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July 2007 Stats for The Big Picture.
What if the Declaration of Independence had said that? It would be a different world today. But that was the first draft. Ben Franklin was co-author of the sentence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident." From Walter Isaacson, author of "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life:"
On June 21, after he had finished a draft and incorporated some changes from Adams, Jefferson had a copy delivered to Franklin, with a cover note far more polite than editors generally receive today. "Will Doctor Franklin be so good as to peruse it," he wrote, "and suggest such alterations as his more enlarged view of the subject will dictate?"
Franklin made only a few small changes, but one of them was resounding. Using heavy backslashes, he crossed out the last three words of Jefferson’s phrase, "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" and changed it to read: "We hold these truths to be self-evident."
The concept of "self-evident" truths came less from Jefferson’s favored philosopher, Locke, than from the scientific determinism of Isaac Newton and the analytic empiricism of Franklin’s close friend David Hume. Hume had distinguished between "synthetic" truths that describe matters of fact (such as "London is bigger than Philadelphia" ) and "analytic" truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition. ( "The angles of a triangle equal 180 degrees" or "All bachelors are unmarried." ) When he chose the word "sacred," Jefferson had suggested intentionally or unintentionally that the principle in question—the equality of men and their endowment by their creator with inalienable rights—was an assertion of religion. By changing it to "self-evident," Franklin made it an assertion of rationality.Perhaps Franklin felt that the meaning of "sacred and undeniable" wasn’t sufficiently specified. For example, what exactly does "undeniable" mean here? Certainly someone could literally deny it. People can deny anything – and frequently do : ) Therefore the sentence was unacceptable. Then there’s the reference to religion in the word, "sacred." Perhaps Franklin already, even at that time, saw the importance of separation between Church and State. Can you imagine having a friend as brilliant as Ben Franklin, to show your draft work to and get feedback from? The United States was blessed to have a collaboration of geniuses draft the foundation documents of our nation.
#1
#2Let’s be fair and give credit where it belongs: George Mason
Please study the language of his Virginia Declaration of Rights
In addition, this is a draft of the Virginia Constitution
And finally, here is an interesting article giving some perspective:
George Mason is far more important to our nation than the namesake of Virginia’s largest university with a Final Four team!
Jefferson, during his lifetime, was more of an adapter than an inventor.
However, it is evident that Virginia was truly the Athens of America!
I believe the word in the final version is “unalienable,” often misquoted as “inalienable.” See e.g. http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/, Which of these two words was used in the draft I don’t know.