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132-636: Professional historians have maintained that the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence is an inaccurate rendering of an authentic document known as the Mecklenburg Resolves , an argument first made by Peter Force . The Resolves, a set of radical resolutions passed on May 31, 1775, fell short of an actual declaration of independence. Although published in newspapers in 1775, the text of the Mecklenburg Resolves

264-561: A "natural right" to liberty is one he would later incorporate as he set about authoring the Declaration of Independence. He also took on 68 cases for the General Court of Virginia in 1767, in addition to three notable cases: Howell v. Netherland (1770), Bolling v. Bolling (1771), and Blair v. Blair (1772). Jefferson wrote a resolution calling for a "Day of Fasting and Prayer" and a boycott of all British goods in protest of

396-591: A Continental Congress delegate from Massachusetts and an emerging leader in the Congress. They became close friends, and Adams supported Jefferson's appointment to the Committee of Five , charged by the Congress with authoring a declaration of independence. The five chosen were Adams, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin , Robert R. Livingston , and Roger Sherman . The committee initially thought that Adams should write

528-679: A capital close to the major commercial centers of the Northeast , while Washington, Jefferson, and other agrarians wanted it further south. After lengthy deadlock, the Compromise of 1790 was struck, permanently locating the capital on the Potomac River , and the federal government assumed the war debts of all original 13 states . Jefferson's goals were to decrease American dependence on British commerce and to expand commercial trade with France. He sought to weaken Spanish colonialism of

660-445: A cause around which to rally his party and organized a national opposition from Monticello. The treaty, designed by Hamilton, aimed to reduce tensions and increase trade. Jefferson warned that it would increase British influence and subvert republicanism, calling it "the boldest act [Hamilton and Jay] ever ventured on to undermine the government". The Treaty passed, but it expired in 1805 during Jefferson's presidential administration and

792-447: A clipping from the missing issue, but advocates and opponents of the Mecklenburg Declaration agreed that the document was a hoax. It was later confirmed that the "traitorous" document referred to by Governor Martin was not the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, but was instead a radical set of resolutions known as the Mecklenburg Resolves . In 1838, the case for the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence suffered

924-693: A common interest in the playing of the violin. Jefferson entered the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia , in 1761, at the age of eighteen, and studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy with William Small . Under Small's tutelage, Jefferson encountered the ideas of the British Empiricists , including John Locke , Francis Bacon , and Isaac Newton . Small introduced Jefferson to George Wythe and Francis Fauquier . Small, Wythe, and Fauquier recognized Jefferson as

1056-557: A copy of the article to Jefferson to get his reaction. Jefferson replied that, like Adams, he had never heard of the Mecklenburg Declaration before. Jefferson found it curious that historians of the American Revolution, even those from North Carolina and nearby Virginia, had never previously mentioned it. He also found it suspicious that the original was lost in a fire and that most of the eyewitnesses were now dead. Jefferson wrote that while he could not claim for certain that

1188-751: A declaration, the Resolves annulled and vacated all laws originating from the authority of the King or Parliament, and ended recognition of the Crown's power in the colony of North Carolina and all other American colonies. It became the first colony to formally do so, taking place about a year before the Halifax Resolves were passed by the Fourth North Carolina Provincial Congress . The Mecklenburg Resolves document

1320-574: A few weeks in 1777; Mary "Polly" (1778–1804); Lucy Elizabeth (1780–1781); and another Lucy Elizabeth (1782–1784). Only Martha and Mary survived to adulthood. Martha's father John Wayles died in 1773, and the couple inherited 135 enslaved people, 11,000 acres (45 km ; 17 sq mi), and the estate's debts. The debts took Jefferson years to satisfy, contributing to his financial problems. Martha later suffered from ill health, including diabetes, and frequent childbirth weakened her. Her mother had died young, and Martha lived with two stepmothers as

1452-471: A firm supporter of the French Revolution while opposing its more violent elements. Soon after returning from France, Jefferson accepted President Washington's invitation to serve as Secretary of State . Pressing issues at this time were the national debt and the permanent location of the capital. He opposed a national debt, preferring that each state retire its own, in contrast to Secretary of

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1584-502: A girl. A few months after the birth of her last child, she died on September 6, 1782, with Jefferson at her bedside. Shortly before her death, Martha made Jefferson promise never to marry again, telling him that she could not bear to have another mother raise her children. Jefferson was grief-stricken by her death, relentlessly pacing back and forth. He emerged after three weeks, taking long rambling rides on secluded roads with his daughter Martha, by her description "a solitary witness to many

1716-594: A hereditary aristocracy and took the lead in abolishing what he called "feudal and unnatural distinctions." He targeted laws such as entail and primogeniture by which a deceased landowner's oldest son was vested with all land ownership and power. Jefferson was elected governor for one-year terms in 1779 and 1780. He transferred the state capital from Williamsburg to Richmond , and introduced additional measures for public education, religious freedom, and inheritance. During General Benedict Arnold 's 1781 invasion of Virginia , Jefferson escaped Richmond just ahead of

1848-470: A legal holiday to commemorate the Mecklenburg Declaration. Sometimes known as "Meck Dec Day", it is no longer an official holiday and does not attract the attention that it once did. Four United States presidents visited Charlotte to participate in the Mecklenburg Day celebration: William Howard Taft (1909), Woodrow Wilson (1916), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1954), and Gerald Ford (1975). Aware of

1980-583: A letter of inquiry into the geography, history, and government of Virginia, as part of a study of the United States. Jefferson organized his responses in a book, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). He compiled the book over five years, including reviews of scientific knowledge, Virginia's history, politics, laws, culture, and geography. The book explores what constitutes a good society, using Virginia as an exemplar. Jefferson included extensive data about

2112-476: A license plate with the words "First in Freedom" and the date of the Declaration of Independence preceded by the date of North Carolina's supposed declaration. The early government of North Carolina, convinced that the Mecklenburg Declaration was authentic, maintained that North Carolinians were the first Americans to declare independence from Britain. As a result, both the seal and the flag of North Carolina bear

