Fessor woody holton from the university of South Carolina. Third we hear from professor eri c slauter from the university of chicago. Finally, we hear from professor David Armitage at Harvard University known fo the declaration of independence a global history. Everyone will speak about 10 to 12 minutes and then we have questions from the audience. I think youre all set. Prof. Brewer thank you to organizers of this conference, which is terrific. When the delegates to the Continental Congress assembled in june of 1776, they faced a dilemma. Fighting between colonists and british troops have been going on more than a year. Political disputes over whether colonists needed to dissent to their own government and taxes remained at a standoff. Some delegates sought peace and redfin scissors peace and reckons lesion with their king. Only seven supported independence. New york, new jersey delaware, and South Carolina were not yet ready to fight. Congress chose a committee of five men to persuade the process. Adams, franklin, sherman, and jefferson drafted the declaration. Jefferson was 33 years old. Relatively young and idealistic he knew this would be dangerous. In writing a document like this, each was committing treason. As we discussed this morning all men are created equal, and doubt rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All societies have the right to overthrow government after a long train of abuses against those principles. These meant the government should not be based on heredity and godgiven rights of kings. King george the third had become a tyrant. The committee listed his the kings attempts to be a tyrant. Jeffersons dark scratches still have something to reveal. With emphases in placement reveal much about the thoughts i wrote of those who wrote the declaration. The committee accused the king of 18 acts of tierney. If the first 17 were related to the form of government they can impose on the colonies, pitting armies and navies in times of peace in the colony. Repeatedly dismissing elected legislators and vetoing laws those legislatures had passed. The last section condemned the sink of the kings support of slavery across the empire. Congress deleted it. It read there is a painting of them delivering it. And heres the last section. It read 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 per article warfare the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determine take keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative effort to restrain these extra vote commerce. And he has murdered in the people upon whom he the liberties of one people with crimes he urges them to commit against another. The king violet of the most fundamental rights of life and justice in itself by taking people into slaves, king supported a market expo commerce that made people into things that could be and sold. He also profited by vetoing laws that colonists passed to limit the importation of enslaved people. The king encourage those he enslaved to kill the new masters. The original draft again we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable. That all men are treated equal and independent. That from that equal creation, they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life and liberty of the pursuit of happiness. That language word deliberately examined to africans in the deleted cause clause. Placing these passages at the very ends of the list of the kings crimes emphasizes the connection between tierney and real slavery. Georgia thursday third historical support of slavery was the ultimate example of his lack of respect for anyone and his belief in his own absolute power. The highs proof of his injustice. Jeffersons conviction that slavery proved the kings injustice was in his own handwriting. Jefferson emphasized men. In this passage. When he referred to those in justly enslaved. He deliberately repeated his emphasis in the six copies of the declaration he made in his own hand to send the colleagues. I will point out here is a closeup of that particular passage in the original. Here is the only other word capitalized like that and the whole declaration, which we talked about already, the United States of america. Here are two copies he wrote to send to men to friends, both with the same emphasis on men. This is a copy that madison had. It is smaller but it is still there. His words speak to his emotion retracing the word indicates the emphasis of his thoughts, tracing a poetry more powerful than anywhere else. His words speak to his emotion. Prosecutor basketball commerce, as some would of horrors. He insisted in not only including the excise tax in every version he made but underlining in black ink as you see here in the letter to madison. July 1, the day of the declaration was first discussed by the whole congress. Only nine colonies voted to supported. Two others were for britain from agreeing by their constituents. Crucial was the South Carolina delegate, Edward Rutledge, who wrote that in the declarations and suppose that after congress voted to delete the portion on slavery, jefferson wrote in anger that the cause was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves and still wish to continue it on the contrary. Jefferson admitted that our northern brethren the a little tender under those censures who though it the people had few slaves, they had been considerable carriers of them to others. The New England States were already firmly in favor of independence, as was georgia. In order to recruit more colonies in the contest of england, unanimous consent ruled the day. It has become a tradition among historians to unlock the deleted passage on slavery as laughable. At best it is seen as the hypocrisy of the revolution, especially that of jefferson, who owned 174 slaves in 1776. The narrative and thats racism. It makes American Freedom dependent upon american slavery. The independence of the white colonists was dependent on the labor of enslaved