American Scripture

Colonists were not eager to leave England, it was considered the greatest government in the world. This was not a decision that was made lightly. Most of the assemblies in the colonies were worried to ask for a vote about independence. Rhode Island for example simply didn’t.³ The reasoning of this was that it would be a bad idea to show ununited colonies when the war was very much in full swing. There were events during the winter of 1775 that swung public opinion to pro-independence though. These events were first the Prohibitory Act and second the hiring of German mercenaries to fight the colonists.⁴ It is known that these were deciding factors due to the fact that they were cited as reasons for independence in smaller declarations. Maier makes a very interesting point when she states that, “The milestones of English history are marked not so much by stone monuments as by parchment documents.”⁵ And this is the truth, it was written into the colonists’ cultural makeup to be writing these declarations, it had been done by the English for centuries. The most influential document on Jefferson (and most colonists for that matter) was the Declaration of Rights of 1689.⁶ There was a great wealth of documents to draw on, there was a lineage to them. These are still important because the use of petitions, addresses, etc. is still a construct of society that exists to this day. The Declaration was first drafted by Thomas Jefferson - that is indisputable.⁷ But the document would not have been the force to be reckoned with that it was without the editing and the discussions about it among Congress as a whole. Jefferson was not a perfect man, nobody in the Congress was, but the document that came from these imperfect men was pretty close. The Declaration was first created by the Committee of Five. It was then submitted to the Committee of the Whole, which was simply the congress as a whole. An interesting point is brought up in the section that the Declaration was less