2244-759: A lifelong correspondence. During the summer of 1786, Jefferson arrived in London to meet with John Adams, the US Ambassador to Britain. Adams had official access to George III and arranged a meeting between Jefferson and the king. Jefferson later described the king's reception of the men as "ungracious." According to Adams's grandson, George III turned his back on both in a gesture of public insult. Jefferson returned to France in August. Jefferson sent for his youngest surviving child, nine-year-old Polly, in June 1787. She

2376-517: A list of statements adopted at Charlotte , in Mecklenburg County , North Carolina on May 31, 1775; drafted in the month following the fighting at Lexington and Concord . Similar lists of resolves were issued by other local colonial governments at that time, none of which called for independence from Great Britain . The Mecklenburg Resolves are thought to be the basis for the unproven " Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence ". While not

2508-727: A little county in North Carolina had declared independence at a time when the "Sage of Monticello " was still hoping for reconciliation with Great Britain. On May 20, 1835, more than five thousand people gathered in Charlotte to celebrate the Mecklenburg Declaration. In the many toasts celebrating "the first declaration of American independence", Jefferson was never mentioned. In 1837, Jefferson's first biographer, George Tucker , came to Jefferson's defense. In The Life of Thomas Jefferson , Tucker argued that Jefferson's Declaration of Independence had been fraudulently interpolated into

2640-493: A major role in getting the Continental Congress to declare independence in 1776, had become somewhat resentful that Jefferson now received most of the praise for independence just because he had written the now-revered document announcing it. Adams was therefore privately delighted with the emergence of the Mecklenburg Declaration, since it clearly undercut Jefferson's claim to originality and precedence. Adams sent

2772-399: A man of exceptional ability and included him in their inner circle, where he became a regular member of their Friday dinner parties. Jefferson later wrote that, while there, he "heard more common good sense, more rational & philosophical conversations than in all the rest of my life". During his first year at the college, Jefferson spent considerable time attending parties and dancing and

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2904-469: A most infamous publication in the Cape Fear Mercury importing to be resolves of a set of people styling themselves a committee for the county of Mecklenburg, most traitorously declaring the entire dissolution of the laws, government, and constitution of this country, and setting up a system of rule and regulation repugnant to the laws and subversive of his majesty's government.... Here, at last,

3036-420: A point of faith. At one time the State of North Carolina made it compulsory for the public schools to teach that Mecklenburg County had adopted a Declaration of Independence on May 20, 1775—to teach what had been clearly demonstrated an untruth." In 1997 historian Pauline Maier wrote: When compared to other documents of the time, the "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence" supposedly adopted on May 20, 1775,

3168-411: A profiteering scheme involving the sale of confiscated Loyalist lands. Unlike some Founders, Jefferson was content with his Monticello estate and the land he owned in the vicinity of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley . Jefferson thought of Monticello as an intellectual gathering place for his friends James Madison and James Monroe . In 1780, Jefferson received from French diplomat François Barbé-Marbois

3300-687: A regular companion of the Marquis de Lafayette , a French hero of the American Revolution , and Jefferson used his influence to procure trade agreements with France. As the French Revolution began, he allowed his Paris residence, the Hôtel de Langeac , to be used for meetings by Lafayette and other republicans. He was in Paris during the storming of the Bastille and consulted with Lafayette while

3432-479: A setback from which it has not recovered. That year, while examining newspapers published in 1775, archivist Peter Force discovered an abbreviated list of resolutions adopted in Mecklenburg County on May 31, 1775, that were different from the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20. In 1847, the complete text of these Mecklenburg Resolves was found in a South Carolina newspaper published in June 1775. Unlike

3564-693: A viable system of government for the new Republic and to propose a policy for settlement of the western territories. He was the principal author of the Land Ordinance of 1784 , whereby Virginia ceded to the national government the vast area that it claimed northwest of the Ohio River . He insisted that this territory should not be used as colonial territory by any of the thirteen states, but that it should be divided into sections that could become states. He plotted borders for nine new states in their initial stages and wrote an ordinance banning slavery in all

3696-540: A violent burst of grief". After serving as U.S. Secretary of State from 1790 to 1793 during Washington's presidency , Jefferson returned to Monticello and initiated a remodeling based on architectural concepts he had learned and acquired in Europe. The work continued throughout most of his presidency and was completed in 1809. Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence . At age 33, he

3828-534: A western expansionist policy with the Louisiana Purchase , which doubled the nation's geographic size, and was able to reduce military forces and expenditures following successful negotiations with France. In his second presidential term, Jefferson was beset by difficulties at home, including the trial of his former vice president Aaron Burr . In 1807, Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act to defend

3960-706: Is a diary entry discovered in 1904. The entry is unsigned and undated, but internal evidence suggests that it was written in 1783 in Salem, North Carolina , by a merchant named Traugott Bagge. The English translation of the German entry reads: I cannot leave unmentioned at the end of the 1775th year that already in the summer of this year, that is in May, June, or July, the County of Mecklenburg in North Carolina declared itself free and independent of England, and made such arrangements for

4092-615: Is briefly as follows: After the original documents relating to the Mecklenburg Resolves were destroyed by fire in 1800, John McKnitt Alexander attempted to recreate them from memory. Alexander made some rough notes, which still survive, and internal evidence indicates that these notes were written after the 1800 fire. Like some of his contemporaries, Alexander mistakenly remembered the radical Mecklenburg Resolves as being an actual declaration of independence. This misconception led Alexander, or perhaps another unknown writer, to borrow language from Jefferson's well-known Declaration of Independence when

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4224-485: Is memorialized on the State Seal and the North Carolina state flag (see illustrations). [REDACTED] Works related to Mecklenburg Resolves at Wikisource Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, planter, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He

