Thaindian News

July 4, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): Thomas Jefferson was one of the influential personalities responsible for the birth of an independent America. He was also the foremost author of the American Declaration of Independence. A fresh investigation has now established that Jefferson was, not in the slightest, a clandestine royalist.

The Library of Congress (LC) had utilized high-resolution spectral imaging. This permitted the LC to divulge that Jefferson had, on the third page of a rough draft, erased the word ‘subjects’ off with his hand and had meticulously inscribed the word ‘citizens’ on top. The Declaration drafts had countless strike-throughs and rectifications. However, the ‘subjects’ blunder is the solitary one wholly decimated by a Founder.

Jefferson’s original line in the Declaration happened to read that the British government had ignited seditious uprisings in his fellow (American) subjects, in conjunction with the allurements of penalty and the taking away of the belongings of the American subjects under the British supremacy.

Jefferson was an intriguing individual, who endorsed the concept of individual sovereignty, even as he was the possessor of more than 200 slaves at his Virginia estate. Jefferson was also referred to as ‘The Sage of Monticello’. The aforementioned ‘subjects’ blunder also indicates Jefferson battling to resolve the ground-breaking social and cultural transformations towards the termination of the 18th century. Jefferson also demonstrated, in his marking of new ink, the decisiveness he felt was required to detach from European patriarchal politics.

The theoretical divergence between ‘subjects’ and ‘citizens’, in actual fact, characterized the Declaration of Independence. Therefore, the rectification in the Declaration has been dubbed as fascinating by historians.

Dianne van der Reyden happens to be the preservation director of the LC. Reyden has mentioned that it is almost as if one can witness Jefferson inscribing ‘subjects’ subsequent to which he rapidly decides that that is not the word he desired to state. He did not even desire to possess the word ‘subjects’ in a catalog.

It is being conjectured that Jefferson could have committed a Freudian slip, which is an accidental disclosure of one’s genuine sentiments. However, it must be remembered that, when the Declaration was being inscribed, Jefferson and his fellow ‘Americans’ were still under the supremacy of King George of the UK. In all probability, Jefferson adopted the word ‘subjects’ from the First Virginia Constitution, which also alludes to ‘our fellow subjects’.