Difference between revisions of "Wythe's Lost Papers"

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1806

Richmond Enquirer, June 20, 1806

Thomas Ritchie prints the text of a Jefferson draft of the Declaration of Independence, and a draft of the Virginia Constitution, in the Richmond Enquirer:

Among the literary reliques of the venerable George Wythe, were found the following rare and curious papers in the hand of Mr. Jefferson. The first is a copy of the original declaration of our Independence, as it came from the hands of its author: The other is a Bill of Rights and of a Constitution for Virginia, composed by Mr. Jefferson. For the permission to peruse and publish these papers, we are indebted to the politeness of Major DuVal, the sole executor of the estate.

The federal assertion that Mr. Jefferson was not the author of this celebrated declaration, has long since been refuted, or else these papers would have furnished the most abundant refutation. What now will become of the no less unfounded assertion, that this paper as it was adopted by Congress, owes much of its beauty and its force to the committee appointed to draft it? The world will see that not only were very few additions made by the committee, but that they even struck out two of the most forcible and striking passages in the whole composition. For what reasons, yet remains to be discovered.

The passages omitted from the original are printed in Italics.

This Bill and Constitution as we have them in manuscript, are without any mark to note the date of their production. It is presumed however, that they were written in 1776. The constitution, written by Mr. Jefferson, in '83, is already printed in some of the Editions of his "Notes of Virginia."

1807

Ritchie to Governor William Cabell, April 25, 1807

Calendar of Virginia State Papers, IX, 511

THOMAS RITCHIE TO THE GOVERNOR.

The accompanying valuable papers were (last year) put into my possession by Major DuVall (acting Executive of Mr. Wythe), and I was by him requested to have them deposited among the archives of the Council. I do myself the peculiar pleasure of transmitting them to you for this purpose.

I am, &c.

[The above-mentioned papers were not found.-ED.]

1810

Jefferson-Tyler correspondence, November 12, 1810

Jefferson-Tyler Correspondence: Judge Roane is Spencer Roane, a former student of Wythe's, and Thomas Ritchie's cousin.

Richmond, Nov. 12, 1810

Dear Sir,

Perhaps Mr. Ritchie, before this time, has informed you of his having possession of Mr. Wythe's manuscript lectures delivered at William and Mary College while he was professor of law and politics at that place. They are highly worthy of publication, and but for the delicacy of sentiment and the remarkably modest and unassuming character of that valuable and virtuous citizen, they would have made their way in the world before this. It is a pity they should be lost to society, and such a monument of his memory be neglected. As you are entitled to it by his will (I am informed), as composing a part of his library, could you not find leisure time enough to examine it and supply some omissions which now and then are met with, I suppose from accident, or from not having time to correct and improve the whole as he intended?

Judge Roane has read them, or most of them, and is highly pleased with them, thinks they will be very valuable, there being so much of his own sound reasoning upon great principles, and not a mere servile copy of Blackstone and other British commentators,—a good many of his own thoughts on our constitutions and the necessary changes they have begotten, with that spirit of freedom which always marked his opinions.

I have not had an opportunity of reading them, which I would have done with great delight, but these remarks are made from Judge Roane's account of them to me, who seemed to think, as I do, that you alone should have the sole dominion over them, and should send them to posterity under your patronage.

It will afford a lasting evidence to the world, among much other, of your remembrance of the man who was always dear to you and his country. I do not see why an American Aristides should not be known to future ages. Had he been a vain egoist his sentiments would have been often seen on paper; and perhaps he erred in this respect, as the good and great should always leave their precepts and opinions for the benefit of mankind.

Mr. Wm. Crane gave it to Mr. Ritchie, who I suppose got it from Mr. Duval, who always had access to Mr. Wythe's library, and was much in his confidence.

I hope you are quite as happy as mortality is susceptible of, though not quite dissolved; and that you may remain so for many years, is the sincere wish of your most obedient humble servant.

Jn. Tyler

1817

William Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, p. 196

Sometime after June, 1806, Wirt saw Jefferson's draft of the Virginia Constitution in the Virginia State Archives.

