In this edited conversation, Isaacson '74, a journalist and author of best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin (2003) and Steve Jobs (2011), digs into the story behind the drafting of the sentence, explains why he believes it is so foundational, and argues that a re-examination of the ideas could remind our riven nation of the common values to which we aspire.
The Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms, published by the Continental Congress in July 1775, outlines the familiar grievances on taxes, trade, and military aggression that had driven the colonists to violence in Lexington and Concord earlier that year. Soon, the congressmen were logging 12-hour days from their base in Philadelphia, running a military campaign against the world's leading superpower while laying the foundations for an entirely new way of governing.
“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.
