The Anti-Slavery Clause
from an Early Draft of the
Declaration of Independence
Martha Spiegelman
[Reprinted from the Bulletin of Thomas Paine
Friends, Vol.7, No.2, July 2006]
Who wrote this clause, which did not find its
way into the Declaration? Some writers have argued that Paine
was its author, conveying it to his friend and ally, Benjamin
Franklin, who was a member of the Declaration drafting
committee of the Congress. -- Martha Spiegelman
|
He [King George III]
has waged cruel War against human Nature itself, violating its most
Sacred Right of Life & Liberty in the Persons of a distant
People who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into
Slavery in another Hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their
Transportation thither. This piratical Warfare, the opprobrium of
infidel Powers, is the Warfare of the Christian King of Great
Britain. He has prostituted his Negative for Suppressing every
legislative Attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable
Commerce, determining to keep open a market where MEN should be
bought & sold, and that this Assemblage of Horrors might want no
Fact of distinguished Die, he is now exciting those very People to
rise in Arms among us, and to purchase that Liberty of which he has
deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded
them; thus paying off former Crimes committed against the Liberties
of one People, with Crimes which he urges them to commit against the
lives of another.
In 1947 Joseph Lewis published his intriguing and - to many --
persuasive arguments that Thomas Paine was the true author of the
Declaration of Independence.[1]
William Cobbett, 18th century English activist for worker rights,
remarked that, "...whoever wrote the Declaration, Thomas
Paine was its author," surely a recognition that the founding
document was, at the very least, inspired by Paine's Common Sense,
published in January 1776. But, amazingly, Jefferson said that he
never read Common Sense before setting to work on the Declaration
draft.
In 1948, Professor Josiah H. Combs, of Mary Washington College of the
University of Virginia, Fredericksburg VA, in a letter to the
publisher of the Lewis book, wrote that he was convinced by the
arguments. His postscript is telling: "If any part of this letter
should be quoted, please do not mention my name; I am in Jefferson's
country, and in Jefferson's school! I have no desire to be crucified,
or shot at sunrise."[2]
There's the rub. What students of American history are ready to go
against the flow, the doctrine that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration
Every so often someone makes a few tentative tries on behalf of Paine
as author, but the academy generally ignores such efforts.
Here, only the anti-slavery clause of the "original
draft"[3] is considered. But, as Lewis (and some others) has
indicated, additional kinds of evidence for Paine as author can also
be presented -- perhaps in a future number of the Bulletin.
The original draft containing the anti-slavery clause was not
presented to the Congress for its vote. Lewis, in a February 2, 1965
address, says,
Jefferson did not submit the original draft of the
Declaration of Independence to the members of the Continental
Congress. They were not aware of the existence of the slavery
clause. The members had no opportunity to discuss it. They did not
vote upon it.[4]
Jefferson in his life never freed a slave and freed only three upon
his death. Another southerner, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, who in
June 1776 had introduced the resolution in Congress for independence
and for a committee to draft a document, found the one presented to
Congress a surprise: "Why was the manuscript mangled so?"
Apparently, Lee had seen a previous draft with the anti-slavery
clause, and he favored elimination of slavery in the new nation. Lee,
sponsor of the independence resolution, would have been a member of
the document drafting committee except that illness in his family
prevented his serving. Jefferson was appointed in his place.
Lewis draws three important points about the anti-slavery clause
which raise questions about Jefferson's authorship and point, rather,
to Paine.
- Content. Paine wrote, before and after 1776, his
opposition to slavery in forceful language.[5] And he was an early
member of an Abolitionist Society in Philadelphia. On the other
hand, Jefferson does not unambiguously oppose slavery. He avers
that elimination of slavery will happen in a future time; however,
as late as 1796 he states that, "...the two races, equally
free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion
have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them." (p.
151, Lewis, 1947) Jefferson also claimed that, "...blacks....are
inferior to the whites in the endowment of mind and body."
(p. 156, Lewis)
- Style. In a side-by-side comparison of the
anti-slavery clause and several of Paine's writings (including
African Slavery in America, Common Sense and
others), Lewis shows very similar expressions in the compared
materials, (pp 141-2, Lewis), such as: ...that some wretches
should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence...;
...these inoffensive people are brought into slavery...; ... our
traders in MEN...; ...practiced by pretended Christians....
There is clearly an outraged tone, as well as a particular use of
capital letters, and a sarcasm directed against pretended
morality. Jefferson, in his writings touching on slavery,
expresses only a "...condescending...benevolence." (p.
153, Lewis)
- Principle. In the end, Lewis comes back to the nagging
question: If the anti-slavery clause had been written by
Jefferson, and it expressed his views on slavery, why would he not
stand by it in the Congress? The other members of the Committee to
draft the document[6] could be expected to support the clause.
Jefferson did not say a word on behalf of his own
anti-slavery document -- but then, that is why we have to ask,
was it his own? Jefferson wrote: "...the
clause....was struck out in complaisance with South Carolina &
Georgia..." (p. 162, Lewis) But, Henry Laurens of South
Carolina favored emancipation, and might have persuaded his
delegation. Lewis says that Professor Richard B. Morris of
Columbia University, thought that Laurens believed that the phrase
in the Declaration, "inherent and unalienable,"
applied equally to Negroes and whites. (Lewis, his 1965 speech)
Lewis, in his 1965 speech, asks,
.... was it South Carolina and Georgia, or was it
Thomas Jefferson who was responsible for the perpetuation... of
slavery... ? .....he preferred to use his own words, "leaving
to future efforts its final eradication." That "effort"
was the Civil War!
The flaming clause was lifted from the document too easily.
Jefferson also claimed: "...I thought it [my] duty to be, on
that occasion, a passive auditor of the opinions of others..."
(p. 163, Lewis) Would the writer of this moving clause be silent,
or passive? Or would he rise to defend its sentiments?
Lewis has performed as a literary and history detective; his careful
analysis deserves to be read. The book is out-of-print but is
available in many libraries. It is truly an eye-opener.
NOTES
- ...
- ...
- ...
- ...
- Among them, African
Slavery in America, March 1775, widely attributed to Paine;
A Serious Thought, 1775; Preamble to Act for Abolition of
Slavery in Pennsylvania, 1780; See Africa's wretched offspring
torn ... (a poem); To the French Inhabitants of Louisiana,
1804. Found in The Life and Collected Works of Thomas Paine,
ed., William Van der Weyde, 1925, New Rochelle NY: Thomas Paine
National Historical Association; and additional comment in the
biography, The Life of Thomas Paine, by Moncure D. Conway,
1892, New York: GP Putnam's Sons
- Benjamin Franklin,
Pennsylvania; John Adams, Massachusetts; Roger Sherman,
Connecticut; Philip Livingston, New York
|