* The striking similitude between the recital of wrongs prefixed to the constitution of Virginia, and that which was afterwards prefixed to the declaration of independence of the United States, is of itself sufficient to establish the fact that they are from the same pen. But the constitution of Virginia preceded the declaration of independence, by nearly a month; and was wholly composed and adopted while Mr. Jefferson is known to have been out of the State, attending the session of congress at Philadelphia. From these facts alone, a doubt might naturally arise whether he was, as he has always been reputed, the author of that celebrated instrument, the declaration of American independence, or at least a recital of grievances which ushers it in; or whether this part of it at least, had not not been borrowed from the preamble to the constitution of Virginia. To remove this doubt, it is proper to state, that there now exists among the archive of this state, an original rough draught of a Constitution for Virginia, in the hand-writing of Mr. Jefferson, containing this identical preamble, and which was forwarded by him from Philadelphia, to his friend Mr. Wythe, to be submitted to the committee of the house of delegates. The body of the constitution is taken principally from a plan proposed by Mr. George Mason; and had been adopted by the committee before the arrival of Mr. Jefferson's plan: his preamble however, was prefixed to the instrument; and some of the modifications proposed by him, introduced into the body of it.

1890

Worthington C. Ford, Nation, August 7, 1890

Ford discovers two manuscript drafts of the Virginia Constitution near Lexington, Virginia.

1892

Kate Mason Rowland, A Lost Paper of Thomas Jefferson, July, 1892

Text of the Ford manuscript published.

1894

Lenox Library Accession

Thomas Jefferson's proposed constitution for Virginia, June 1776. This is the third and final draft and was printed in Paul Leicester Ford's The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, volume 2, page 7, where the history of this document is noted. The first and second drafts are in the Library of Congress. Autograph document, presented to the Lenox Library by Mr. Alexander Maitland in 1894.

See Boyd's notes for 1950: 'The provenance of this text is given in a memorandum of Victor H. Paltsits (Ford Papers, NN, 1 Feb. 1916): the document was acquired from Cassius F. Lee, Jr., of Alexandria, by "William Evarts Benjamin, then a well-known dealer of New York City who acted in the matter for some woman whose name is not revealed." Alexander Maitland purchased it of Benjamin for the Lenox Library.'

1897

Bulletin of the New York Public Library, December, 1897

Document: United States.—Congress, Continental, 1775-1789. [Philadelphia, July 4, 1776.] Declaration of Independence. Draft in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson. 4 pp. F°. EM. 1524

This one of several fair copies made by Jefferson from the original rough draft of the Declaration, after its adoption and publication, in which be gave the wording of the text as reported by the Committee, with the portions underlined that were changed or rejected by Congress. After remaining in the possession of the Lee family, of Virginia for many years, with other papers of Jefferson, the manuscript was sold by the late Mr. Cassius F. Lee, of Alexandria, to Mr. Elliot Danforth, of New York, from whom Dr. Emmet obtained it.

The words substituted by Congress are not given in this copy, which in other respects agrees closely with the drafts sent to Lee and Madison, and with the text as incorporated in the autobiography, with the exception that two paragraphs and a few words were transposed.

Five other drafts of the Declaration in Jefferson's handwriting are known:—(1) the original rough draft, with interlineations, in the Department of State at Washington (reproduced a EM. 1523); (2) the copy lent to R. H. Lee in July 1776. and given by his grandson to the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia in 1825, being similar to EM. 1524(see EM. 1521); (3) the copy made for Madison in 1781, similar to the preceding, and now in the State Department (reproduced in fac-simile in the Madison Papers, vol. 3); (4) the draft incorporated in the autobiography of 1821, similar to (2) and (3), and also in the State Department (printed in Jefferson's Writings (Ford); and (5) the fragment belonging to Mrs. Washburn, of Boston. See Jefferson's Writings (Ford) vol. 2. p. 42, note.

It is stated by Jefferson, in a letter to Madison (Aug. 30, 1823), that be wrote a fair copy from the rough draft, reported it to the Committee, and from them unaltered, to Congress. All trace of this fair draft has been lost. It was probably used in crossing out the passages rejected by Congress, and in the making of the engrossed copy. The latter, which is the one that was signed, is in the keeping of the State Department.

