Creating the Declaration of Independence

Slavery: Antecedent Documents

Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776

In May 1776, Thomas Jefferson, a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, wrote at least three drafts of a Virginia constitution. Jefferson’s litany of British governmental abuses in his drafts of the Virginia Constitution became his "train of abuses" in the Declaration of Independence.

Author: Thomas Jefferson
Title: Draft Virginia Constitution
Medium: Manuscript
Date: May 1776
Collection: Thomas Jefferson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Draft Virginia Constitution
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A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1774

Thomas Jefferson’s A Summary View of the Rights of British America declared America’s right to rebel against an oppressive and despotic government and heralded the arrival of an independent America. Jefferson’s pamphlet was originally drafted as instruction for Virginia’s delegates to the Continental Congress in 1774.

Author: Thomas Jefferson
Title: A Summary View of the Rights of British America
City: Williamsburg:
Publisher: Clementina Rind
Date: 1774
Collection: Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress

A Summary View of the Rights of British America
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Fairfax County Resolves, 1774

The Fairfax County Resolves, written by George Mason (1725–1792) and George Washington (1731/32–1799) and presented on July 17, 1774, was the first clear statement of fundamental constitutional rights of the British American colonies as subjects of the British Crown. Adopted the next day by the Fairfax County Convention, which met to protest British retaliations against Massachusetts after the Boston Tea Party, the resolves call for a "firm Union" of the colonies because an injury against one colony is "aimed at all."

Author: George Mason and George Washington
Title: Fairfax County Resolves
Medium: Manuscript
Date: July 17, 1774
Collection: George Washington Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Fairfax County Resolves
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Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, 1764

The incongruity of arguing for their own freedom and liberty while enslaving others was openly discussed by American revolutionaries during the period leading up to the writing of the Declaration of Independence and beyond. In his most famous pamphlet, The Rights of British Colonists Asserted and Proved, James Otis (1725–1783) asserted that the slave trade is "the most shocking violation of the law of nature." He also stated that "It is a clear truth, that those who every day barter away other men’s liberty will soon care little for their own."

Author: James Otis
Title: Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved
City: Boston
Publisher: Edes and Gill
Date: 1764
Collection: Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress

Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved
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First Printed Version of the Declaration of Independence, 1776

Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and directed that it be printed by John Dunlap. This only surviving fragment of the Declaration broadside printed by Dunlap was sent on July 6, 1776, to George Washington by John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. General Washington had this Declaration read to his assembled troops on July 9 in New York, where they awaited the combined British fleet and army.

Author: Thomas Jefferson
Title: Declaration of Independence
City: Philadelphia
Publisher: John Dunlap
Date: July 4, 1776
Collection: George Washington Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

First Printed Version of the Declaration of Independence
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