4356-545: Is simply incredible. It makes the reaction of North Carolinians to Lexington and Concord more extreme than that of the Massachusetts people who received the blow. The resolutions of May 31, 1775, of which there is contemporary evidence, were also radical, but remain believable. Despite much scholarly opinion against the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration, belief in the document remains important to some North Carolinians, says historian Dan L. Morrill, who notes that

4488-420: Is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the author of nature, because it is necessary for his own sustenance." The judge cut him off and ruled against his client. As a consolation, Jefferson gave his client some money, which was conceivably used to aid his escape shortly thereafter. However, Jefferson's underlying intellectual argument that all people were entitled by their creator to what he labeled

4620-491: The Anglican Church , but both were later revived by James Madison . In 1778, Jefferson was given the task of revising the state's laws. He drafted 126 bills in three years, including laws to streamline the judicial system. He proposed statutes that provided for general education, which he considered the basis of "republican government". Jefferson also was concerned that Virginia's powerful landed gentry were becoming

4752-760: The British Parliament passing the Intolerable Acts in 1774. Jefferson's resolution was later expanded into A Summary View of the Rights of British America , in which he argued that people have the right to govern themselves . In 1768, Jefferson began constructing his primary residence, Monticello, whose name in Italian means "Little Mountain", on a hilltop overlooking his 5,000-acre (20 km ; 7.8 sq mi) plantation. He spent most of his adult life designing Monticello as an architect and

4884-550: The Coercive Acts by the British Parliament . During the meeting in Mecklenburg County, the delegates received official news that the battle of Lexington had been fought in Massachusetts one month earlier. Outraged by this turn of events, wrote Alexander, the delegates unanimously passed the following resolutions at about 2:00 a.m. on May 20: A few days later, wrote Alexander, Captain James Jack of Charlotte

5016-551: The Continental Congress . There, the delegates received it but decided not to present it at that time to the Congress as a whole. These resolves were drafted only a month following the outbreak of civil unrest at Lexington and Concord. Similar lists of resolves were issued by other localities at the time and throughout the next 14 months (such as the Tryon Resolves in the neighboring Tryon County ). None of these actually called for independence. The Mecklenburg Resolves left

5148-617: The Louisiana Territory from France, and his leadership in supporting the Lewis and Clark Expedition . They acknowledge the fact of his lifelong ownership of large numbers of slaves and give differing interpretations of his views on and relationship with slavery . Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743, Old Style , Julian calendar ), at the family's Shadwell Plantation in the British Colony of Virginia ,

5280-475: The U.S. government for $ 23,950, hoping to help jumpstart the Library of Congress's rebuilding. Jefferson used a portion of the proceeds to pay off some of his large debt. However, Jefferson soon resumed collecting what amounted to his third personal library, writing to John Adams , "I cannot live without books." By the time of his death a decade later, the library had grown to nearly 2,000 volumes. Jefferson

5412-587: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . In an influential article in the North Carolina University Magazine , Dr. Phillips concluded that John McKnitt Alexander had admitted to having reconstructed the text of the Mecklenburg Declaration from memory in 1800. In 1906, William Henry Hoyt published a scholarly work that many historians have regarded as the conclusive refutation of the Mecklenburg Declaration. Hoyt's argument

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5544-575: The Virginia Constitution , George Mason 's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights , and other sources. Other committee members made some changes, and a final draft was presented to Congress on June 28, 1776. The declaration was introduced on Friday, June 28, and Congress began debate over its contents on Monday, July 1, resulting in the removal of roughly a fourth of Jefferson's original draft. Jefferson resented

5676-574: The trans-Appalachian West and British control in the North, believing this would aid in the pacification of Native Americans. Jefferson and political protegé Congressman James Madison founded the National Gazette in 1791, along with author Phillip Freneau , to counter Hamilton's Federalist policies, which Hamilton was promoting through the influential Federalist newspaper the Gazette of

5808-418: The "Mecklenburg Resolves" (or alleged "Mecklenburg Declaration") was said to have burned in an 1800 fire at a private residence where it was being kept. There are no independently published contemporaneous accounts of the wording of the document. There are no published contemporaneous accounts of who signed the Mecklenburg Resolves. Proof that the Mecklenburg Resolves existed was found in 1838. The case for

5940-490: The 23-year-old widow of Bathurst Skelton. She was a frequent hostess for Jefferson and managed the large household. Biographer Dumas Malone described the marriage as the happiest period of Jefferson's life. Martha read widely, did fine needlework, and was a skilled pianist; Jefferson often accompanied her on the violin or cello. During their ten years of marriage, Martha bore six children: Martha "Patsy" (1772–1836); Jane Randolph (1774–1775); an unnamed son who lived for only

6072-473: The American Declaration of Independence, as a " tory ". According to author Hoyt, Jefferson used the term to mean that Hooper had been conservative on declaring independence, not to imply that he had been a Loyalist , but North Carolinians felt their honored Patriots had been slighted. The state of North Carolina responded to Jefferson's letter in 1831 with an official pamphlet that reprinted

6204-487: The British Crown", "are, and of right ought to be", and "pledge to each other, our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor". This raised an obvious question: did Thomas Jefferson , the principal author of the American Declaration of Independence, use the Mecklenburg Declaration as a source? One person who thought so was John Adams , who like Jefferson was elderly and in retirement when

6336-617: The British forces, which razed the city. He sent emergency dispatches to Colonel Sampson Mathews and other commanders in an attempt to repel Arnold's efforts. General Charles Cornwallis that spring dispatched a cavalry force led by Banastre Tarleton to capture Jefferson and members of the Assembly at Monticello, but Jack Jouett of the Virginia militia thwarted the British plan. Jefferson escaped to Poplar Forest , his plantation to

6468-672: The British to vacate their posts in the Northwest and to compensate the U.S. for enslaved people whom the British had freed at the end of the war. Jefferson sought a return to private life, and resigned from the cabinet position in December 1793; he may also have wanted to bolster his political influence from outside the administration. After the Washington administration negotiated the Jay Treaty with Britain in 1794, Jefferson saw

