On Sun, 04 Jul 2010 09:04:46 -0400, Jim Elbrecht
wrote:

On Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:05:55 -0700, Oren wrote:

Have a good day tomorrow.

"Subjects."

That's what Thomas Jefferson first wrote in an early draft of the
Declaration of Independence to describe the people of the 13 colonies.
"...Over the smudge, Jefferson then wrote the word "citizens."

"Dr. Fenella France, a research chemist at the Library of Congress,
shows recent imaging of the document. (Susan Walsh - AP)"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...070205525.html


I wonder why the big deal this year? I spent a year or two reading
about the Declaration and signers a decade ago & 'subjects' was always
the way that smudge was read.

Here's a Princeton page with all the changes annotated-
http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/d...on.html#_edn10

The foot note contradicts what I said earlier

"[10] TJ originally wrote “fellow-subjects,” copying the term from the
corresponding passage in the first page of the First Draft of the
Virginia Constitution; then, while the ink was still wet on the “Rough
draught” he expunged or erased “subjects” and wrote “citizens” over
it. The fact that he made the same change in Document I is evidence
that he was using that document as the composition text for this part
of the Declaration."

I can certainly believe they could tell if the ink was still wet,
because erasing it would spread it around, so he did change it
quickly.

It cites Boyd's 1945 interpretation of the rough draft.

Good news story, and neat new toy-- but hardly 'new history'.

Jim