The only production details we have are from comments made over two decades after the fact and rely upon the memories and claimed notes of Jefferson and Adams. There was actually a committee of five, and the whole congress had a voice in the editing. Popular myth says that Thomas Jefferson authored the Declaration – a claim that loomed ever larger on the horizon of Jefferson’s life in his declining years as he seized upon it as his magnum opus. Being a lifelong Bibliophile immersed in Scripture, I found the parallels between Scripture and Declaration striking. Still, it was the second story that most intrigued me – partly because it was mostly fresh ground for me, and partly because at times I forgot which document I was reading about, the Declaration or the Bible. I know the first story pretty well, finding a front row seat in works such as John Adams by McCullough, but what a delight to see it unfold though Maier’s telling. Maier tells the reader, “This book tells two different but related stories – that of the original making of the Declaration of Independence and that of its remaking into the document most Americans know, remember, and revere.”īoth of them enrapturing – at least to me, but then I devour history the way normal men devour sports. My latest read, finished, fittingly, on Independence Day.Īmerican Scripture: The Making of the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier.
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