Question

One of the grievances listed in Jefferson's draft was the king's refusal to allow the colonies to end the slave trade. To what extent did the deletion of this grievance change the character of the Declaration?

Answer 1

With its soaring rhetoric about all men being “created equal,” the Declaration of Independence gave a powerful voice to the values behind the American Revolution. Critics, however, saw a glaring contradiction: Many of the colonists who sought freedom from British tyranny themselves bought and sold human beings. By underpinning America’s nascent economy with the brutal institution of chattel slavery, they deprived roughly one-fifth of the population of their own “inalienable” right to liberty.