Between July 4 and 10 Jefferson sent other drafts of the Declaration, with the omitted passages marked, to George Wythe, John Page, Edmund Pendleton, and Philip Mazzei, none of which has been found or identified. See Jefferson's Writings (Ford) vol. 2. p. 42, note.

Thomas Lanon, "A Closer Look at Jefferson's Declaration," New York Public Library Blogs, July 2, 2012.

1898

Hays, A Note on the Jefferson Manuscript

Describes a copy of a draft of the Declaration given to the American Philosophical Society in 1825, from a grandson of Richard Henry Lee. Notes another draft at the Lenox Library in New York (absorbed by the New York Public Library), and doubts the Lenox copy came from R.H. Lee:

5. A copy in the Emmet collection in the Lenox Library, New York. "This is one of several fair copies made by Jefferson from the original rough draught of the Declaration, after its adoption and publication, in which he gave the wording of the text as reported by the Committee, with the portions underlined that were changed or rejected by Congress. After remaining in the possession of the Lee family of Virginia for many years, with other papers of Jefferson, .... was sold by the late Mr. Cassius F. Lee, of Alexandria, to Mr. Elliot Danforth, of New York, from whom Dr. Emmet obtained it."1

I have not been able to learn the circumstances under which this copy came into the possession of the Lee family. Dr. Emmet writes me that the only information he "can give is that Mr. Lee stated to me that it was one of the copies Jefferson sent his grandfather, and that it had been sent to some one in lower Virginia by Richard Henry Lee shortly after, and that it was not recovered for many years after."2

This copy is without interlineation and does not contain the additions made by the Congress. It is, with some slight exceptions, the text of the document as reported to the Congress.

1 Bulletin of the New York Public Library, p. 355.

2 Personal communication, April i6, 1898. It does not seem likely that Jefferson should have sent two similar autographic copies of the Declaration to Richard Henry Lee, and as the history of the copy possessed by this Society is clear and indisputable, it is probable that he Emmet copy came from another source, and Mr. Paul L. Ford, the learned student of Jefferson's works, informs me that he is inclined to believe that it is the copy sent to John Page.

In addition to these five copies and a fragment of a sixth, Jefferson made, according to Ford,1 between the 4th and 10th of July, other copies, which he sent to George Wythe,2 John Page, Edmund Pendleton and Philip Mazzei, who gave his copy, so so Jefferson states in his letter to Vaughan, to the Countess de Tessé of France, but is not known if these copies are still in existence.

1 Writings of Jefferson, ii , p. 42, Note.

2 This copy was delivered to Mr. Thomas Ritchie, editor of the Richmond Enquirer, by Major Duval, the executor of Mr. Wythe's estate, and its text was printed in Niles's Weekly Register, July 3, 1883 (Vol. iv, No. 13). Notwithstanding inquiry among Mr. Ritchie's descendants I have not been able to learn whether it is still in existence.

1901

Elliot Danforth in the New York Times, January 6, 1901

"Historic Manuscript Found in Garrett." Several years ago, Cassius F. Lee , Jr. sells Elliot Danforth Jefferson draft of Declaration in Alexandria, Virginia. Danforth sells it to Dr. Thomas A. Emmett.

1916

Anderson, Jefferson and the Virginia Constitution

Suggestion to compare Ford manuscript with The Enquirer text.

1950

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson

Julian P. Boyd's notes on Jefferson's manuscript draft of the Virginia Constitution (p. 364-365):

Dft (NN). This copy of TJ's constitution was folded and docketed in correct legislative form. At the top of the two sheets, after it was folded, TJ endorsed this title on his substantive law: "A Bill for new modelling the form of government, & for establishing the fundamental principles thereof in future." Below this, he added: "It is proposed that this bill, after correction by the Convention, shall be referred by them to the people to be assembled in their respective counties and that the suffrages of two thirds of the counties shall be requisite to establish it."

