TJ And His Enhanced CV

Charlottesville, Virginia

July 5, 2020

Today during lunch I was listening to a wonderful podcast with Danielle Allen of Harvard. In the beginning she was talking about the Declaration of Independence and said something along the lines of TJ claiming to be the author of the Declaration was an act of self-aggrandizement. I nearly choked on my fish taco!

To her credit, her point was that Adams and Franklin (as did the other two members of the Group of Five) had a hand in it and that in reality it was a document written by committee.

(If the following photos look blurry to you, you might need to check your glasses. Kidding - not sure why they are blurry.)

Sooooo, TJ wasn't "the author." Perhaps he could have more appropriately said he led the effort to write the Declaration? Fortunately for him, he was not bound by the Honor Code.

And now for those of you who did not know this bit of history, you now know the rest of the story. (Thanks, Paul.)