Who REALLY wrote the Declaration of Independence? | History Mystery

History Mystery Episode 2: Who REALLY wrote the Declaration of Independence?

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Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Gordon S. Wood

The Pontification of Washington’s Promulgatory Rhetoric.

Use of rhyme in public policy 1789-1797

Hoyt, Mecklenburg Declaration

“Part III: the Mecklenburg Declaration…”. Charlotte Mecklenburg Library

“The Mecklenburg Controversy…” The Charlotte Museum of History

The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (Chapel Hill, 1988).

The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. Archibald Henderson. 1912.

The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. 1918. Archibald Henderson

Thomas Jefferson: Author of America. Christopher Hitchens. 2009

Jefferson & Adams: Founding Frenemies. 2016. Last update Jan. 15 2020

John Adams, David McCullough.

John Adams to Roger Sherman, 18 July 1789

John Adams, Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United State 1787Works 5:453--59

The First American. HW Brands.

LOC. Thomas Jefferson. (1743-1826)

Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Frederick Douglass 1852. What to the slave is the 4th of July?

Adams letter to Hugh Williamson February 6, 1785

[Fryday May 10. 1776.] [from the Autobiography of John Adams]

V. Preamble to Resolution on Independent Governments, 15 May 1776

The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787.

National Archives and Records Administration. Exhibit Declaration Independence Resolution.

Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence. Monticello.

From Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 8 May 1825

The Virginia Declaration of Rights

James Wilson and the American Founding, WILLIAM EWALD

"Self-Evident". The Atlantic. 2008.

Jefferson's "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence. LOC

For comparison of the American Declaration and the Mecklenburg, see sources in captions, as well as this:

The common phrasing is striking;

American Declaration: "dissolve the political bands which have connected them",

Mecklenburg Declaration: “dissolve the political bands which have connected us”

American: "are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States"

Mecklenburg: “are and of right out to be a sovereign and self-governing Association”

American: "absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown"

Mecklenburg: “absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown”

American "pledge to each other, our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor"

Mecklenburg: “pledge to each other out mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor”.

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