Declaration of Independence rough draft shows crossout

Posted by Jose in Articles on July 2nd, 2010 | no responses

Just in time for the Fourth of July, the Library of Congress has this news: Hyperspectral imaging of Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence has confirmed that he originally wrote the phrase “our fellow subjects,” but then scrawled over it the word “citizens.”

The change occurs in the portion of the document that discusses the colonists’ grievances against King George III. This specific sentence was not in the final declaration but the word “citizens” was used elsewhere and reflected a progression of thinking by Jefferson as he tried to make clear that the people of the fledgling United States were no longer subjects of the British but citizens of their own democracy.

Hyperspectral imaging is the process of taking digital photos of an object using distinct portions of the visible and non-visible light spectrum, revealing what previously could not be seen by the human eye.

Such a find may not seem like a big deal to you but to a historian, it’s huge.

Fenella France, a scientist who conducted the hyperspectral imaging and discovered the blurred word under “citizens,” said: “It had been a spine-tingling moment when I was processing data late at night and realized there was a word underneath citizens. Then I began the tough process of extracting the differences between spectrally similar materials to elucidate the lost text.”

The rough draft of the Declaration of Independence that France inspected can be seen in the online version of the exhibition “Creating the United States” at myLOC.gov (and on-site, appropriately, at the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building).

Declaration of Independence rough draft shows crossout

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