There’s a fine story at the Washington Post (free registration req’d) entitled, “Jefferson Changed ‘Subjects’ to ‘Citizens’ in Declaration of Independence.” It’s long been known that Jefferson made changes as he worked on his draft of the Declaration, as anyone would. ONly in one case, however, did he erase a word entirely, and substitute a different one. (In other cases, he merely scratched a word out, and wrote a new one beside it. For more on the science behind the discovery, see “Subjects of Attention.”)
Using advanced imaging technology, research chemist Dr. Fernella France and colleagues examined Jefferson’s actual written draft:
Scholars of the revolution have long speculated about the “citizens” smear — wondering whether the erased word was “patriots” or “residents” — but now the Library of Congress has determined that the change was far more dramatic.
Using a modified version of the kind of spectral imaging technology developed for the military and for monitoring agriculture, research scientists teased apart the mystery and reconstructed the word that Jefferson banished in 1776.
“Seldom can we re-create a moment in history in such a dramatic and living way,” Library of Congress preservation director Dianne van der Reyden said at Friday’s announcement of the discovery.
“It’s almost like we can see him write ‘subjects’ and then quickly decide that’s not what he wanted to say at all, that he didn’t even want a record of it,” she said. “Really, it sends chills down the spine.”
Yes, it very much does. Here a great man, who helped make us what we are, saw the looming truth of his, and of others’, efforts: that we would never again be merely subjects, but were from then onward citizens.
And so we are, proudly, to this day.