6600-554: The Declaration were used increasingly more interchangeably, until the time of the Massachusetts Essex Register News publication (1819) of the purported text of a "Declaration". The background information for that article was supplied by McKnitt's son—two years after his death. Each statement printed in the Essex Register article begins with the word, 'Resolved'. The article was judged a hoax at

6732-442: The Mecklenburg Declaration entered a new phase with the discovery of the Mecklenburg Resolves. The focus shifted from Thomas Jefferson to the question of how to account for two very different sets of resolutions supposedly adopted in Charlotte only eleven days apart. How was it possible that citizens of Mecklenburg County declared independence on May 20, and then met again on May 31 to pass less revolutionary resolutions? For skeptics of

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6864-433: The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence was reprinted in many newspapers across the United States. People immediately noticed that, even though the Mecklenburg Declaration was supposedly written more than a year before the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence , the two declarations had some very similar phrases, including "dissolve the political bands which have connected", "absolve ourselves from all allegiance to

6996-481: The Mecklenburg Declaration that had appeared in the Raleigh Register in 1819, the Mecklenburg Resolves fell short of an outright declaration of independence, and did not contain language that was parallel to Jefferson's 1776 Declaration of Independence. The Resolves, though comparatively radical, were similar to other local resolutions that were adopted in the colonies in 1774 and 1775. The controversy over

7128-444: The Mecklenburg Declaration to a skeptical footnote; Professor H.G. Jones, in his North Carolina Illustrated (Chapel Hill: University of N.C. Press, 1983), pointedly places ironic quotation marks around the name of the declaration. The Harvard Guide to American History (1954) lists the Mecklenburg Declaration under the heading of "spurious declarations." Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Allan Nevins wrote in 1938 "Legends often become

7260-488: The Mecklenburg Declaration was a fabrication, "I shall believe it such until positive and solemn proof of its authenticity shall be produced." Jefferson's argument, Adams wrote in reply, "has entirely convinced me that the Mecklengburg ;[ sic ] Resolutions are a fiction". Adams forwarded Jefferson's letter to the editor of the Massachusetts newspaper, who wrote an article expressing reservations about

7392-411: The Mecklenburg Declaration was published in 1819. When Adams read Dr. Alexander's article in a Massachusetts newspaper, he was astonished because he had never previously heard of the Mecklenburg Declaration. He immediately assumed, as he wrote a friend, that Jefferson had "copied the spirit, the sense, and the expressions of it verbatim into his Declaration of the 4th of July, 1776." Adams, who had played

7524-455: The Mecklenburg Declaration was written from Alexander's rough notes. The eleven-day discrepancy between the two sets of resolutions—May 20 and May 31—may result from some confusion of Old Style and New Style dates . According to this argument, when the elderly eyewitnesses were interviewed after 1819, they naturally could not be expected to verify the wording of a document that they had heard read nearly fifty years earlier, nor remember

7656-442: The Mecklenburg Declaration without mentioning Jefferson or Adams by name. In response to this skepticism, North Carolina senator Nathaniel Macon and others collected eyewitness testimony to the events described in the article. The now elderly witnesses did not agree in every detail, but they generally corroborated the story that a declaration of independence had been read in public in Charlotte, although they were not all certain about

7788-424: The Mecklenburg Declaration, the answer was that the Declaration was a misdated, inaccurate recreation of the authentic Resolves. Supporters of the Declaration maintain that both documents are genuine, and were adopted to serve different purposes. Nonetheless, the North Carolina government has endorsed the story, and the date of the unverified Mecklenburg Declaration , rather than the verified "Mecklenburg Resolves,"

7920-405: The Mecklenburg Declaration, the answer was that the Declaration was a misdated, inaccurate recreation of the authentic Resolves. Supporters of the Declaration maintained that both documents were genuine, and were adopted to serve different purposes. The argument that the Mecklenburg Declaration is a flawed version of the Mecklenburg Resolves was first made in 1853 by Charles Phillips, a professor at

8052-458: The Mecklenburg Declaration. North Carolina native Francis L. Hawks , a New York Anglican clergyman, responded that Jefferson had instead plagiarized the Mecklenburg Declaration. Hawks's position was apparently supported by the discovery of a proclamation by Josiah Martin , the last royal governor of North Carolina, which seemed to confirm the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration. In August 1775, Governor Martin had written that he had: seen

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8184-459: The Mecklenburg Resolves had been an outright declaration of independence. While they undoubtedly told the truth about the events of May 1775 as they remembered them, their testimony was given in response to leading questions , and their answers actually referred to the lost Mecklenburg Resolves. Unfortunately, by the time the authentic text of the Resolves had been rediscovered, all of the eyewitnesses were dead, and so no one could be asked to explain

8316-546: The Provincial government "under the Great Continental Congress is invested with all legislative and executive Powers...and that no other Legislative or Executive does or can exist, at this time, in any of these Colonies." Captain James Jack is reputed to have relayed the Resolves document to the North Carolina delegation made up of Richard Caswell , William Hooper , and Joseph Hewes meeting at

8448-562: The Senate, he assumed a more passive role than his predecessor John Adams. He allowed the Senate to freely conduct debates and confined his participation to procedural issues, which he called an "honorable and easy" role. Jefferson had previously studied parliamentary law and procedure for 40 years, making him quite qualified to serve as presiding officer. In 1800, he published his assembled notes on Senate procedure as A Manual of Parliamentary Practice . He cast only three tie-breaking votes in

8580-576: The Senate. In four confidential talks with French consul Joseph Létombe in the spring of 1797, Jefferson attacked Adams and predicted that his rival would serve only one term. He also encouraged France to invade England, and advised Létombe to stall any American envoys sent to Paris. This toughened the tone that the French government adopted toward the Adams administration. After Adams's initial peace envoys were rebuffed, Jefferson and his supporters lobbied for

