Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1882 — Dickinson and Jefferson. [ARTICLE]

Dickinson and Jefferson.

John Dickinson, Mr. Moore said, was unquestionably the author of that great document, the “Declaration of Taking Up Arms in 1775.” The claim that Thomas Jefferson was the author of the most important part of it was made public only after both Jefferson and Dickinson were in their graves. It had been generally accepted, and he had gone into the histories even of men like Bancroft, “who,” the speaker said, “seemed to have suffered syncope in the presence of the chief of American Democracy. I propose,” Mr. Moore continued, “to settle the question, now and here, of the absolute, sole and undivided right of John Dickinson to that imperishable product of his pen, the original of which I hold in my hand. I am indebted to- the late Dr, John D. Logan, of Baltimore, a descendant of Mr. Dickinson, for this document, which I contribute to this society. It must forever settle this question. This document, every line of it, with its erasures, interlineations, corrections and additions, is in the handwriting of. John Dickinson, and proves him to have been the author of that document.”—Address to the New York Historical Society,