Daily Log

Wednesday, September 30

We started with a short grammar exercise in which students were asked to identify the simple subject and simple predicate of the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence. We then moved on to the substance of the DOI and discussed the deletions which the Second Continental Congress made from Jefferson's original draft, especially the passage condemning slavery as a "war on human nature itself" and a violation of the fundamental human rights of "life and liberty." We raised the question of how Jefferson could hold this view and yet own two hundred slaves until the day he died.