The Declaration’s tri-part structure came from the Virginia Constitution and rights declaration.

Evidence

For these ideas, Jefferson may not have looked beyond those expressed at the Virginia Convention during the prior month, which would explain his later comment regarding the Declaration, “I turned to neither book or pamphlet while writing it.” Jefferson’s debt to the Virginia experience extended to form as well as substance. Revolutionary Era documents from the First Continental Congress’s breakthrough 1774 Articles of Association to the Second Continental Congress’s watershed 1776 resolution on independent governments typically began with a list of grievances before making their substantive points. The Virginia Constitution instead began with a declaration of rights before adding Jefferson’s list of grievances. Jefferson followed this format for his draft Declaration of Independence by borrowing from the first three propositions of the Virginia Declaration of Rights for the opening and then repurposing his list of grievances from the Virginia Constitution for part two. In both documents, a stirring invocation of human equality and unalienable rights led toward and gave meaning to the ensuing list of purportedly tyrannical acts attributed to King George III. A final part declaring independence then quoted directly from Virginia’s resolution on independence. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 209

Categorization

• XREF: Shows how textual form (rights invocation leading to enumerated grievances) structures legal argument - useful for legal interpretation methods in the course. — connects to: Pennsylvania’s 1776 declaration anticipated the national Declaration’s structure — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 184