What words were deleted from the Declaration of Independence?

Answer 1

Among the many sections removed or rewritten was an antislavery passage, which began...

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights 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."

...and continued on to address the British proposal to free slaves and arm them to fight against their masters.

Thomas Jefferson reluctantly deleted the passage in an effort to gain as much unanimity as possible among the signers and in general against the Crown. Some of the signers objected to including such language because they personally, and society as a whole, both directly and indirectly, benefited greatly from the practice. Therefore, it caused discord among the signers and was deleted to gain a more universal appeal among them and the Colonists.

Jefferson later remarked that if the signers thought the deletion might avoid offending any colonial supporters left in Britain, they were misguided.

Answer 2

The passage was (referring to George III):

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and 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. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. 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 on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."

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The authors were concerned about how this might be perceived by the Southern colonies where slavery was still legal. They feared that this might damage the solidarity of the colonies in their quest for independence, and insult any supporters they might still have in Britain. The same justification applies to the US Constitution in 1787, which deferred any federal action on abolition for 20 years.

Answer 3

There was no Congress at that time. The Federal government was established after the Revolutionary War.

Ben Franklin, San Adams, and other suggested some editorial changes, which Jefferson did.

Corrections:

Actually, there was a Continental Congress at that time consisting of representatives from the 13 colonies. They did edit the Jefferson draft deleting all mention of the Slave Trade which Jefferson had accused King George III of perpetuating. They made other changes to language simplification. Franklin and John Adams made a few minor changes to the document prior to submission to Congress.

There appears to be evidence that much of the content of the original draft of the Declaration of Independence originated from the mind of Thomas Paine and in fact, some believe that Paine wrote much of the document with Jefferson copying it and making his own revisions. Paine's pamphlet COMMON SENSE published several months prior to the formation of the "Declaration" Committee suggests that Paine had a much better understanding of the inherent rights of British Americans then did most members of the Continental Congress included Jefferson.

Answer 4

The passage was (referring to George III):

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and 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. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. 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 on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."

Jefferson was condemning both slavery and the plan by the British to free slaves to fight against the rebel colonists. The authors were concerned about how this might be perceived by the Southern colonies where slavery was still legal. They feared that this might damage the solidarity of the colonies in their quest for independence. The same justification applies to the US Constitution in 1787, which deferred any federal action on abolition for 20 years.

Answer 5

Some of the delegates in the coloniser and it might give the colonies a bad name.