blacks. Jefferson never meant to challenge slavery and it was ridiculous of him to blame the king of slavery. It was colonies like jefferson who created demands for slaves which led to the slave trade, it is claimed. Most colonists did not condemn them that trade. Condemning slavery was strange. It is assumed that congress moved removed it because he did not belong there and it was a better document without that laughable passage. But you didnt belong there. We have dismissed that passage with too much easier for the wrong reasons. Just as we underestimate the junctures that may slavery what it became. Condemning the king of england or supporting slavery was a logical was logical. The final condemnation of george the third was not simply a statement of expected principles or a chart of future policy. It was a claim about history. As jefferson indicated, virginia alone may 5 efforts to limit the slave trade by placing heavy duties on the invitation of slaves, all of which were vetoed by english kings. So did many other colonies. Such royal vetoes were only one aspect of the conflicts history over the protection of the slave trade. Even that royal instructions the governors order them to veto any such duties, we cannot see every effort. When george the second appointed arthur dodge as the road governor, he was instructed that it is our will to the King Pleasure that you do not give your consent to pass any law imposing duties on negroes. In 7074, the Continental Congress try to override the kings protection by punishing those who bought slaves, just like those who bought tea. Jan we will neither be concerned in it ourselves or will we higher such vessels or such commodities or manufacturers to those who are concerned in it. Overlooking the deleted cause shows our myopia. Slavery was born neither from a free market or a democratic government. These included while proclamations that gave away land rights the colonies colonists who purchased slaves. 50 acres of slaves for every acre lot in virginia. Supporting the slave trade with englands navy in particular. The deleted clause points some more of a century of promotion of slavery in the colonies. Colonial assemblies also promoted slavery in the wider empire. Many colonists made the decision to purchase slaves with the 50 acres some of that incentives. But this limited and confined who could vote. Jeffersons hypocrisy was not simply a matter of choice. It was born in the legal system of the empire. Jefferson inherited all of his slaves from his author and father in law, just as he did his government. All of the slaves were mortgaged. Before 1782, it was legal it was illegal in virginia law to free slaves. Even after that law was abolished, or anyone who freed slaves could be put to death. According to the law passed of that year, this is, in todays world, to neither sell or donate a car. Or if i still had car payments, the car still belong to the banks. Any mortgaged slave had another owner. This in the face of debt was given more force in virginia by a Court Decision in 1805 that said if anybody held and slid people, any creditor could take this slaves, sell them, and keep the money. Even that decision was influenced by the treaty of paris that ended the American Revolution which rejected the massive debts the former colonists owned to british merchants and the legal property in humans which were collateral for those debts, ensuring that this aspect of the resolution revolution was incomplete. Despite this decision that challenged such ownership, the british common law allowed only people in mortgages over those people across the empire. The end of the war left the owning of people in fact. The legal tradition had been fostered by kings and protected by parliament and was ingrained in englands former colonies. As sermons in the church of england repeated, kings are born princes with the right to rule just as the child of the subject is born a subject and the child of a slave is born a slave. Most subjects and slaves are born with the obligation to obey. This was the logic of heredity status. America got rid of it came with the revolution. But one part of that tierney. But not slavery, which was its fruits. Even with this overarching legal structure, slavery was confirmed by the treaty that jefferson had choices. Of course, he was a hypocrite for not simply overthrowing the whole legal principles that people could be property and born enslaved. I, too, am a hypocrite when i say american policies encourage an overreliance on fossil fuels with a potentially disastrous outcome for planet earth and that we have a moral responsibility to change our energy usage, and yet i turn on electric lights. My hypocrisy neither invalidates my moral judgment, nor makes them less true. Just as jeffersons observations and moral claims were deeply rooted in his reliance on the legal and social and Economic System he had inherited. And that many others including those who were in enslaved, were more problematic and horrified. Slavery remained in some parts of the new nation and even later expanded. Why . I did not write this paper to absolve jefferson from blame. I could not. But the most technology how laws and policies influence the choices he another is made, to urge us how and why these policies developed and to consider how laws and policies shape our choices today. Most of all, i want to focus attention on those who disagreed with jefferson. Men like Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, who was terrified by equality and universal liberties. He wanted to keep the staff of power in our own hands. How did they influence policy . The ultimate irony for jefferson and for so many others was that lurid dunmores proclamation of to 7075, which jefferson referred at the end of the deleted clause encouraged many slaves to fight for the british. Subsequently, england freed many of them. But jefferson still owed mortgages against those runaways, mortgages