ABSTRACT
Congress had chosen Jefferson to draw up the Declaration of Independence. Later Jefferson himself explained what he had wanted to achieve in writing this most awe-inspiring document of the American nation. He wrote it without consulting texts, quite obviously all in one breath, as it were, making almost no corrections or deletions. He left it to Congress to make corrections. Jefferson did not seek to be original. He was attuned to his people and he wrote this text in the way a violin, touched off by waves of sound that are attuned to it, will begin to sing of its own accord. Among all the delegates, he had been chosen because he was the most sensitive, because he would faithfully reflect all the currents, all the feelings, all the convictions of the nation and would know how to express them with felicity. These are the very words of John Adams, who tells us that Jefferson had “a peculiar felicity of expression.” Jefferson wrote with the same spontaneous and simple impulse that impelled the American militia to fight at Concord.
