Karen –

I have not read the biography either, so I don’t know whether that conversation is documented in the bio or whether the dialogue was made up by the screenwriters, or some combination of the two (did McCullough have accounts of the episode via letters or journals not relating actual dialogue but sentiments and points, upon which the screenwriters had to put actual dialogue)?

But it’s funny in that you reacted to Franklin’s comment differently than I did. I saw it as Franklin’s way of saying “remember your audience.” Both of Franklin’s critiques, on the slavery reference and the “sacred and undeniable” phrase, I took to be critiques from an international/universal (i.e., not solely American) perspective. Esp. since Adams had just got done saying that Jefferson was expounding not just on Americans’ rights but on the rights of all mankind.

Jefferson’s original phrasing, though precisely chosen, was rather like arguing a point by saying, “Because the Bible says so.” Franklin was anticipating the rebuttal (what of those who don’t believe in God, or in *your* God) and providing an alternative opening argument from not a theological but a philosophical/logical base … “self-evident.” Self- evident things don’t need to be proven because they are, well, self-evident. Where Jefferson’s “sacred” reference could have been an argument-starter, Franklin’s “self-evident” was intended, I believe, to be an argument ender. So that the reader would keep on reading.

Classical Franklin — exceptional mental caginess.

Anyhoo, to watch two of the least orthodox Christian (and by some measures, not Christian at all) founding fathers wrestle over a piece of theological phrasing was quite a hoot for me, actually. And Adams, the orthodox Christian, just a bystander. (Giamatti’s facial expressions, watching Jefferson’s quiet pain as his masterpiece gets its first, and friendliest [but nevertheless painful] edit, are priceless.)