He said, “It’s not an original thought, but it has always struck me as a dark bargain: Leave the clause in and the Declaration fails (though perhaps not independence itself; that was agreed to two days earlier), take it out and it succeeds but at the cost of a quarter of a millennium of kicking the can down the road — as we still are Slavery in the Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence. In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, who was a slave owner himself, included a passage that criticized King George III for perpetuating the transatlantic slave trade. If this passage had been retained, our country’s history might have been very different. But it was deleted. Why did Jefferson—a slaveholder himself—write this passage denouncing slavery, why was it deleted, and what was the long-term impact of that decision? What isn’t widely known, however, is that Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, in an early version of the Declaration, drafted a 168-word passage that condemned slavery as one of the many evils The Revolution Begins In the early 1770s, more and more colonists became convinced that Parliament intended to take away their freedom. In fact, the Americans saw a pattern of increasing oppression and corruption happening all around the world. Parliament was determined to bring its unruly American subjects to heel. Britain began to prepare for war in early 1775. The first fighting broke out To rivet the attention of the Declaration of Independence’s intended audience—the free populace of the thirteen mainland British colonies—Jefferson laid out his major premise: that the step America was taking was necessary, coming reluctantly after many attempts at reconciliation. In the list of grievances against King George III, there was a section denouncing slavery. It was penned by Jefferson, a slave owner, and part of it went like this Declaration of Independence. The condition of the parchment Declaration of Independence is a sign of the place it has held in the hearts of many Americans. Years of public display have faded and worn this treasured document. Today it is maintained under the most exacting archival conditions possible. Thomas Jefferson's early draft of the Declaration of Independence included a notable paragraph, attacking King George III for allowing the Transatlantic Slave Trade to continue. In his original rough draft of the Declaration, he included slavery as one of the grievances against King George III. Jefferson’s paragraph sharply contrasted slavery with the ideals of equality and liberty expressed in the Declaration. An article about the deletion of the condemnation of slavery to achieve unanimous consensus of the 13 colonies to adopt the Declaration of Independence with a link to the writings of Frederick Douglas on the meaning of the 4th of July to enslaved people. Was slavery included in the Declaration of Independence? What isn’t widely known, however, is that Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, in an early version of the Declaration, drafted a 168-word passage that condemned slavery as one of the many evils foisted upon the colonies by the British crown. Despite his philosophical abhorrence of slavery and his ongoing legislative efforts to abolish the practice, Jefferson over his lifetime enslaved more than 600 people—including his own children Declaration of Independence, 1776 * In June 1776, the United States and Britain had been at war for over a year, and the Second Continental Congress was nearing agreement to issue a formal declaration of independence. A com-mittee of five delegates John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and The result of slavery being left out of the Declaration of Independence was that it remained a contentious issue in the United States for many years, eventually leading to the Civil War. The founding fathers' morals and values regarding slavery were complex and varied. The removal of the anti-slavery clause of the declaration was not the only time Jefferson’s efforts might have led to the premature end of the “peculiar institution.” Describes an early draft of the Declaration of Independence in which author Thomas Jefferson condemned slavery as one of the many evils foisted upon the colonies by the British crown and how and why the passage was stricken from the final draft. When Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, it initiated the most intense debate among the delegates gathered at Philadelphia in the spring and early summer of 1776. Jefferson’s passage on slavery was the most important section removed from the final document. Why were this and subsequent passages on slavery removed? The founders were not ignorant of the problem. At the time of the Second Continental Congress, the issue of slavery was widely discussed among many philosophers and leaders in America and abroad. Some of the Founders and other citizens in the colonies argued for emancipation. In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, 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, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to
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