For the last hundred years one of the first facts taught to any child of American birth is, that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. The original draft in his handwriting was afterward deposited in the State Department. It shows two or three trifling alterations, interlined in the handwritings of Franklin and Adams. Otherwise it came before Congress precisely as Jefferson wrote it. Many years afterward John Adams gave an account of the way in which Jefferson came to be the composer of this momentous document, differing slightly from the story told by Jefferson. But the variance is immaterial. … Jefferson's statement seems the better entitled to credit, and what little corroboration is to be obtained for either narrator is wholly in his favor. He says simply that when the Committee came together he was pressed by his colleagues unanimously to undertake the draft; that he did so; that, when he had prepared it, he submitted it to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, separately, requesting their corrections, 'which were two or three only and merely verbal,' 'interlined in their own handwritings'; that the report in this shape was adopted by the committee, and a 'fair copy,' written out by Mr. Jefferson, was then laid before Congress. A somewhat more interesting discussion concerns the question, how Jefferson came to be named first on the committee, to the entire exclusion of Lee, to whom, as mover of the resolution, parliamentary etiquette would have assigned the chairmanship. See, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-JUNE).