This reproduces only the sentences near the beginning in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson, showing his corrections. Later in the manuscript there are corrections, of no great extent, in the handwriting of John Adams and Benj. Franklin. The original paper is in the Patent Office at Washington, and is printed in Jefferson's _Writings_, i. 26; in Randall's _Jefferson_; in the _Declaration of Independence_ (Boston, 1876, published by the city), where is also a reduced fac-simile of the engraved document as signed. Cf. Guizot's _Washington_, Atlas. Lossing (_Field-Book_, ii. 281) gives a fac-simile of a paragraph nearly all of which was omitted in the final draft, as was the paragraph respecting slavery (Jefferson's _Memoir and Corresp._, i. p. 16). A letter of Jefferson to R. H. Lee, July 8, 1776, accompanying the original draft, showing the changes made by Congress, is in Lee's _Life of R. H. Lee_, i. 275. For accounts of various early drafts, and for John Adams's instrumentality in correcting it, see C. F. Adams's _John Adams_, i. 233, ii. 515. Cf. also Parton's _Jefferson_, ch. 21; and his _Franklin_, ii. 126. John Adams contended that the essence of it was in earlier tracts of Otis and Sam. Adams (_Works_, ii. 514). On the literary character of the document, see Greene's _Historical View_, p. 382; the lives of Jefferson by Tucker, Parton, Randall, John T. Morse, Jr. The similarity of the preamble of the Constitution of Virginia and certain parts of the Declaration have been taken to show that Jefferson plagiarized (_New York Review_, no. 1), but the testimony of a letter of George Wythe to Jefferson, July 27, 1776, seems to make it clear that Jefferson was the writer of that part of the Constitution, though Geo. Mason formed the body of it. Cf. also Wirt's _Patrick Henry_ and Tucker's _Jefferson_. The text of the Declaration as Jefferson originally wrote it will be found in Randall's _Jefferson_, p. 172; Niles's _Weekly Register_, July 3, 1813; Timothy Pickering's _Review of the Cunningham Correspondence_ (1824), the _Madison Papers_. These copies do not always agree, since different drafts were followed. It is given, with changes indicated as made by Congress, in Jefferson's _Works_, i.; Russell's _Life and Times of Fox_; Lee's _R. H. Lee_. John Adams (_Works_, ii. 511) gives the reasons why Jefferson was put at the head of the committee for drafting the Declaration (_Potter's American Monthly_, vii. 191). [Illustration]