The provenance of this text is given in a memorandum of Victor H. Paltsits (Ford Papers, NN, 1 Feb. 1916): the document was acquired from Cassius F. Lee, Jr., of Alexandria, by "William Evarts Benjamin, then a well-known dealer of New York City who acted in the matter for some woman whose name is not revealed." Alexander Maitland purchased it of Benjamin for the Lenox Library. Shortly after this text was brought to light in 1890, efforts were made to identify it as the copy that TJ had given to George Wythe to convey to the Virginia Convention (D. R. Anderson, "Jefferson and the Va. Const.," Amer. Hist. Rev., XXI [1915-1916], 751). A close comparison of the copy found among Wythe's papers at his death in 1806 and printed with meticulous accuracy in the Richmond Enquirer, 20 June 1806, clearly establishes the identity of that copy and the one now in the New York Public Library, here designated as the Third Draft (Boyd, Declaration of Independence, 1945, p. 44-5). In 1825 TJ wrote: "I ... drew a sketch or outline of a Constitution, with a preamble, which I sent to Mr. Pendleton, president of the convention .... He informed me afterwards by letter, that he received it on the day on which the Committee of the whole had reported to the House the plan they had agreed to ... " (TJ to Augustus B. Woodward, 3 Apr. 1825). It has been assumed that this was a mistake of memory on TJ's part and that he confused Pendleton with Wythe (Hazelton, p. 451). Wythe reported to TJ that "the one you put into my hands was shewn [italics supplied]" to those chiefly engaged in framing the Constitution (Wythe to TJ, 27 July 1776). This, together with the significant fact that Wythe's copy remained among his papers, indicates that TJ was correct in saying he had sent a copy to Pendleton. If so, this would tend to confirm the supposition advanced in the notes to the Second Draft that two copies were sent. Wirt indicates that the copy he saw in the State archives was the one "forwarded... to Mr. Wythe"; however, he also describes it as "an original rough draught," a description which scarcely fits the Wythe copy or Third Draft (Wirt, Henry, I, 196). Moreover, if Wythe's copy had been used by the Convention as the text from which several parts were taken for incorporation in the Constitution adopted by that body, it seems very likely that some corrections or markings on the MS of the text would have been made to indicate what parts had been selected, how they had been altered, s.c. (see Conv. Jour., May 1776, 1816 edn., p. 78, for 28 June, when it was ordered that "the said plan of government, together with the amendments, be fairly transcribed" [italics supplied]). No such alterations or markings appear on the Third Draft.

¹ MS torn; text supplied from the precisely correct and literal text printed in the Richmond Enquirer, 20 June 1806.

² A word must have been omitted by TJ at this point; elsewhere in the document the comparable phrase is employed: e.g., "incapable of holding any public pension ... ," not "incapable of any pension." The fact is that at this point in the Second Draft TJ wrote: "incapable of being again appointed to the same"; then struck out the words "being again appointed to"; then interlined "holding," making the phrase read as he usually wrote it "incapable of holding the same." However, the word "holding" appears also to have had a line drawn through it, though it also bears evidence of the slight smudge that TJ occasionally made in his rough drafts, as if he had run his finger over a freshly drawn line or word to expunge it. At all events, it is certain that "incapable of holding" is what he normally would have written and it is equally certain that "holding" was interlined though perhaps lined out. The point is worth noting since both the text of the Third Draft and the text of the Enquirer omit the word "holding" at this point, thus adding to the preponderant evidence that they are identical.

³ The square brackets here and below in the text are in the MS.

⁴ The words in italics were struck out, and then TJ interlined the following words at the top of the same page of MS: "nor shall there be power any where to pardon or to remit fines or punishments." This clause was finally inserted in the next to the last paragraph under "1. Legislative," above.