8712-525: The Treasury Alexander Hamilton , who desired consolidation of states' debts by the federal government. Hamilton also had bold plans to establish national credit and a national bank, but Jefferson strenuously opposed this and attempted to undermine his agenda, which nearly led Washington to dismiss him from the cabinet. He later left the cabinet voluntarily. The second major issue was the capital's permanent location. Hamilton favored

8844-430: The United States . The National Gazette made particular criticism of the policies promoted by Hamilton, often through anonymous essays signed by the pen name Brutus at Jefferson's urging, which were written by Madison. In Spring 1791, Jefferson and Madison took a vacation to Vermont ; Jefferson had been suffering from migraines and was tiring of the in-fighting with Hamilton. In May 1792, Jefferson became alarmed at

8976-502: The administration of the laws among themselves, as later the Continental Congress made for all. This Congress, however, considered these proceedings premature. Skeptics of the Mecklenburg Declaration argued that the diary entry merely suggests that Bagge, writing eight years after the event, misinterpreted the Mecklenburg Resolves as having been an actual declaration of independence. Archibald Henderson, however, argued that

9108-525: The authenticity of the Mecklenburg Resolves, but not a declaration of independence was bolstered with the discovery by historian Peter Force of an abbreviated list of resolutions that were adopted in Mecklenburg County on May 31, 1775. These differed widely from the purported text of the declaration of May 20. Then, in 1847, the complete text of The Resolves was found in the archives of the South Carolina Gazette . The newspaper had reported

9240-449: The changes, but he did not speak publicly about the revisions. On July 4, 1776, the Congress ratified the Declaration, and delegates signed it on August 2; in so doing, the delegates were knowingly committing an act of high treason against The Crown , which was deemed the most serious criminal offense and was punishable by torture and death . Jefferson's preamble is regarded as an enduring statement on individual and human rights, and

9372-628: The clerk at a meeting convened in Charlotte on May 19, 1775. Each militia company in Mecklenburg County had sent two delegates to the meeting, where measures were to be discussed regarding the ongoing dispute between the British Empire and the American colonies . Relations between the colonies and British leaders had reached a crisis in Boston, Massachusetts following the 1774 passage of

9504-426: The committee's result and published the text, on June 13, 1775. The article gave the date of adoption of the Mecklenburg Resolves as May 31, 1775. It did not list any signatories. According to North Carolinian folklore , citizens of Mecklenburg County assembled in Charlotte on May 20, 1775, and wrote a declaration of independence from Britain, known as the "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence". Some claim it to be

9636-614: The controversy, the presidents generally praised the revolutionary patriots of Mecklenburg County without specifically endorsing the authenticity of the disputed document. The Mecklenburg Declaration is referenced in the motto for Davidson College , located in Davidson in Mecklenburg and Iredell counties: Alenda Lux Ubi Orta Libertas ("Let Knowledge Be Cherished Where Liberty Has Arisen"). Mecklenburg Resolves The Mecklenburg Resolves , or Charlotte Town Resolves , were

9768-491: The date of the declaration. Coins have been minted that celebrate the Mecklenburg Declaration, and the story was printed in elementary school textbooks. A monument to the reputed signers of the declaration was unveiled in Charlotte on May 20, 1898, and a commemorative tablet was placed in the rotunda of the North Carolina State Capitol building on May 20, 1912. In 1881, the state legislature made May 20

9900-435: The date. Perhaps most importantly, eighty-eight-year-old Captain James Jack was still living, and he confirmed that he had delivered to the Continental Congress a declaration of independence that had been adopted in May 1775. For many, the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration had been firmly established. After the Mecklenburg Declaration was published in 1819, supporters compiled a list of men who they believed had signed

10032-404: The descendants of the May 1775 drafting committee relying on passed-down family lore. Many historians believe the story of a declaration of independence was created by surviving document signers many years after the event, who mistakenly remembered the actual events surrounding the adoption of the Mecklenburg Resolves. Following the fire that destroyed the originals, references to the Resolves and

10164-532: The document, but Adams persuaded the committee to choose Jefferson. His choice was due to Jefferson being a Virginian, popular, and being considered a good writer by Adams. Jefferson consulted with his fellow committee members, but mostly wrote the Declaration of Independence in isolation between June 11 and 28, 1776, in a home he was renting at 700 Market Street in Center City Philadelphia . Jefferson drew considerably on his proposed draft of

10296-463: The document. William Polk , who said that he had heard his father Thomas Polk read the Declaration to the public, listed the names of fifteen delegates present when the Declaration was adopted; other testimony produced other names. A pamphlet issued in 1831 by the government of North Carolina listed the names of twenty-six delegates. Eventually, supporters of the Declaration settled on a list of twenty-seven or twenty-eight men who they claimed had signed

10428-413: The document. In alphabetical order, they are: Modern historians have emphasized that the story of the 1775 signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration can be dated no earlier than 1819. There is no contemporaneous evidence of a signing, nor did John McKnitt Alexander mention such an event in his notes. As far as it is known, none of the "signers" ever claimed to have signed the Mecklenburg Declaration. Most of

10560-422: The door open to reconciliation if Parliament were to "resign its unjust and arbitrary Pretentions [ sic ] with respect to America", in which case the resolutions would no longer be in force. Although a display of defiance, the Mecklenburg Resolves were not, by any means, a declaration that the people of Mecklenburg County were free and independent of The Crown . The original ratified document of

10692-504: The entry attested to both the Declaration ("declared itself free and independent") and the Resolves ("arrangements for the administration of the laws"). The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence no longer attracts much attention from professional historians, who generally regard the document as spurious. If the declaration is mentioned in scholarly works, it is usually to discount it. Professor William S. Powell , in his standard history North Carolina through Four Centuries (1989) relegates

10824-407: The exact date of the public reading. The eyewitnesses were misled into accepting the text of the Mecklenburg Declaration as authentic because it had been published in 1819 with the claim that it was a true copy of the original resolutions. Because the actual resolutions had been radical, and British authority in Mecklenburg County had effectively ended in 1775, the eyewitnesses were able to believe that

