The Declaration of Independence was drawn by Thomas Jefferson; and the circumstances under which he was selected for this honorable and important task have been for more than a quarter of a century somewhat in doubt, and that doubt has been increased by the recent publication of a part of the Works of Mr. John Adams. The evidence on the subject is to be derived chiefly from statements made by both of these eminent persons in their memoirs, and in a letter written by each of them. We have seen, in a former note, that in 1822 Mr. Adams declared, that had it not been for a conversation which occurred in 1775, before the meeting of the Congress of that year, between himself and his Massachusetts colleagues and certain of the Philadelphia "sons of liberty," in which the Massachusetts members were advised to concede precedence to Virginia, from motives of policy, and but for the principles, facts, and motives suggested in that conversation, many things would not have happened which did occur, and among them, that Mr. Jefferson never would have been the author of the Declaration of Independence. In regard to the same speculation, concerning the election of Washington as Commander-in-chief, I have ventured, on Mr. Adams's own authority, to suggest doubts whether that election ought now to be considered to have turned upon motives which Mr. Adams made so prominent in 1822. In regard to the authorship of the Declaration of Independence, I shall only endeavor to state fairly and fully the conflicting evidence, in order that the reader may judge what degree of weight ought to be assigned to the cause, _without_ which Mr. Adams supposed Mr. Jefferson would not have been selected to draft it.