2026-07-11T21:49:00-0400 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
妮科尔·基利翁
妮科尔·基利翁是哥伦比亚广播公司新闻驻华盛顿特区的国会通讯员，自2021年以来报道过国会山诸多重大新闻。基利翁还在哥伦比亚广播公司新闻2024年和2020年总统大选报道中担任关键角色，报道过特朗普、拜登和哈里斯的竞选活动。
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华盛顿讯——这些文字早已镌刻在美国的集体记忆之中：“我们认为下面这些真理是不言而喻的：人人生而平等，造物者赋予他们若干不可剥夺的权利，其中包括生命权、自由权和追求幸福的权利。”
美国国会图书馆的参观者可以在托马斯·杰斐逊总统撰写的一份罕见原版《独立宣言》草稿中重温这些立国原则。该草稿正在本月开幕的新展览“《独立宣言》的承诺”中展出，此次展览是为纪念美国建国250周年，将持续至2027年7月。
“这是杰斐逊的最终定稿草稿，”该展览首席馆长瑞安·雷夫特告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，“你能看到他们全程修改文字的痕迹，将最初的草稿逐步提炼为我们如今熟知的版本。”
这份文件包含了 fellow 开国元勋本杰明·富兰克林和约翰·亚当斯的修改意见，比如将“臣民”改为“公民”。
>“他们正在脱离君主制，也正在打破基于种族的亲缘关系理念，创立一个基于《独立宣言》所确立的全新理念的国家——我们不再隶属于任何人，”雷夫特解释道，“我们彼此平等，互为公民。”
美国国会图书馆手稿部代理主任、历史学家凯文·巴特菲尔德表示，此次修改还有其他细节。
“最初，托马斯·杰斐逊写道：‘我们认为这些权利神圣不可侵犯且毋庸置疑。’但本·富兰克林认为，或许我们应该用‘不言而喻’来表述，”巴特菲尔德说。
而“人人生而平等”这句话则历经了漫长的演变过程。
“‘人人生而’最初可能仅适用于白人男性，”雷夫特说，“它将女性、 enslaved 民众、原住民和其他群体排除在外。但这正是《独立宣言》的伟大之处——即便存在缺陷，它依然蕴含力量。他所创造的语言，如生命权、自由权、追求幸福的权利以及政府的同意权，让当时身处不平等境地的人们能够自行评判平等的内涵。”
此次展览还通过其他展品展现了国家的发展历程，比如亚伯拉罕·林肯总统在南北战争期间撰写的葛底斯堡演说草稿。
“他（林肯）问道：我们为何在此？我们为何要打这场仗？最终他归结为一个核心理念：平等，”雷夫特告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻。
展览藏品还包括苏珊·B·安东尼为支持妇女选举权而宣读的《权利宣言》，以及马丁·路德·金博士和约翰·刘易斯在民权运动期间的演讲文稿。
“这些时刻让我们能够回望过去，审视当下的处境，以及我们应当抵达的目标，”雷夫特说道。
New Library of Congress exhibit features rare draft of Declaration of Independence: “You can see them changing words throughout”
2026-07-11T21:49:00-0400 / CBS News
Nikole Killion
Nikole Killion is a CBS News congressional correspondent based in Washington D.C., who has covered some of the biggest stories on Capitol Hill since 2021. Killion has also served a key role in CBS News’ election coverage during the 2024 and 2020 presidential races covering the Trump, Biden, and Harris campaigns.
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Washington— They are words etched into America’s conscience: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Visitors to the Library of Congress can rediscover those foundational principles in a rare, original draft of the Declaration of Independence written by President Thomas Jefferson. It’s on display in a new exhibit titled “The Declaration’s Promise” that debuted this month for America’s semiquincentennial and will continue through July 2027.
“This is Jefferson’s fully-realized draft,” Ryan Reft, lead curator for the exhibit, told CBS News. “You can see them changing words throughout and kind of distilling the initial draft into the draft that we know today.”
The document contains edits from fellow Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, like using the word “citizens” instead of “subjects.”
****”They were breaking from a monarchy and they were breaking from the idea of kinship through ethnicity, creating a country based on this critical idea established in the Declaration that was new and that we were not subject to anyone,” Reft explained. “We were subject to each other. We were citizens.”
And there were other changes, according to historian Kevin Butterfield, acting chief of the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress.
“Initially, Thomas Jefferson had said, ‘We hold these rights to be sacred and undeniable.’ And Ben Franklin said, no, actually, maybe we should say ‘self-evident,’” Butterfield said.
But it was the phrase “all men are created equal” that took time to evolve.
“The ‘all men are created’ probably only applied to White men,” Reft said. “It ignored women and enslaved folks, Native Americans and others. But that’s the great thing about the Declaration — even in its weaknesses there is strength — the sense that the language he created, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, consent of the governed, enabled those folks who were unequal at the time to get to judge for themselves what equality was.”
The exhibit showcases the nation’s evolution through other items, like President Abraham Lincoln’s draft of the Gettysburg Address during the Civil War.
“He (Lincoln) says, well, why are we here? Why did we fight this war? And he comes down to one basic idea, equality,” Reft told CBS News.
The collection also features a Declaration of Rights read by Susan B. Anthony in support of women’s suffrage, as well as speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis during the Civil Rights Movement.
“These are moments to kind of look back and see where we are, and see where we should be,” Reft said.