⁵ The six lines in the MS beginning with the words "by an act of the legislature" down to and including "defined by the legislature, and for" are written on a slip of paper pasted on the MS at this point. This represents a curious omission made by TJ in copying, an omission that seems inexplicable except on the ground that the Third Draft (Wythe's copy in NN) was copied not from the Second Draft (DLC) but from another text. As originally copied in the Third Draft, TJ caused this passage to read in part, without a break in the lines, "for breach of which they shall be remove able [end of line] the punishment of which the said legislature shall have previously prescribed certain and determinate pains. ... " The First Draft includes in rough, interlined form the six lines thus omitted at the end of the line "they shall be removeable," but in the Second Draft this passage comprises four and a half lines at the bottom of page 7 and two and a half lines at the top of page 8. It is conceivable that TJ could have accidentally skipped such a passage if it had ended at the bottom of a page or if its beginning and end coincided with the beginning and end of a line. But it is difficult to believe that he could have made this error if he had been copying from a text where the passage began in the middle of the line near the bottom of one page and ended in the middle of the line near the top of another, particularly in a case where the omission involved such a sharp break in the continuity and sense. The evidence in this instance alone is not conclusive, but taken in connection with TJ's remarks in 1825, with the statements of Wirt and Leigh as cited in notes to the Second Draft, and other evidences given in these notes, it seems certain that the Third Draft was copied from another fair copy made from the Second Draft. At all events, the omission of this passage conclusively proves that the Third Draft is the copy that George Wythe carried to Virginia, for the Richmond Enquirer printed the six lines written on the slip of paper, but neglected to include the lines written underneath. This typographical error obviously could have occurred only in the use of the copy now in NN, which, therefore, is the copy transmitted by Wythe.

1983

Kirtland, "What Has Become of George Wythe's Papers?" (Appendix A, George Wythe: Lawyer, Revolutionary, Judge) p. 298-299

It is intriguing but apparently idle to speculate on the possibility that a substantial corpus of Wythe papers may survive to the present day.

Wythe may not, in fact, have kept extensive files. Few men of his era shared Jefferson's conspicuous sense of the future and of their importance to it. It was Jefferson, indeed, who remarked to Tyler that he had been surprised to learn of the existence of Wythe's manuscript lecture notes, since "he might have destroyed them, as I expect he has done [to] a very great number of instructive arguments delivered at the bar, and often written at full length.1

Apart from small bequests and the establishment of a trust to provide for Lydia Broadnax, Wythe's entire estate went to the brother and two sisters of George Wythe Sweeney: Charles A., Ann, and Jane Sweeney. Charles and Jane were minors (Holder Hudgins of Mathews County, the ultimate purchaser of Chesterville, was their guardian) as late as November, 1808, and before that date (by which time she had married John Cary, and seems to have been living in Henrico County), Ann may have been under Hudgins's guardianship, too.2

1 Jefferson to John Tyler, 25 Nov. 1810, in answer to Tyler's letter cited above, Chapter I, note 9: DLC, Jefferson Papers, 191:34037.

2 The Wythe heirs and their guardian can be traced back, in part, through Abraham Warwick, who owned the Wythe Richmond homesite in the

There is no evidence that these grandchildren of Wythe's sister, Ann, were living with their great-uncle, like their brother, George, at the time of Wythe's death. If they knew of his papers, they apparently had no interest in or appreciation of them. Governor Tyler suggests to Jefferson, in the letter cited above (Chapter I, note 9), that perhaps the latter was entitled to the manuscript of the lectures by reason of the bequest of Wythe's library (Would that Jefferson had overcome his scrupulous regard for the exact terms of the bequest! Had he, the manuscript might have survived. Jefferson's conscience in this regard is in stark contrast with the uncertainties of Tyler, who though a lawyer and later a judge could say, four years after Wythe's death, "You are entitled to [the manuscript] by his will (as I am informed)"!).

Moreover, there is in the executive papers of Virginia a letter written by Thomas Ritchie to Governor William H. Cabell, dated 27 April 1807, covering certain "valuable papers" that had come into the editor's possession through "Major Duvall (acting Executive of Mr. Wythe)" and were, at the latter's request, to be deposited in the State archives.3 There can be little question that these papers, otherwise undescribed, had come from Wythe's files. There is no trace of them today, nor was there when the archives were calendared at the end of the last century.

1850's; see Richmond City Hustings Deeds, Book 21, p. 570, and Book 3l, p. 385; Henrico Court Order Book #16, p. 223: #14, p. 162; and Henrico Court Minute Book, 1823-1825, pp. 269, 279, all in Vi.

For the information on Hudgins's purchase of Chesterville, I can cite only a newspaper article from the Daily Press of Newport News, Hampton, and Warwick, 31 May 1953, section D, p. I, purporting to give the family tradition of Col. Robert Hudgins, a descendant of Holder and the last private owner of Chesterville; see Appendix B.

3 Calendar of Virginia State Papers, IX, 511.