in their respective handwritings. These emendations were not important.
The reasons assigned by Mr. Adams for the selection of Mr. Jefferson as the writer of the Declaration are so numerous, that it is difficult to determine which of them he intended should be regarded as the principal or decisive one. In the autobiography, he states that there were more reasons than one why Mr. Jefferson was appointed on a committee of such importance. He assigns two reasons: one, Mr. Jefferson's reputation as a writer, and the other, the desire of his Virginia colleagues to have Mr. Jefferson supplant Mr. Richard Henry Lee. In his letter to Mr. Pickering, Mr. Adams gives as the reason why Mr. Jefferson was placed at the head of the committee, that it was "the Frankfort advice to place Virginia at the head of every thing"; but he also adds, that Mr. Jefferson brought with him to Congress "a reputation for literature, science, and a happy talent of composition," and that this reputation had then been sustained by writings "remarkable for their peculiar felicity of expression." As in the case of Washington, therefore, it would seem that there were reasons of eminent fitness and qualification for the duty assigned; and certainly the Declaration of Independence itself fully justifies the selection. Few state papers have ever been written with more skill, or greater adaptation to the purposes in view. Whether its sentiments were purely original with its author, or were gathered from the political philosophy which had become familiar to the American mind, through the great discussions of the time, it must for ever remain an imperishable monument of his power of expression, and his ability to touch the passions, as well as to address the reason, of mankind. It would be inappropriate to apply to its style the canons of modern criticism. Its statements of political truth, taken in the sense in which they were manifestly intended, can never be successfully assailed. With regard to the passage concerning slavery, we may well conceive that both Northern and Southern men might have felt the injustice of the terrible denunciation with which he charged upon the King all the horrors, crimes, and consequences of the African slave-trade, and in which he accused him of exciting the slaves to insurrection, and "to purchase the liberty of which he had deprived them by murdering the people upon whom he had obtruded them." Mr. Jefferson, in drawing up the list of our national accusations against the King, obviously intended to refer to him as the representative of the public policy and acts of the mother country; and it is true that the imperial government was, and must always remain, responsible for the existence of slavery in the colonies. But this was not one of the grievances to be redressed by the Revolution; it did not constitute one of the reasons for aiming at independence; and there was no sufficient ground for the accusation that the government of Great Britain had knowingly sought to excite general insurrections among the slaves. The rejection of this passage from the Declaration shows that the Congress did not consider this charge to be as tenable as all their other complaints certainly were.
CHAPTER IV.
July, 1776—November, 1777.
Consequences of the Declaration of Independence.—Reorganization of the Continental Army.—Flight of the Congress from Philadelphia.—Plan of the Confederation proposed.
When the Declaration of Independence at length came, it did not in any way change the form of the revolutionary government. It created no institution, and erected no civil machinery. Its political effect has already been described. Its moral effect, both upon the members of the Congress and upon the country, was very great, inasmuch as it put an end alike to the hope and the possibility of a settlement of the controversy upon the principles of the English Constitution, for it made the colonies free, sovereign, and independent states. Men who had voted for such a measure, and who had put their signatures to an instrument which the British Parliament or the Court of King's Bench could have had no difficulty in punishing as treasonable, could no longer continue to feed themselves on "the dainty food of reconciliation."103 Thenceforward, there was no retreat. The colonies might be conquered, overrun, and enslaved; but this, or the full and final establishment of their own sovereignty, were the sole alternatives. The consequence was, that the Declaration was followed by a greater alacrity on the part of the whole body of the Congress to adopt vigorous and decisive measures, than had before prevailed among them.
But there was one feeling which the Declaration did not dispel, and another to which it immediately gave rise, both of which were unfavorable to concentrated, vigorous, and effective action on the part of the revolutionary government. The Declaration of Independence did not dissipate the unreasonable and ill-timed jealousy of standing armies, which gave way, at last, only when the country was in such imminent peril that Washington felt it to be his duty to ask for extraordinary powers, to be conferred upon himself. It was followed, too, as an immediate consequence, by that jealousy with regard to State rights, and that adhesion to State interests, which have existed in our system from that day to the present, and are not entirely separable from it. As the Declaration made the colonies sovereign and independent, and was followed by the formation of State governments, before the creation of any well-defined national system, State sovereignty became at once an ever-present cause of embarrassment to the Congress, in whose proceedings entire delegations sometimes made the interests of the country bend to the interests of their own State, to a mischievous extent.
To explain these observations, we must recur again to the history of the army, and to the efforts of Washington to have the military establishment put into a safe and efficient condition.
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After the evacuation of Boston by the British forces, General Washington proceeded, at once, with the continental army to the city of New York, where he arrived on the 13th of April, 1776. The loss of the battle of Long Island on the 27th of August, and the extreme improbability of his being able to hold the city against the superior forces by which it had been invested through the entire summer, made it necessary for him to appeal once more to the Congress for the organization of a permanent army, capable of offering effectual resistance to the enemy. The establishment formed at Cambridge in the autumn previous was to continue for one year only; it was about to be dissolved; and in the month of September General Washington was compelled to abandon the city of New York to the enemy. Before he withdrew from it, he addressed a letter