Jefferson's Authorship of the Declaration of Independence
I received my Ph.D. in American history in 1972. My specialty was colonial America.
I wrote an academic article on the Declaration of Independence in 1976. I wrote it just before I joined Ron Paul's Congressional staff. It was published while I was on his staff. (In that same journal was an article by Dr. John Robbins, who was also on Paul's staff. We shared the same tiny office.) In it, I discussed the authorship: Jefferson primarily, but with the committee and Congress also playing roles. This was all well known to historians of the Declaration in 1976. It has never been challenged by any historian of the American Revolution -- not once since 1776.
John Adams was a member of the committee. So was Franklin. Franklin refused to write it. Why? Because he knew that the Congress would revise it, which it did: 55 changes. This was in addition to 30 changes made by the committee. Franklin would not allow anyone to revise his writing, as he told Jefferson at the time. An excellent account of his writing of it and the revisions by Congress appears in Chapter 3 of Joseph Ellis's beautifully written book, Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence (Knopf, 2013). Its weakness is that it attributes all 85 changes to Congress. But 30 of them were made by the committee.
Google has lots of examples of sections from the hand-written rough draft. Click here.
Ever since 1947, we have had another fragment of his draft.
The earliest known draft of the Declaration of Independence is a fragment known as the "Composition Draft." The draft, written in June 1776, is in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration. It was discovered in 1947 by historian Julian P. Boyd in the Jefferson papers at the Library of Congress. Boyd was examining primary documents for publication in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson when he found the document, a piece of paper that contains a small part of the text of the Declaration, as well as some unrelated notes made by Jefferson. Prior to Boyd's discovery, the only known draft of the Declaration had been a document known as the "Rough Draft". The discovery confirmed speculation by historians that Jefferson must have written more than one draft of the text.Many of the words from the Composition Draft were ultimately deleted by Congress from the final text of the Declaration. Phrases from the fragment to survive the editing process include "acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation" and "hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends."
Forensic examination has determined that the paper of the Composition Draft and the paper of the Rough Draft were made by the same manufacturer. In 1995, conservators at the Library of Congress undid some previous restoration work on the fragment and placed it in a protective mat. The document is stored in a cold storage vault. When it is exhibited, the fragment is placed in a temperature and humidity controlled display case.
Thomas Jefferson preserved a four-page draft that late in life he called the "original Rough draught." Known to historians as the Rough Draft, early students of the Declaration believed that this was a draft written alone by Jefferson and then presented to the drafting committee. Scholars now believe that the Rough Draft was not actually an "original Rough draught", but was instead a revised version completed by Jefferson after consultation with the committee. How many drafts Jefferson wrote prior to this one, and how much of the text was contributed by other committee members, is unknown.
Jefferson showed the Rough Draft to Adams and Franklin, and perhaps other committee members, who made a few more changes. Franklin, for example, may have been responsible for changing Jefferson's original phrase "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" to "We hold these truths to be self-evident." Jefferson incorporated these changes into a copy that was submitted to Congress in the name of the committee. Jefferson kept the Rough Draft and made additional notes on it as Congress revised the text. He also made several copies of the Rough Draft without the changes made by Congress, which he sent to friends, including Richard Henry Lee and George Wythe, after July 4. At some point in the process, Adams also wrote out a copy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_history_of_the_United_States_Declaration_of_Independence