Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence
In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence on this portable desk of his own design. It features a hinged writing board and a locking drawer for papers, pens and inkwell. This desk continued to be in the Jefferson's companion throughout his life as an Amercian diplomat and President of the United States. On November 14, 1825 Jefferson wrote his granddaughter, Eleanora Randolph Coolidge to inform her that he was sending his "writing box" as a wedding present. The desk remained in the Coolidge family until April 1880 when the family donated it to the U.S. government. In the letter, Jefferson wrote: "Mr. Coolidge must do me the favor of accepting the gift. Its imaginary value will increase with years."
Thomas Jefferson was not the first choice to write the Declaration of Independence. He accepted the assignment reluctantly, but he brought genius to the project, including the 35 most important words in the English language.
It wasn't widely known that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence until a quarter century later when he stood for the presidency of the United States. At the time when the 33 year old Virginian sat down to write America's birth certificate at his portable writing desk in a boarding house on Seventh and Market streets in Philadelphia in the third week of June 1776, he was a relatively unknown figure in national circles.
He had a reputation for being a hard reader, a brillant scholar and a lucid crafter of English prose, but he did not take part in the sometimes heated debates that were propelling the 13 American colonies toward independence. John Adams later reported that "during the whole time I saw with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together."
Jefferson was a shy man and a homebody who had lingered so long at Monticello in the spring of 1776 tht he nearly missed the opportunitty to write the document that secured his immortality.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Nobody in the Second Continental Congress could possibly have known how potent that sentence was going to be in the "course of human events" from 1776 to today.
Jefferson's words are as much a foundation of the Black Lives Matter movement as "I can't breathe." Not even Jefferson could have known on the evening of July 4, 1776, that he had written the one sentence that humankind can never live without.
As a footnote, Thomas Jefferson's lap desk on view at the White House for 23 years was sold for $55,000 to Daniel Jordan, director of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, which runs Monticello, the Jefferson mansion. "We think that the desk illustrates Jefferson's lifestyle, work habits and travel patterns. It is sturdy, compact and was designed to be used in traveling. Many lap desks are more decorative and fragile and were used in the parlor," said Jordan.
Be Safe.
Pat Locke
Maestro Muse
