Discussion

On June 7, 1776, Virginia Delegate Richard Henry Lee put forward a resolution ... "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." (National Archives: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-history)

On June 11th, the Continental Congress nominated a drafting committee of five men to compose a declaration of independence. 

Five people were assigned by the 2nd Continental Congress to the Declaration Committee: John Adams (Massachusetts), Thomas Jefferson (Virginia), Benjamin Franklin (Pennsylvania), Roger Sherman (Connecticut), and Robert Livingston (New York). Jefferson was selected to write the original draft of the Declaration. 

The overall purpose of the Declaration was to plainly describe the causes that compelled the colonies to(National Archives:  seek separation from Great Britain. Page 3 of the original draft included a paragraph regarding the slave trade. The paragraph was included in the draft sent to the full Congress for review and debate. The slave-labor paragraph included the following language:

"...he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.... determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold..."

The entire paragraph was removed during the debate of the full Congress.

To be approved, the Declaration of Independence required unanimous consent. Four of the 13 original colonies - Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia - were primarily agrarian and utilized slave labor. The slave-labor paragraph had to be removed from the final version to ensure unanimous passage.

Original Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence

Source:he v

Library of Congress

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html

 

Notes:

[1]   (This is Professor Julian Boyd's reconstruction of Thomas Jefferson's "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence before it was revised by the other members of the Committee of Five and by Congress. From: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Vol. 1, 1760-1776. Ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp 243-247) (Italics ours.)

[2]   No changes have been made to Library of Congress's document.