Rare surviving Declaration of Independence draft on display in NYC

Here’s one way to celebrate Independence Day that has nothing to do with fireworks or cookouts.

Only two complete “fair copies” of the Declaration of Independence still exist — and one is currently on display in the first floor of the New York Public Library’s Gottesman Hall at 476 Fifth Ave. and 42nd Street, where it can be viewed for free from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday. It can also be viewed online.

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The document, handwritten by Thomas Jefferson, contains text cut from the version of the Declaration of Independence that was ratified by Congress on July 4, 1776. This includes Jefferson’s long condemnation of slave trading, removed from the final version to appease South Carolina and Georgia delegates.

Distressed by the passages’ removal, Jefferson preserved the early Declaration — submitted to Congress on June 28, 1776 — by sending it to a handful of friends.

The NYPL’s version was sent by Jefferson to his former law professor George Wythe. It is also known as the “Cassius Lee Copy” for its eventual ownership by one Cassius F. Lee of Alexandria, Virginia. In 1896, surgeon and Americana collector Dr. Thomas Addis sold it to John S. Kennedy, who donated it to the Library.

With the exception of its brief exhibition this week, the document is kept in the NYPL’s Manuscripts and Archives Division.

It also will be part of a rotating selection of items to be displayed in the a permanent exhibition, “Treasures,” opening in November 2020.

The exhibit, to be hosted at 42nd Street’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, will put on display some 100 of the Library’s most legendary items, including the original Bill of Rights, writings from Lou Reed and the Gutenberg Bible.

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