Treason in Writing

Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he drafted the Declaration of Independence in June 1776. He wrote it in about 17 days, in a rented second-floor room in Philadelphia. Congress then edited it hard, cutting roughly a quarter of his words.

Under British law, the finished text was treason. Every man who signed it was confessing to a crime that could end on the gallows. The closing line — "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" — was not a flourish. It was a literal bet, and several signers paid for it with their property, their freedom, or their health before the war was won.