The Washington times., 1936-07-04


this he did not Edwin C. Hlll
stop at the home of his friend,
Benjamin Randolph, the cabinet
maker.
Mr.. jefferson, instead, went
out into the country o bit to the
home Of German bricklayer,
whose wife rented rooms, and
there set himself UP to his task
Of writing a set Of resolutions
for the Continental Congress.
Towards the end of June he
had completed four pages of finely
written manuscript, which he took
to the home Of Benjamin Frank
lin, wise man Of 72. who then
was suffering with gout.
Franklin had started as an edi-
tor and, true to his craft, set about
to polish off some Of the phrases
set down by the gentleman from
Virginia. In all, he made eleven
changes, most Of them minute, a
word here and another there.
RATIFIED
John Adams came by to give his
advice, and the manuscript then
went to the Congress to be ratified
on July 4 as the Declaration of
Independence.
On Jefferson's tombstone in
Monticello Is inscribed the cpl
taph:
"AuthOr Of the Declaration Of
Independence"
Many Of Jefferson's Contem-
porarieS resented his taking credit
for the authorship among them
John Adams, who wrote:
"There Is not an idea In it
but what had been hackneyed in
Congress for two years before"
This is not entirely fair to JEFF
ferSon. He never claimed that the
philosophy in the document
originated in his mind.
Any man Of learning Of his
day, Thomas Paine particularly.
would have laughed at such
claim had it been made.
jefferson was not a philosopher.
He was a statesman and politician.
But he was q deep student Of
philosophy and he could apply the
principles of Aristotle, Plato, Locke
or Hobbs to o given situation.
Which is Just what he did in the
furnished room of the German
bricklayer's house on the out
skirts of Philadelphia.
An historical writer recently
said that all except one Of the
phrases in the Declaration Of In
dependence were borrowed by JET
ferson.
The one original phrase, accord
ing to this writer, was the life,
liberty ard pursuit of happiness"
phrase. With this I disagree.
If any phrase In the document
was not original with the author,
it was thaT very phrase.
JOHN LOCKE
One hundred years before Jeffer-
son, John Locke, the great English
philosopher, had started the
movement which changed the
whole political thought of the
world in the phrase, "all men are
created equal and are endowed
with the inalienable rights Of life,
liberty and the possession of prop
erty."
Locke's breaking down Of the
doctrine OF divine rights Of kings"
and his dogma Of equality Of all
before the law was the philosophy
behind the American Revolution
and behind the writings and
speeches of both jefferson and
Paine.
Locke, jefferson, Paine and the
French philosopher, Montesquieu,
were concerned above anything
else with liberty for the individual.
They expounded truths as old as
the world itself.
What Prof. Raymond G. Gettell
says of Montesquieu, in his very
fine work, History Of Political
Thought" was equally true Of JEFF
ferson and those with him who
drew up not only the Declaration
but also the Constitution of the
United StsteS.
ETERNAL TRUTH
Their chief interest "was to
set forth the governmental
organization that would best
safeguard political liberty. -.
Liberty was possible only where
governmental powers were sub
ject to limitations
They "believed that the essen
tial safeguard against tyranny,
and the surest guarantee Of
liberty, was the separation Of
the executive, legislative and
judicial powers of government"
They knew all about Hitlers and
Stains, all about the oppression
of labor on scale that this coun-
try has never seen and never will
see. They knew all about wars
and all about depresSions.
They knew the eternal truths
and they applied them to give the
United States form Of govern
ment which enabled to reach the
greatest heights ever known in
! freedom and distribution of mate
rial goods.
No emergency. no expediency
can be an excuse to change these
truths or the form Of the govern
ment which embodieS them.