Individuals What Is the Most

¶ … individuals what is the most important document in their religion, and they will give answers such as Torah, New Testament, Koran, Book of Mormon and Teaching of Buddha. However, unless any of these people are clear literalists and believe that every word and commentary in their religious book is true, the books are open to interpretation. They are a guide to help individuals in myriad of ways. Similarly, ask any American what historic documents are all important for the United States and they will answer the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. These are clearly open to discussion as well, so much so that one of the three branches of the country, the Supreme Court, must rule on how they should be interpreted.

In writing her book, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, Pauline Maier became a sleuthing detective and tried to get into the heads of the authors to determine what they meant by certain terms and phrases -- no simple task, considering that even words today have different connotations let alone the differences between present words and what they meant so long ago. Were certain words used because the authors wanted to get a point across or just because that was the way things were said at the time. Maier, for example, says that some of the colonists had a problem with the word "tyrant."

In 1775, George Mason authored the "Declaration of Rights of Virginia," which was used as a guide by Jefferson. He copied a number of thoughts and terminology from Mason and rewrote them as a newspaper editor would today. For instance, he altered "obtaining happiness" into "the pursuit of happiness." All along, Americans thought that Jefferson's personal thoughts and ideas were on that paper -- could it be true that he was just a lowly editor and not the important author believed?

Meier's book traces the transformation of the Declaration of Independence starting with the edited document of Thomas Jefferson with phrases taken from other independence resolutions, to committee revisions, to two decades of being hidden in a drawer somewhere to finally a national scripture whose preamble and concluding paragraph have become the Bible of Americans.

Lest anyone get upset about Jefferson not acting alone, Meier reminds the readers about the importance of what would today be called team building, cross-functional work and committees. With a document this important (even though they did not actually consider it such at the time, according to Meier) it comes as no surprise that everyone wanted and had to have their hand in the pie. Who could possibly imagine what it would be like if such a document had to be written now? Would there be anyone who would not want to get into the act?

Ironically, just a small part of Jefferson's first draft has survived, although a longhand copy made by John Adams offers some additional ideas about its original contents. After Jefferson incorporated the committee's revisions into a second draft. The committee edited that draft and presented a "fair copy" of this document to Congress, which made more revisions of its own. After printing the document eventually approved by Congress, the printer, Dunlap, probably threw that draft away. (It makes one wonder what the printer was thinking. "Oh, this is just a draft of some nonimportant paper that these guys are writing up. I'm sure they have another one floating around.")

Apparently Dunlap was right, if he actually did think this. Jefferson saved the second draft, that indicated some revisions by Ben Franklin and Adams in their own handwriting, and the changest that Congress made later. This is the document now on display. Jefferson also made six annotated longhand copies of the official congressional draft explaining the ways in which his draft had been "mutilated." (The editor burned by a red pen!) Four of these six survive, at the Library of Congress, the American Philosophical Society, New York Public Library and the Massachusetts Historical Society.