10956-517: The existence of two different sets of resolutions. Advocates of the Mecklenburg Declaration have argued that both the Declaration and the Resolves are authentic. This argument was developed in the 20th century by Professor Archibald Henderson of the University of North Carolina, who, beginning in 1916, wrote numerous articles on the subject. Henderson believed that the evidence showed that Mecklenburg County had adopted two sets of resolutions, that

11088-457: The federal concentration of power, whereas Hamilton sought more power for the federal government. Jefferson supported France against Britain when the two nations fought in 1793, though his arguments in the Cabinet were undercut by French Revolutionary envoy Edmond-Charles Genêt 's open scorn for Washington. In his discussions with British Minister George Hammond , he tried in vain to persuade

11220-495: The first 'declaration of independence' in America. Such a declaration would have antedated the less freedom-seeking Resolves by eleven days (a contradiction in logic); and would have preceded the Declaration of Independence by over a year. Conclusive evidence of an independence-seeking document has not been found, even in extant newspapers of the time. Following the 1800 fire, several reported attempts at that time to re-create

11352-491: The first Americans to declare independence from Great Britain. The official seal and the flag of North Carolina display the dates of both the declaration and the Halifax vote. A holiday commemorating the Mecklenburg Declaration, "Meck Dec Day," is celebrated on May 20 in North Carolina, although it is no longer an official holiday and does not attract the attention that it once did. The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence

11484-654: The latter drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen . Jefferson often found his mail opened by postmasters, so he invented his own enciphering device, the " Wheel Cipher "; he wrote important communications in code for the rest of his career. Unable to attend the 1787 Constitution Convention, Jefferson supported the Constitution but desired the addition of the promised Bill of Rights. Jefferson left Paris for America in September 1789. He remained

11616-422: The legislation's passage, but it faced strong opposition in a state whose economy was largely agrarian. Jefferson took seven cases of freedom-seeking enslaved people and waived his fee for one he claimed should be freed before the minimum statutory age for emancipation. Jefferson invoked natural law , arguing "everyone comes into the world with a right to his own person and using it at his own will ... This

11748-415: The listed signers were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians , as were many of the early promoters of the authenticity of the Declaration. Many of the reputed signers were kinsmen, and their descendants were among the staunchest defenders of the Declaration. Eyewitnesses who provided testimony about the 1775 meeting disagreed about the roles played by some of the signers. John McKnitt Alexander wrote that he had been

11880-542: The military, levied new taxes, and enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts . Jefferson believed these laws were intended to suppress Democratic-Republicans, rather than prosecute enemy aliens, and considered them unconstitutional. To rally opposition, he and James Madison anonymously wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions , declaring that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it by

12012-576: The nation's first secretary of state, where he served from 1790 to 1793. During this time, in the early 1790s, Jefferson and political ally James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the nation's First Party System . Jefferson and Federalist John Adams became both personal friends and political rivals. In the 1796 U.S. presidential election between

12144-425: The nation's industries from British threats to U.S. shipping, limiting foreign trade and stimulating the birth of the American manufacturing industry. Jefferson is ranked by both scholars and in public opinion among the upper tier of American presidents. Presidential scholars and historians praise Jefferson's public achievements, including his advocacy of religious freedom and tolerance, his peaceful acquisition of

12276-955: The nation's territories. Congress made extensive revisions and rejected the ban on slavery. The provisions banning slavery, known as the "Jefferson Proviso", were modified and implemented three years later in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and became the law for the entire Northwest Territory . On May 7, 1784, Jefferson was appointed by the Congress of the Confederation to join Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in Paris as Minister Plenipotentiary for Negotiating Treaties of Amity and Commerce with Great Britain and other countries. With his young daughter Patsy and two servants, he departed in July 1784, arriving in Paris

12408-679: The next month. Jefferson had Patsy educated at the Pentemont Abbey . Less than a year later he was assigned the additional duty of succeeding Franklin as Minister to France. French foreign minister Count de Vergennes commented, "You replace Monsieur Franklin, I hear." Jefferson replied, "I succeed . No man can replace him." During his five years in Paris, Jefferson played a leading role in shaping U.S. foreign policy . In 1786, he met and fell in love with Maria Cosway , an accomplished—and married—Italian-English musician of 27. She returned to Great Britain after six weeks, but they maintained

12540-445: The original documents relating to the Mecklenburg Declaration were destroyed in a fire in 1800, the article was written from a true copy of the papers left to him by his father, who was now deceased. "Either these resolutions are a plagiarism from Mr. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, or Mr. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence is a plagiarism from those resolutions." — John Adams , August 21, 1819 The 1819 article about

12672-645: The phrase " all men are created equal " has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language". The Declaration of Independence, historian Joseph Ellis wrote in 2008, represents "the most potent and consequential words in American history". At the start of the Revolution, Colonel Jefferson was named commander of the Albemarle County Militia on September 26, 1775. He

12804-599: The political rivalries taking shape; he wrote to Washington, imploring him to run for reelection that year as a unifying influence. He urged the president to rally the citizenry to a party that would defend democracy against the corrupting influence of banks and monied interests, as espoused by the Federalists. Historians recognize this letter as the earliest delineation of Democratic-Republican Party principles. Jefferson, Madison, and other Democratic-Republican organizers favored states' rights and local control and opposed

12936-456: The possibility that it is genuine cannot be entirely discounted. Morrill writes, "Let's make one thing clear. One cannot demonstrate conclusively that the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence is a fake. The dramatic events of May nineteenth and May twentieth could have happened. Ultimately, it is a matter of faith, not proof. You believe it or you don't believe it." Initially in 1975–1979 and then starting again from 2015, North Carolina released

13068-549: The previously published accounts with some additional testimony in support of the Mecklenburg Declaration. This was followed in 1834 with a book by a leading North Carolina historian, Joseph Seawell Jones, entitled A Defence of the Revolutionary History of the State of North Carolina from the Aspersions of Mr. Jefferson. Jones defended the patriotism of William Hooper and accused Jefferson of being envious that