that made it more difficult for him to free others. Once the power of empire is put back in the history of slavery the American Revolution looks different. It becomes both more radical in its principles and potential for change and also less complete. Disentangling the tangles of the empire was socially and legally difficult. It clarifies how the compromises set the stage for later conflict. The statement of principles that Danielle Allen clarified at the beginning of the document became open to misinterpretation without the deleted passage. During the Constitutional Convention 11 years later south , carolina and georgia intervened to protect slavery. This time threatening to abandon their union. South carolinas objection is woven into their leadership on slavery. It is an open question whether the Continental Congress would have been better served to ignore succulent as the man to delete the clause condemning slavery. On some fundamental level conceding on slavery again built a contradiction into americas political foundation. Thank you. [applause] prof. Holton i am going to go ahead and start while youre fooling with that. I appreciate the invitation, and especially to read the article of Danielle Allen, called punctuating happiness, which is the basis of the talk. I can tell you, it is the biggest compliment of anything i have read, which is it has made me more ambivalent than i ever was about the declaration of independence. Professor allen establishes that all of the before congress versions of the declaration of independents have only a semicolon after that keyword happiness. And that most of the after congress versions have more. Her explanation for that is that it have to do with diacritical marks. Today, and accent would be a diacritical mark. It just means it distinguishes a letter. But he had these marks that were probably meant to have pauses. And it is certainly true there are diacritical marks throughout the declaration. Let me catch up with my slides here. But, i do not buy that the diacritical marks explanation as an explanation for why does why those dashes are there in the dunlap engrossed copy, also called the parchment version. Here is why. There are other places that is a diacritical mark, this is dunlaps broadside in brief copy. You can see he thought that there should be quotation marks the first time. He got rid of them. In the later version. And all the others were replaced with just space. This one was replaced with a horizontal line. There are a couple problems for that. One, why would they be horizontal rather than vertical . Professor alan says, well, maybe i think i am understanding you, this would is this one is different from the others in being a a three stroke diacritical mark. And that might explain why it represented differently from these other diacritical marks that got taken out. But i have looked through a small portion of jeffersons rough draft that has diacritical marks and there they are. I just emphasized the ones in the first two lines. Notice all of them are either one or two. I cant find any three stroke diacritical marks. In professor alans draft of her paper, she gives us another please worship uses that critical marks she gives us another place that uses diacritical marks. That is the inaugural address. You see at the top, the abbreviation for government. That looks like a three stroke diacritical, but i do not think it is that. I think that third stroke, apart from the others, is from the tfrom the abbreviation of government. I still do not see any examples from jefferson yet of three stroke diacritical marks, so i do not think that is the explanation for why we have a dash there in both the matlab version and the dunlap version. I think congress put them there, put that dash there for other reasons on purpose, which i will return to at the end. For me, the most and the greatest significance of professor allens article is that it reminds us what really matters about second sentence of the declaration of independence, and i do consider it one sentence, even though i think that period may not be there by mistake. It reminds us when we pull phrases like all men are created equal or life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we are kind of putting it out of context. As she pointed out, they are part of the bigger whole. A syllogism and the bottomline of that syllogism is the right to secede. One society that has been in an alliance or confederation with another society has the right to secede. The things that are most famous and most popular clauses of the declaration of independence, all men are treated equal, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, those are kind of the yada, yada, yada sections. The bottom line is that right of secession. That is really what jefferson and the rest of congress were focusing on. Another way to see they were focusing on that is to look at the kinds of changes that were made, by jefferson, the committee, and by congress. All of them focused on the issue of sovereignty. Who ruled the colonies now, at what point does the right of revolution kicked in, as it did . Danielle put up this slide already. That in the final version probably this first change was done by jefferson himself. He wrote citizens, eventually, but through hyperspectral imaging, the folks of the library of Congress Went backwards and found what was originally written was subjects. So, one change jefferson himself made was turning subjects into citizens. He was not the only one who edited it. The committee edited this phrase to advance from that subordination, which remained to dissolve the political bands. You see the difference between what i put in orange and what is in red. The orange is we are admitting we were previously inferior and we are going to declare independence. The red version to dissolve the political bands, that is saying we have been analyzed to Great Britain, in the same way the u. S. Is an ally of