Thomas Jefferson’s Original Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence Can Now Be Seen at the Library of Congress

The new exhibition, which shows how the document was edited, also features an early copy of the Gettysburg Address

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

July 14, 2026 7:00 a.m.

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In 1776, the Declaration of Independence proved that words can change the world. But these words themselves, subject to scrutiny and revisions as the Founders pored over early editions of this all-important document, often changed too. Phrases were tweaked, statements were replaced and ideas were added and crossed-out.

Now, a new exhibit at the Library of Congress is offering the public the chance to see how history was written—and edited. “The Declaration’s Promise: A Revolutionary Idea,” which opened last month, displays Thomas Jefferson’s rare original copy of the Declaration of Independence alongside 120 other primary documents—including books, newspaper clippings and political cartoons—that contributed to the birth of the nation.

“This is Jefferson’s fully realized draft,” Ryan Reft, the exhibit’s lead curator, tells CBS News’ Nikole Killion. “You can see them changing words throughout and kind of distilling the initial draft into the draft that we know today.”

The 1,337-words-long document we know todaywas written primarily by Jefferson but received 86 edits from the likes of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and later the entire Continental Congress. The final version is several hundred words shorter than the original.

Some edits were suggested for clarity or brevity’s sake: “neglected utterly” was changed to “utterly neglected,” “a people who mean to be free” was shortened to “a free people,” “unremitting” was swapped for “repeated” and a smattering of adverbs, deemed unnecessary, were deleted.

But other changes were much more significant. Americans’ rights, which we know today to be “self-evident,” were originally “sacred and undeniable.” “Citizens” were originally “subjects.” Perhaps most crucial of all, a 28th grievance against George III was cut from the final draft. Jefferson wrote that the crown “waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither,” and squashed the colonies’ “every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.”

“Jefferson maintained that the deletion was made at the behest of delegates from South Carolina and Georgia; historians have suggested that it was necessary because the passage was so patently hypocritical as to be embarrassing,” historian Jill Lepore writes in the New Yorker. “And its erasure marked the beginning of centuries of political attempts to pretend that slavery never happened.”

Days after the declaration was ratified, Jefferson sent a letter to Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, wary that the revisions actually improved the document. “You will judge whether it is the better or worse for the Critics,” he wrote, unsure.

The first broadsides of the finalized Declaration of Independence, including one sent from George Washington to John Hancock to read to troops in New York, are also on display in the exhibition, which is open through next July.

Artifacts from a more recent past, also shown in the exhibit, are illustrative of how the Declaration of Independence’s claim that “all men are created equal” did not truly include “all men.” These include an early draft of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Susan B. Anthony’s Declaration of Rights written in support of women’s suffrage and speeches written and delivered by civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Representative John Lewis.

The goal of the exhibit is “to not only show you cool items, but to remind everybody of what and who we are, and why we are,” Reft tells WTOP News’ Matt Kaufax. “In this particular instance, this is a conversation that starts in 1776 and goes to today.”

Christian Thorsberg | Read More

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.