"Malignity Exposed"

"Malignity Exposed," The Enquirer (Richmond, VA), August 6, 1822, 3.

Article text, 6 August 1822

Page 3

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RICHMOND, AUGUST 6, 1822.

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MALIGNITY EXPOSED.

The subjoined article from the Charleston Patriot exposes another of the vile attemps, which have been recently made by the sleepless spirit of resentment, to strip the laurel from the brow of Jefferson.—His friends never claimed for him the merit of moving in the old Congress of the U.S. the Declaration of its Independence. That honor may belong to Richard Henry Lee, another distinguished Virginian: but his friends have claimed for him the merit of being the author of the Declaration of Independence. It is also true, and the friends of Thomas Jefferson have always said that the original draft of it was changed in some few particulars—that a few single expressions were substituted by others, and that two or three passages of two or three sentences in length were struck out by the Committee.—So far from making concealment of this fact, they have not hesitated to avow it. At least thirteen years ago we published in this paper a copy of the original draft as it came from his own hands: This copy was in his handwriting, and was found among the papers of the late Mr. Wythe, the friend and instructor of his early years. This copy was published in Niles's W. Register, & in various other newspapers of this continent. And now forsooth, we are to be amused with a new discovery of the original draft being "scored and scratched like a school-boy's exercise." This is a most miserable exaggeration—the variations, which were made, were most of them disapproved of by the author we recollect those passages well—and we repeat what we said at the time of re-publication, that the paper was altered for the worse. The two principal alterations (1st, touching our uniform protests against the slave trade, and the enlisting of this race of men against us; and 2ndly, the destinies to which this country might reach separate from G. Britain, and also in connection with her,) are among the most vivid conceptions and masterly sentences, which we recollect ever to have read. Yet these were expunged by the committee; for reasons which we cannot divine. Such is the true state of the case!—such are the memorable lengths to which the enemies of Jefferson would push their resentments. Let the storm however, rage as it may list—eternal honor will "settle upon his head:"

[From the Charleston Patriot.]

This would appear to be an age of calumny and all uncharitableness. It was but a few days since that Mr. JEFFERSON was wounded in his feelings by a charge of public fraud. The author of this piece of malice has been driven, by the indignation of the public, back into the obscurity from which he had emerged with his fund of slanders as the capital or stock on which he expected to trade in his new business of defamation. But as if malice is contagious or admits of being propagated, a coadjutor to the "Native of Virginia" has appeared in the Federal Republican, whose article will be found below, and who wishes to rob Mr. JEFFERSON of the fame of having solely written the Declaration of Independence.—RICHARD HENRY LEE is credited with the honor of having moved the Declaration, and of having corrected and amended the original report of this celebrated paper. Mr. JEFFERSON is not denied having furnished the outlines of the Declaration, but it is pretended it was the work as it now stands of abler hands. Now, the plain intent of this fresh or forgotten fragment of history just recovered and brought to light, is to deprive Mr. JEFFERSON of all credit for originality in drawing up the Declaration of Independence. The attempt is pitiful and indicates the spirit of malice in which it originated. The credit of being the author of the Declaration is nowise impaired by the subject being moved by another; but the insinuation that the original draft only was furnished by him and not the perfect copy as it now stands, is contradicted by the evidence of contemporaries.

See also

• Wythe's Lost Papers