The Ideal That Underlies the Declaration of Independence

"“We hold these truths to be sacred,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in his first draft. Benjamin Franklin, who was on the five-person drafting committee with Jefferson, crossed out “sacred,” using the heavy backslash marks he had often used as a printer, and wrote in “self-evident.” Their declaration was intended to herald a new type of nation, one in which rights are based on reason, not the dictates or dogma of religion."

"But the sentence goes on to invoke "their Creator." In Jefferson's first draft, he wrote that men are created equal, and "from that equal creation they derive rights." That phrase was crossed out and replaced with "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Thus we see, in the editing of just one sentence, the Founders balancing the role of divine providence and that of reason in determining rights."

The Founders opened the Declaration by asserting that a decent respect for the opinions of mankind required declaring causes, distinguishing the new nation from others born of conquest or tribal and religious identities. They proclaimed that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights including Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Drafting choices—Jefferson’s original 'sacred' and Franklin’s replacement 'self-evident,' and the change from 'from that equal creation they derive rights' to 'endowed by their Creator'—reflect a deliberate balance between Enlightenment reason and acknowledgment of divine providence. Those truths provided a common creed uniting diverse peoples.

Read at The Atlantic