Jefferson came to be remembered as sole author despite Congress heavily revising his text

Evidence

Between Jefferson’s draft, edits by drafting-committee members, and Congress’s revisions, the Declaration of Independence became a document for the ages. The freewheeling process of making changes by the joint effort of some fifty delegates working in a committee of the whole clearly irritated Jefferson, who disliked most of the cuts. At the time, Franklin sought to comfort him with an anecdote. As Jefferson later retold the story, a hatmaker, after composing a sign for his shop reading, “John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money,” joined with the picture of a hat, showed it to friends. Each proposed redactions until the finished sign had only the shop-owner’s name “with the figure of a hat.” Congress’s edits did not reach this extent, but in line with Franklin’s story, Jefferson’s name stuck. Despite his composing the Declaration as one member of a committee and subject to revision by Congress, Americans remembered Jefferson as the document’s author. Over time, he so embraced the accolade that, upon his death after a rich career as a legislator, governor, ambassador, secretary of state, vice president, and two-term president, and despite the many revisions to the Declaration made by Congress, at his request “Author of the Declaration of American Independence” was the first of only three accomplishments listed on his gravestone. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 223

Categorization

• SEED: Authority and authorship: how a collaborative product becomes attributed to one voice — parallels modern legal drafting where committee statutes get tied to individual framers.
• CANDY: Jefferson’s gravestone lists ‘Author of the Declaration’ first among just three accomplishments.
• XREF: connects to: Congress added divine references Jefferson’s church-state views kept out — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 215