Posted on 07/03/2014 5:35:14 AM PDT by Pharmboy
A Period Is Questioned in the Declaration of Independence
Every Fourth of July, some Americans sit down to read the Declaration of Independence, reacquainting themselves with the nation’s founding charter exactly as it was signed by the Second Continental Congress in 1776.
Or almost exactly? A scholar is now saying that the official transcript of the document produced by the National Archives and Records Administration contains a significant error — smack in the middle of the sentence beginning “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” no less.
The error, according to Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., concerns a period that appears right after the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the transcript, but almost certainly not, she maintains, on the badly faded parchment original.
That errant spot of ink, she believes, makes a difference, contributing to what she calls a “routine but serious misunderstanding” of the document.
The period creates the impression that the list of self-evident truths ends with the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she says. But as intended by Thomas Jefferson, she argues, what comes next is just as important: the essential role of governments — “instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” — in securing those rights.
“The logic of the sentence moves from the value of individual rights to the importance of government as a tool for protecting those rights,” Ms. Allen said. “You lose that connection when the period gets added.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
But nowhere is this discussed in this article. I urge my Freeper friends to please read the whole thing.
HAPPY FOURTH AND GOD BLESS AMERICA!!
The RevWar/Colonial History/General Washington ping list
This reminds me of the people who spend lifetimes parsing every word and sentence in the Bible. I would suggest that it is a much more worthwhile exercise to focus on the intent rather than the punctuation. And Jefferson’s intent is clear: governments are formed by men to serve them. Men are not created to serve government.
The truth is, individual rights is what the document is about, not expansion of government.
It’s Independence Day, which happens to be celebrated on the Fourth of July.
The author is missing the point that the purpose of the government is to preserve those three rights, not created by government. Its job is not to define additional “rights”.
I question a different period—the one that started on January 20, 2009, and continues to this day. It is a period marked by the complete incompetence of a Marxist president, and leads one to wonder how the collective psyche of 50 million plus Americans had become so corrupted that Barack Obama could have been reelected.
Oh, and note to NY Times: The Declaration of Independence, however you choose to parse the punctuation, has exactly zero legal ramifications. For that, you would want to go to the other founding document, the one that starts with a “C,” the very document that your beloved president spends every waking hour trying to get around.
The revisionist attempt is invalid. The meaning is settled, has been for years.
Thank you...I intended to make the point you did about the DoI not being a legal document, but in my haste this AM I omitted it.
Since old Tom was alive and well many years after he got an ink blot on the document, I’m sure he would have clarified.
With or without a comma, it's irrelevant as to the larger issue to which Jefferson wrote: rights are God-given, natural, and when government endangers them, it is the people's DUTY to replace that government with another.
If you skip a period, it’s a pregnant pause.
Just another example of when you hear the phrase "experts say" or "studies show" you should assume wisely that the debate "is far from over".
No, you idjit, it doesn't. Unless you happen to be a female employee of The New York Times who most likely makes less than her male counterpart. In fact, it creates the reality that the list is just the starting point.
The line in question is prefaced with: "That among these are....
Here. Read it for yourself...
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The key word there is "among". That does not imply finality or finiteness. It denotes a starting point.
The fact that the next sentence begins with "That" serves to continue the thought that "to secure these rights governments are instituted among men" is another self-evident truth. Being "self-evident", by definition, means the point does not need to be tortured or massaged by some freedom-hating Libtard who writes for a newspaper that is being read by fewer and fewer people.
Who cares how the draft was punctuated. The only thing that counts is the final document which was the one adopted and signed. The draft is just that, a draft. It carries no official weight whatsoever.
Duh, I should have read the article more thoroughly. She wasn’t talking about a draft. My apologies.
LOL! the only problem being that any attempt to prostitute punctuation (real or imagined) in the Declaration doesn't change what it IS-
A notification that the Rights of Men are derived from the Laws of Nature....not from other men.
Methinks the only 'tool' here is Miz Allen.
Interesting.
“This reminds me of the people who spend lifetimes parsing every word and sentence in the Bible. I would suggest that it is a much more worthwhile exercise to focus on the intent rather than the punctuation. And Jefferson’s intent is clear: governments are formed by men to serve them. Men are not created to serve government.”
A whole hearted Agreed! to both examples. The key in both is context which gives intent.
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