They weren't self-evident to George Washington when he was busy buying and lording over his slaves. He didn't give it a second thought until some of his wiser buddies started educating him a little bit. He came around by the time he died, and freed his slaves in his will, after he didn't need them anymore.
What if the founders were wrong about this? What if "these truths" are not "self evident" to all men?
As I've gotten older, I've come to the realization that many ideas, ways of thinking, that I grew up believing were shared by everyone, are anything but universal. I don't mean "belief in G-d" here. I mean things like a belief in truth. In the concept of truth. In the concept of reality. In the concept of causality, that if you do "X," that "Y" must necessarily follow. And it's corollary; that if "Y" happens to you, it is probably because you did "X" last month, or yesterday, or three seconds ago.
These ideas are held by many in America and around the world, but the number of people who do not hold them is shockingly large, and seems to be growing.
I disagree with Ayn Rand on some fundamental aspects of her philosophy, but she was right about this one when she wrote "man is the only creature that has to make a conscious choice, every day, whether or not to be human."
The Declaration, Perry reminds us, was an ex post facto justification of American beliefs. It was addressed to educated elite opinion, especially abroad; it was designed to win arguments, not to capture the essence of Americanism as Americans themselves already understood it.Only Huck would take time away from p!ssing on our Constitution to do the same to our Declaration on Independence Day.
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all. - Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. . . . All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others; for ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollection of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them." - Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman, 24 June 1826, Ford, Vol. 10, 390-392
Today, a "favored few," "booted and spurred," and steeped in an ideology that is foreign to liberty, have seized temporary power in Washington, D. C. They must be reminded that "We, the People's" Constitution limits their power to ride, rough shod, over the Creator-endowed rights of American citizens.
May we "refresh our recollection" of the Founders' ideas and give "undiminished devotion to them" on this Fourth of July!
Simple question with a simple answer. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that’s how.
In the context of the Declaration of Independence hold means to have and maintain control over.
Big Deal. Some of the founders were abolitionists, and some owned slaves. The word men obviously meant different things to different people. For the abolitionists, it was self-evident that slavery had to go.
Quite clever, actually to use the term men, and eventually, the country redefined the term to include slaves. Women and children too were treated somewhat as property. This too has been rectified in the law.
The fact that some of the signatories were slave owners, does not negate the awesome principles contained in the Declaration of Independence. Our history is one of trying to form a “more perfect union”.
That is was not perfect then or now simply means we need to continue to improve. Man is not perfect, and we will never have perfection on this earth, only in heaven. All men have feet of clay. So what?
It is self-evident to those with a grounding in the Bible.
If the whole of the human race came from Adam [and Eve] then we are all, in some sense bothers-and-sisters and therefore on equal moral footing/standing: and that is [naturally] the state of being a filthy sinner. That there are slaves and lords is almost irrelevant, for as Paul observed, in Jesus Christ [the savior] the Slave is free and the Freeman is slave. (This is because the Christian slave may be mistreated and abused on Earth but he is not a Citizen of the World but of Heaven and the Great Judge will demand an account on the Day of Judgment. Furthermore, the freeman is utterly indebted to Jesus who bought him from Slavery to Sin to Himself and Righteousness.)
If Christianity is the root of the ideas found in the Declaration of Independence then the above is obvious: all men are equal because all men are in equal need of The Savior.
Furthermore, slavery (or indentured servitude) itself is NOT illegal/unconstitutional/Contra-Constitutional; the 1st Section of the 13th Amendment reads:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
(More on this line of thought: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ATyjMtQJe7iWZHY2OTh0bV8yN2htZnBzOWQy&hl=en )
And yet is there anyone like a secularist when it comes to jealously guarding ‘fairness’? I think the human sense of justice (in my mind as endowed by God) is powerful and persistent.
“I ask myself why, in 19 years of teaching in the New York Public Schools, I have not once heard the students gathered to sing in any assembly or forum “America the Beautiful,” “ God Bless America,” or “My Country ‘Tis of Thee?” The National Anthem has only been sung once a year at the graduation ceremonies.”
“Self-evident” means that he’s not inclined to argue with you about it. If you can’t see it, then too bad for you is Jefferson’s argument.
“All are created equal and endowed...with..rights...”
What would prove that other than a belief in a benevolent Providence, a belief that even Jefferson held?
This is an excellent article for discussion because of the Kagan hearings and the fact that she could not bring herself to affirm her belief in unalienable, God given rights. Unfortunately, the thread has been high jacked by posters who fail to see the significance of the discussion.
None are so blind as those who will not see.