13200-407: The previously unheralded Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. Before then, Virginia and Massachusetts had been given much of the credit for leading the American Revolution. The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence clearly enhanced North Carolina's role—already notable because of the Halifax Resolves of April 1776—in establishing American independence. The first celebration of the anniversary of

13332-536: The release of papers related to the incident, called the XYZ Affair after the letters used to disguise the identities of the French officials involved. However, the tactic backfired when it was revealed that French officials had demanded bribes, rallying public support against France. The U.S. began an undeclared naval war with France known as the Quasi-War . During the Adams presidency, the Federalists rebuilt

13464-453: The secretary at the meeting, but others recalled that Ephraim Brevard had been the secretary. Alexander wrote that his kinsman Adam Alexander had issued the order for the meeting to be convened, but William Polk and other eyewitnesses insisted that Thomas Polk had called the meeting. Abraham Alexander is said to have chaired the meeting. After 1819, people in North Carolina (and Tennessee , which shared an early history) began to take pride in

13596-527: The state's natural resources and economy and wrote at length about slavery and miscegenation ; he articulated his belief that blacks and whites could not live together as free people in one society because of justified resentments of the enslaved. He also wrote of his views on the American Indians, equating them to European settlers. Notes was first published in 1785 in French and appeared in English in 1787. Biographer George Tucker considered

13728-608: The state, national, and international levels. Jefferson was born into the Colony of Virginia 's planter class , dependent on slave labor . During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia at the Second Continental Congress . He served as the second governor of revolutionary Virginia from 1779 to 1781. In 1785, Congress appointed Jefferson U.S. minister to France , where he served from 1785 to 1789. President Washington then appointed Jefferson

13860-414: The supposed adoption of the Mecklenburg Declaration took place in Charlotte on May 20, 1825. Many North Carolinians were offended when Thomas Jefferson's skeptical letter about the Mecklenburg Declaration was posthumously published in 1829. In questioning the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration, Jefferson, a Virginian, had impolitically referred to William Hooper , one of North Carolina's signers of

13992-535: The text of the Mecklenburg Declaration was not recreated from memory, and that the events as described in Alexander's 1819 article were substantially correct. His work was supplemented in 1960 by journalist V. V. McNitt's book Chain of Error and the Mecklenburg Declarations of Independence . One of the strongest pieces of nearly contemporaneous evidence in support of the Mecklenburg Declaration

14124-530: The text of the burned document added to the confusion and controversy. This is especially true because some of the "re-created text" now borrowed actual passages from the United States Declaration of Independence. The text of the supposed declaration was created not only from an attempted reconstruction cobbled together decades after the events of 1775 from the memories of the few surviving signers (including John McKnitt Alexander) but also from

14256-554: The third of ten children. He was of English and possibly Welsh descent, and was born a British subject . His father, Peter Jefferson , was a planter and surveyor who died when Jefferson was fourteen; his mother was Jane Randolph . Peter Jefferson moved his family to Tuckahoe Plantation in 1745 on the death of William Randolph III , the plantation's owner and Jefferson's friend, who in his will had named Peter guardian of Randolph's children. The Jeffersons returned to Shadwell before October 1753. Peter died in 1757, and his estate

14388-497: The time by Thomas Jefferson and John Adams . The controversy over the Mecklenburg Declaration entered a new phase with the discovery of the text of Mecklenburg Resolves. It was then asked how can one account for two very different sets of resolutions supposedly adopted only eleven days apart by the same committee? How was it possible that citizens of Mecklenburg County declared independence on May 20, and then met again on May 31, to pass less revolutionary resolutions? For skeptics of

14520-452: The two, Jefferson came in second, which made him Adams' vice president under the electoral laws of the time. Four years later, in the 1800 presidential election , Jefferson again challenged Adams and won the presidency. In 1804 , Jefferson was reelected overwhelmingly to a second term. As president, Jefferson assertively defended the nation's shipping and trade interests against Barbary pirates and aggressive British trade policies, promoted

14652-511: The west. When the General Assembly reconvened in June 1781, it conducted an inquiry into Jefferson's actions which eventually concluded that Jefferson had acted with honor—but he was not re-elected. In April of the same year, his daughter Lucy died at age one. A second daughter of that name was born the following year, but she died at age two. In 1782, Jefferson refused a partnership offer by North Carolina Governor Abner Nash , in

14784-414: The work "surprising in the extent of the information which a single individual had been thus far able to acquire, as to the physical features of the state"; Merrill D. Peterson described it as an accomplishment for which all Americans should be grateful. Jefferson was appointed a Virginia delegate to the Congress of the Confederation organized following the peace treaty with Great Britain in 1783. He

14916-495: Was a member of the committee setting foreign exchange rates and recommended an American currency based on the decimal system that was adopted. He advised the formation of the Committee of the States to fill the power vacuum when Congress was in recess. The committee met when Congress adjourned, but disagreements rendered it dysfunctional. In the Congress's 1783–1784 session, Jefferson acted as chairman of committees to establish

15048-576: Was accompanied by a young slave from Monticello, Sally Hemings . Jefferson had taken her older brother, James Hemings , to Paris as part of his domestic staff and had him trained in French cuisine. According to Sally's son, Madison Hemings , the 16-year-old Sally and Jefferson began a sexual relationship in Paris, where she became pregnant. The son indicated Hemings agreed to return to the United States only after Jefferson promised to free her children when they came of age. While in France, Jefferson became

15180-628: Was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1767, and lived with his mother at Shadwell. He represented Albemarle County in the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1769 until 1775. He pursued reforms to slavery, including writing and sponsoring legislation in 1769 to strip power from the royal governor and courts, instead providing masters of slaves with the discretion to emancipate them. Jefferson persuaded his cousin Richard Bland to spearhead

15312-401: Was contemporaneous confirmation that radical resolves had been adopted in Mecklenburg County in 1775. Unfortunately, the issue of the Cape Fear Mercury that Martin referred to could not be found. Throughout the 19th century, supporters of the Mecklenburg Declaration hoped that the missing paper would be discovered, proving their case. In 1905, Collier's Magazine published what was said to be

