what does “self-evident” mean?

Book review:

The Greatest Sentence Ever Written

by Walter Isaacson (b1952)

New York: Simon & Schuster, 2025

67 pages

First, let’s get this straight: it’s worth your time to read this little book.

Maybe you think you know all you want to know about the Declaration of Independence, but I think you’ll learn at least a couple things of interest as you read The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.

For starters, Thomas Jefferson did not “write” the Declaration. He more or less wrote the first draft, and then his committee—including Benjamin Franklin and John Adams—applied their pens, and then the Continental Congress had its final say.

Isaacson’s “greatest sentence” is the second sentence of the Declaration, beginning “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” The words of the sentence had specific meanings for educated men (no ladies in the Congress) with Enlightenment prejudices in the late 18th century, and the committee and Congress changed a number of the words in Jefferson’s draft. For example, Jefferson originally wrote “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable…”

Keep these “undeniable” circumstances in mind: in July 1776 no member of the Congress knew how the whole “revolution” thing would turn out, and the Declaration did not start the revolution: the shooting war had started more than a year earlier in Lexington and Concord.

Isaacson is a popular biographer, and this little book is a good example of his writing talents.

For a more in-depth treatment by a noted historian, try reading American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier.

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Book review: Grace Notes

Is it prose or poetry?

by Brian Doyle

click here

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many waters: more poems with 53 free verse poems,

and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)

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