Slavery in the Declaration

In an early version of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson included a 168-word passage denouncing slavery as one of the many evils imposed by the British crown.

Specifically, the deleted passage was a condemnation of George III, “the Christian King of Great Britain,” and his participation in and perpetuation of the slave trade.

The exact circumstances of the passage’s removal may never be known, as the historical record doesn't include details of the debates undertaken by the Second Continental Congress.

What is known:

Jefferson sent a rough draft to the Committee of Five for edits, ahead of the Declaration's presentation to Congress.
Congress had already voted on and adopted a resolution on independence before they began debating the exact text of the Declaration of Independence.
While the slavery clause had been generally opposed by South Carolina, Georgia, and unspecified "northern brethren," there is no evidence to suggest that Edward Rutledge specifically played any part—let alone took on a leadership role—in removing the clause, nor that the Southern states staged a walkout to force the clause's removal.

1776 is not entirely historically accurate, and Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone made narrative choices to maximize dramatic impact. But it's evident that the musical's message and intention run deeper than simply presenting a factually accurate recreation of a history textbook.

Jefferson's original passage on slavery

He [King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

Why was Jefferson's passage on slavery removed?

In his autobiography, Jefferson wrote:

"The clause...reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under these censures; for tho' their people have very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”

(Note: These words are put into Edward Rutledge's mouth on pg. 7-96 of our libretto.)

In short, although Jefferson thought South Carolina and Georgia were key opponents of the clause, he also acknowledges the North's role in getting the clause removed.

The key reasons for striking the clause were economic, not moral:

Southern plantations, a key engine of the colonial economy, needed free labor to produce tobacco and other cash crops for export back to Europe.
Northern shipping merchants, who also played a role in that economy, remained dependent on the triangle trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas that included the traffic of enslaved Africans.

But what did individual delegates really think of slavery on moral grounds?

No doubt, the language in the slavery clause may have reflected the values of many of the delegates.
However, there were contradictions between what they said and what they did:
- One-third of the Declaration's signers were personally enslavers
- The Declaration itself was written to reflect the interests of an assemblage of slave-owning colonies with a profound commercial interest in preserving the trade in human beings
Many of the delegates struggled to put their money where their mouths were, in ways that the musical does not really grapple with or reframes in service of broader narrative goals. For example:
- Thomas Jefferson
  - Wrote the line "all men created equal"; had a philosophical abhorrence to slavery and tried to legally abolish the practice multiple times
  - Owned over 600 slaves in his lifetime, including four that he fathered with his enslaved concubine Sally Hemings
  - Plagued with debt over the course of his lifetime, which likely made it more difficult for him to commit to freeing his slaves
  - On his death in 1826, he arranged to free five of his 135 slaves at the time
- Benjamin Franklin
  - Actively participated in the slave trade, financially benefiting from it in his early life
  - From about 1757-1785, his views began changing on slavery
  - Early 1780s onwards: He began publicly condemning slavery and ordered that his slaves should be freed
  - In the musical, Franklin claimed to be the founder of an abolitionist society by the year 1776; historically though, he only became an abolitionist after the American Revolution, and only became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in 1785
Brief summary: In reality, many of the delegates may have opposed slavery to varying degrees by the year 1776, but the issue does not seem to have been a truly pressing priority for them, and was certainly not important enough for them to risk economic uncertainty or independence itself.