15444-624: Was created by the Mecklenburg County Committee of Safety on or after May 20, 1775, and adopted by that same committee on May 31, 1775. This was just weeks after what is now considered the first battles in the American War for Independence at Lexington and Concord , Massachusetts . The Resolves proclaimed that "all Laws...derived from the Authority of the King or Parliament, are annulled and vacated," and that

15576-484: Was destroyed in a fire at his Shadwell home. His second library replenished the first. It grew to 1,250 titles by 1773, and to nearly 6,500 volumes by 1814. Jefferson organized his books into three broad categories corresponding with elements of the human mind: memory, reason, and imagination. After British forces burnt the Library of Congress during the 1814 Burning of Washington , Jefferson sold his second library to

15708-462: Was divided between his sons Thomas and Randolph . John Harvie Sr. became 13-year-old Thomas' guardian. Thomas inherited approximately 5,000 acres (2,000 ha; 7.8 sq mi), which included Monticello , and he assumed full legal authority over the property at age 21. Jefferson began his education together with the Randolph children at Tuckahoe under tutors. Thomas' father Peter, who

15840-513: Was greatly pleasing to Jefferson. In October of that year, however, Jefferson mourned his sister Jane's unexpected death at age 25; he wrote a farewell epitaph for her in Latin. Jefferson treasured his books and amassed three sizable libraries in his lifetime. He began assembling his first library, which grew to 200 volumes, in his youth. It included books inherited from his father and left to him by Wythe. In 1770, however, Jefferson's first library

15972-512: Was lost after the American Revolution and not rediscovered until 1838. Defenders of the Mecklenburg Declaration have argued that both the Mecklenburg Declaration and the Mecklenburg Resolves are authentic. North Carolinians, convinced that the Mecklenburg Declaration was genuine, and also because of the Halifax Resolves passed by the North Carolina Provincial Congress on April 12, 1776, maintained that they were

16104-462: Was not renewed. Jefferson continued his pro-France stance; during the violence of the Reign of Terror , he declined to disavow the revolution: "To back away from France would be to undermine the cause of republicanism in America." In the presidential campaign of 1796 , Jefferson lost the electoral college vote to Federalist John Adams 71–68 and was thus elected vice president. As presiding officer of

16236-531: Was not very frugal with his expenditures; in his second year, regretting that he had squandered away time and money in his first year, he committed to studying fifteen hours a day. While at William & Mary, Jefferson became a member of the Flat Hat Club . Jefferson concluded his formal studies in April 1762. He read the law under Wythe's tutelage while working as a law clerk in his office. Jefferson

16368-540: Was one of the youngest delegates to the Second Continental Congress beginning in 1775 at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War , where a formal declaration of independence from Britain was overwhelmingly favored. Jefferson was inspired by the Enlightenment ideals of the sanctity of the individual, and the writings of Locke and Montesquieu . Jefferson sought out John Adams ,

16500-506: Was published on April 30, 1819, in an article written by Joseph McKnitt Alexander in the Raleigh Register and North Carolina Gazette , of Raleigh , North Carolina . "It is not probably known to many of our readers," wrote the editor of the Raleigh Register in an introduction to the article, "that the citizens of Mecklenburg County, in this State made a Declaration of Independence more than a year before Congress made theirs." According to Alexander, his father, John McKnitt Alexander, had been

16632-631: Was quoted as saying, "Architecture is my delight, and putting up, and pulling down, one of my favorite amusements." Construction was done mostly by local masons and carpenters, assisted by Jefferson's slaves. He moved into the South Pavilion in 1770. Turning Monticello into a neoclassical masterpiece in the Palladian style was his perennial project. On January 1, 1772, Jefferson married his third cousin Martha Wayles Skelton ,

16764-429: Was self-taught and regretted not having a formal education, entered Thomas into an English school at age five. In 1752, at age nine, he attended a local school run by a Scottish Presbyterian minister and also began studying the natural world, which he grew to love. At this time he began studying Latin , Greek , and French , while learning to ride horses as well. Thomas also read books from his father's modest library. He

16896-597: Was sent to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia . Jack carried a copy of the resolves and a letter asking North Carolina's congressmen to have the Mecklenburg proceedings approved by Congress. The North Carolina congressional delegation— Richard Caswell , William Hooper , and Joseph Hewes —told Jack that although they supported what had been done, it was premature to discuss a declaration of independence in Congress. Alexander concluded by writing that although

17028-592: Was taught from 1758 to 1760 by the Reverend James Maury near Gordonsville, Virginia , where he studied history, science, and the classics while boarding with Maury's family. Jefferson came to know various American Indians, including the Cherokee chief Ostenaco , who often stopped at Shadwell to visit on their way to Williamsburg to trade. In Williamsburg, the young Jefferson met and came to admire Patrick Henry , eight years his senior, and shared

17160-433: Was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence . Following the American Revolutionary War and before becoming president in 1801, Jefferson was the nation's first U.S. secretary of state under George Washington and then the nation's second vice president under John Adams . Jefferson was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism , and natural rights , and he produced formative documents and decisions at

17292-504: Was then elected to the Virginia House of Delegates for Albemarle County in September 1776, when finalizing the state constitution was a priority. For nearly three years, he assisted with the constitution and was especially proud of his Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, which prohibited state support of religious institutions or enforcement of religious doctrine. The bill failed to pass, as did his legislation to disestablish

17424-535: Was well-read in a broad variety of subjects, which, along with law and philosophy, included history, natural law, natural religion, ethics, and several areas in science, including agriculture. During his years of study under the watchful eye of Wythe, Jefferson authored a Commonplace Book , a survey of his extensive readings. Wythe was so impressed with Jefferson that he later bequeathed his entire library to him. On July 20, 1765, Jefferson's sister Martha married his close friend and college companion Dabney Carr , which

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