Lecture 6: The Declaration of Independence
OBJECTIVES
By the end of this lesson students will be able to:
• Identify and describe elements of the philosophy of government expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
• Explain the contradictions between ideas contained in the Declaration of Independence and the institution of slavery.
• Discuss and determine the most important ideas about government from the Declaration of Independence to the present.
Introduction
By 1776, most colonies had already made their declarations of independence, and so had many towns, counties, and even private groups. The declarations listed British abuses of power and demanded self-rule. On June 8, 1776, Congress voted to write a declaration of independence. It named a committee to do the writing. One of its members was Thomas Jefferson, a lawyer from Virginia. He had been a leader in Virginia, and Virginia had elected him to the Constitutional Rights Foundation Continental Congress. The others on the committee were too busy with the revolution to work on the declaration, so Jefferson wrote it alone. He finished the document in a few days.
The declaration’s opening words were “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another . . . .” Jefferson went on to say that breaking from England was a serious step. It required an explanation. The second paragraph argued that people had the right to change a government when it abused their rights. This paragraph set out Jefferson’s most important ideas about government. In the rest of the declaration, Jefferson listed 20 examples of when the king abused the rights of Americans. He claimed that the king was “unfit to be the ruler of a people.” Jefferson also blamed the British people. He said that they had voted for members of Parliament who had helped destroy the rights of the colonists. Jefferson ended by stating: “We . . . do . . . declare . . . these . . . Colonies . . . to be Free and Independent States. . . . And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
Jefferson gave his draft to Congress on June 28. The members spent little time changing his first two paragraphs. Today they are the most famous parts of the Declaration of Independence. The members did cut out most of Jefferson’s attack on the British people. They took out all of Jefferson’s attacks on slavery and the slave trade. Members from the slave states in the South wanted this part removed. In all, they took out about 25 percent of Jefferson’s words. Jefferson became angry over the changes. He later wrote that Congress had “mangled” his writing.
On July 2, 1776, Congress voted to declare independence. On the Fourth of July, it approved the Declaration of Independence. There would be no turning back now. Jefferson’s Ideas in the Declaration In the second paragraph of the declaration, Jefferson stated his key ideas. He wrote that “all men are created equal.” And they have “unalienable rights.” These rights are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He wrote that governments are set up to protect these rights. And those governments get “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” In other words, the people run the government. The goal of government should be to guard everyone’s freedom. These ideas broke from the past. According to Jefferson, the purpose of these ideas broke from the past. According to Jefferson, the purpose of the Constitutional Rights Foundation government was not to serve the rulers. It was to serve the people and uphold their rights. Where did Jefferson get these ideas? Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment. This was a period during the 17th and 18th centuries. Thinkers turned to reason and science to explain the world. They thought that people could improve their lives by learning about the “laws of nature.” Jefferson did not invent the ideas that he used in the declaration. He said that he had adopted the views of the day. These ideas were, so to speak, “in the air.” Jefferson knew British history and political thought. He also had read the statements of independence by other colonies. He knew well the writings of fellow Americans like Tom Paine and George Mason.
In writing the declaration, Jefferson used the format of the English Declaration of Rights. This was written after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which had driven King James II off the throne. Jefferson modeled the most famous ideas in the Declaration of Independence on those of the English writer John Locke. Locke wrote his book Second Treatise of Government in 1689, right after England’s Glorious Revolution. Locke’s book gave reasons why overthrowing a king could be the right thing to do. Locke believed that long ago before there were any governments, people lived in a state of nature. Even in the state of nature, people had rights. Locke wrote that all men are equal. They are born with “unalienable” natural rights. In other words, they have God-given rights that should never be taken away. Among these natural rights, Locke said, are “life, liberty, and property.”
According to Locke, the state of nature could be dangerous. People might kill one another and steal from each other. So people formed governments to protect their natural rights. Locke wrote that a contract exists between the government and the people. The government must guard people’s natural rights. In turn, the people must obey the law. But, Locke said, if a government wrongs its people with “a long train of abuses,” the people have the right to resist that government. They can change it or even get rid of it and create a new one. Locke believed that life itself is a natural right. He said that people have both a right and a duty to save their own lives. Killers, however, lose their right to life since they don’t respect the life of others. Liberty was another natural right. Locke said that people should be free to decide how to live. But they must not hinder the liberty of others. Locke strongly believed in freedom. By “property,” another natural right, Locke meant more than owning things. He also meant owning oneself. This included a right to personal well-being. In place of “property,” Jefferson used another phrase from Locke— “pursuit of happiness.” Locke and others used this phrase to mean the freedom of opportunity and the duty to help those in need. Jefferson adopted Locke’s ideas. In the declaration, he spoke first about everyone’s natural rights. He then went on to explain why the revolution was necessary for 1776. He next listed how King George had abused the colonists’ rights.
Important Questions for discussion
- What ideas about government does Thomas Jefferson express in the Declaration of Independence?
- In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson said that government should protect people’s rights. Why do you think the protection of rights was so important to Jefferson’s ideas about government?
- What rights does Jefferson mention in the Declaration of Independence? What does each of these rights mean? Jefferson said that these rights were “unalienable.” What does this mean? Jefferson wrote that “All men are created equal.” What did he mean by this?
- What contradictions do you see between the ideas in the Declaration of Independence and slavery, which existed in America at the time?
- How do you think people made sense of these contradictions?
- Do you see any contradictions in what people today believe and what they do? Explain.
References
1. Allen, Danielle. Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. New York: Liveright Publishing, 2014.
2. Armitage, David. The Declaration of Independence: A Global History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007.
3. Boyd, Julian P. The Declaration of Independence: The Evolution of the Text. Rev. ed. Charlottesville: International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello in association with the Library of Congress, 1999.
4. Dupont, Christian Y., and Peter S. Onuf, eds. Declaring Independence: The Origin and Influence of America’s Founding Document. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Library, 2008.
5. Friedenwald, Herbert. The Declaration of Independence: An Interpretation and an Analysis. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1904.
6. Gerber, Scott Douglas, ed. The Declaration of Independence: Origins and Impact. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002.
7. Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf, 1997
8. Malone, Dumas. The Story of the Declaration of Independence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
9. Munves, James. Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence: The Writing and Editing of the Document that Marked the Birth of the United States of America. New York: Scribner, 1978.
10. Shain, Barry Alan, ed. The Declaration of Independence in Historical Context: American State Papers, Petitions, Proclamations, and Letters of the Delegates to the First National Congress. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.
11. Tsesis, Alexander. For Liberty and Equality: The Life and Times of the Declaration of Independence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
12. Wills, Garry. Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. New York: Vintage Books, 2018.