HKB
capacity in his soul to work himself up to. It is neither art nor contrivance, it is the recorded beating of his own heart, the sequel to his previous life.
Take again the passage on human slavery. "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself." It is well known that Mr. Paine, before he wrote Common Sense, attracted the eyes of the world to him by denouncing human slavery in the most impassioned eloquence. This piece he termed "Serious Thoughts," etc. Herein he hopes when the Declaration is made that "our first gratitude to the Almighty may be shown by an act of Continental legislation, which shall put a stop to the importation of negroes, soften the hard fate of those already here, and in time procure their freedom." And he says, long afterward, to the French inhabitants of Louisiana who wished the power to import and enslave Africans, "Dare you put up a petition to Heaven for such a power without fearing to be struck from the earth by its justice?" But the person who wrote the passage on slavery in the original draft of the Declaration could never have kept a slave in bondage, if any thing can be gathered from the nobility, the manliness, the justice, and the philanthropy of its spirit. But Jefferson, while he has left on record his opposition in words to slavery, has left also on record his acts to contradict both them and the Declaration. I here draw the veil over Jefferson as a slaveholder.
While Mr. Jefferson was far above the average mind, yet from his mental make-up, either in his head, heart, character, or capacity, he could not be the author of the Declaration of Independence. Neither in the circumstances of his previous life nor personal history, neither in the heart nor the head, can we find a foundation for the famous document. I know of but one man American born, at that day, with sufficient genius to write it--Benjamin Franklin--and he would have failed in the style and language, and especially in those fine strokes of the affection.[A]
For Mr. Paine to write the Declaration and be ready to hand it to the chairman of the committee, is characteristic of the man. He did the same thing at the "Thatched House" tavern meeting in England in 1791. Mr. Horne Tooke who signed the Address and Declaration as chairman of the meeting, received the document privately from the hand of Mr. Paine, and had Mr. Tooke not afterward disclaimed the authorship of it when charged upon him, Mr. Paine would never have revealed the secret. It was revealed in this manner: Mr. Tooke having spoken in commendation of the Declaration which he signed "was jocularly accused of praising his own work, and to free him from this embarrassment [says Mr. Paine], and the repeated trouble of mentioning the author, as he has not failed to do, I make no hesitation in saying, I drew up the publication," etc. Now, Mr. Paine was never guilty of praising his own work, and nowhere can I find that he ever praised the Declaration of Independence as a work, or that he ever mentioned Junius but once. [B]Had Mr. Jefferson been the author of the Declaration, Mr. Paine no doubt would have called it "A masterly performance."
And thus it is, his hand is seen, though not publicly acknowledged, in all those first principles upon which the fabric of our government rests. And it was the peculiarity of this great man to do the work, and let others carry off the honors.
"But truth shall conquer at the last; For round and round we run, And ever the right comes uppermost, And ever is justice done."
NOTE A.