WEBVTT

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"All men are created equal

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and they are endowed with the rights to

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life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

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Not so fast, Mr. Jefferson!

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These words from the Declaration of Independence,

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and the facts behind them, are well known.

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In June of 1776,

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a little more than a year after the war against England began

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with the shots fired at Lexington and Concord,

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the Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia

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to discuss American independence.

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After long debates, a resolution of independence

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was approved on July 2, 1776.

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America was free!

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And men like John Adams thought we would celebrate that date forever.

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But it was two days later that the gentlemen in Congress

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voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence,

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largely written by Thomas Jefferson,

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offering all the reasons why the country should be free.

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More than 235 years later,

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we celebrate that day as America's birthday.

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But there are some pieces of the story you may not know.

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First of all, Thomas Jefferson gets the credit

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for writing the Declaration,

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but five men had been given the job

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to come up with a document explaining why

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America should be independent:

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Robert Livingston,

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Roger Sherman,

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Benjamin Franklin and

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John Adams were all named first.

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And it was Adams who suggested that the young,

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and little known, Thomas Jefferson join them

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because they needed a man from the influential Virginia Delegation,

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and Adams thought Jefferson was a much better writer than he was.

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Second, though Jefferson never used footnotes,

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or credited his sources,

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some of his memorable words and phrases were borrowed

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from other writers and slightly tweaked.

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Then, Franklin and Adams offered a few suggestions.

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But the most important change came after the Declaration

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was turned over to the full Congress.

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For two days, a very unhappy Thomas Jefferson

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sat and fumed while his words were picked over.

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In the end, the Congress made a few, minor word changes,

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and one big deletion.

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In the long list of charges that Jefferson made

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against the King of England,

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the author of the Declaration had included the idea

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that George the Third was responsible for the slave trade,

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and was preventing America from ending slavery.

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That was not only untrue,

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but Congress wanted no mention of slavery

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in the nation's founding document.

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The reference was cut out

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before the Declaration was approved and sent to the printer.

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But it leaves open the hard question:

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How could the men,

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who were about to sign a document,

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celebrating liberty and equality,

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accept a system in which some people owned others?

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It is a question that

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would eventually bring the nation to civil war

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and one we can still ask today.