The Spirit of ‘76: 'The Declaration of Independence in Historical Context’

Washington Free Beacon ^ | 7-4-15 | Tara Helfman

[afraidfortherepublic]

On July 4th, 1826, a Washington newspaper published one of the most poignant letters penned in American history. An ailing Thomas Jefferson regretfully declined an invitation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of American independence with the citizens of the nation’s capital.

“[T]o be present with them,” he wrote, “as one of the surviving signers of an instrument pregnant with our own, and the fate of the world, is most flattering to myself. . . [I]t adds sensibly to the sufferings of sickness, to be deprived by it of a personal participation in the rejoicings of that day.”

In this, his final public letter, the elder statesman offered a profound consideration of the nature and scope of the revolution he had helped to forge. The Declaration of Independence, he explained, was “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 & security of self-government.” The new republic had “restore[d] the free man to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. [A]ll eyes are opened, or opening,” he wrote, “to the rights of man.”

This global awakening was both sudden and enduring. By the time Jefferson penned his letter, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe had already produced twenty declarations of independence. Today more than half the nations of the world have followed suit. Yet America’s Declaration is unique among them, and not only because it was the first of its kind.

Scholars have characterized the Declaration of Independence as a diplomatic document, a legal brief, a political treatise, a philosophical tract, and even as American scripture. The Supreme Court cites it as a source of law and elected leaders appeal to it as an authoritative statement of the nation’s first principles.

What were the political, intellectual, and personal forces at work in the era in which this revolutionary statement was produced? Readers interested in this question are now lucky to have Barry Shain’s The Declaration of Independence in Historical Context to consult. This richly informative book was first published by the Yale University Press in 2014 as a prohibitively expensive hardcover volume. We may now take heart that it has now been reissued as an affordable paperback by the Liberty Fund, a private educational foundation that has probably done more than any press since Gutenberg’s to bring classic texts to a wide readership.

Shain assembles an impressive array of primary documents that tell the story of America’s path to independence and nationhood. The volume begins with the Stamp Act Crisis, when the colonies first convened a united congress, and ends with the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, when the sovereign states constituted their first national government. Colonial petitions, royal instructions, congressional proceedings, personal correspondence, and addresses to foreign states and Indian nations enable the reader to follow the colonial struggle from crisis to revolution, almost in real time. Shain prefaces the documents with short, informative introductions, enabling readers unfamiliar with all the key figures and events of the Revolution to navigate their way through the sources, including the Declaration of Independence and its drafts.

In some respects, the Declaration closely follows the pattern of earlier English constitutional documents. Like the Petition of Right (1628) and the English Bill of Rights (1688), the Declaration of Independence contains a litany of the government’s offenses against its own subjects. (This is not surprising. After all, the American colonies had taken root and flourished during the seventeenth century while England fought a succession of civil wars, flirted with military dictatorship, executed one king, and effectively deposed another.) But unlike these earlier bills of particulars, the Declaration of Independence appeals neither to the King’s mercy nor to Parliament’s authority for relief. Instead, it dissolves the bonds of imperial authority altogether, asserts the freedom of the thirteen states, and appeals “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions[.]”

And, unlike many subsequent declarations of independence, the American Declaration makes its framers’ intentions quite clear:

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.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The Declaration of Independence thus imprints the ideals of liberty, equality, and self-governance on the mitochondrial DNA of the young nation. But it also assigns to future generations the task of shaping and realizing those ideals. Jefferson was right: the Declaration of Independence was indeed pregnant with America’s future.

The notions of liberty and equality adopted by the Declaration are imperfect, inchoate, and yet powerful enough to forge a nation and preserve the Union. Upon visiting Independence Hall in 1861, President Lincoln remarked that what united Americans:

…was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world. . . . If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.

Lincoln led the nation to war over the meaning of the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. When he was assassinated, he was laid in state in the hall where the Declaration had been signed.

The centuries-old political and constitutional struggle over how this nation is to define and fulfill the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence shows that this document is no dead letter. As Jefferson wrote in the missive published on July 4, 1826 – the very day he died—the Declaration laid bare “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. [T]hese are grounds of hope for others. [F]or ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”

For as long as Americans pay heed to Jefferson’s final exhortation, the Spirit of ’76 still lives.

[afraidfortherepublic]

A review of the influence the Declaration of Independance has had on other cultures.

FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Rev. War/Founding Father ping list. Pings are heavy today because of the Holiday. Otherwise, this is a pretty quiet list.

[Mmogamer]

Sadly this vision is nigh extinguished.

[Gunslingr3]

Lincoln led the nation to war over the meaning of the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

Lincoln led the nation to war in repudiation of the right of secession enshrined in the Declaration of Independence:

"-That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

[Monterrosa-24]

Yes, Lincoln chained the states to the national government and today the price of that is still going up.

[DesertRhino]

Soooo...Lincoln was forcing the south to remain in a union against their will. So the south’s argument is that people have a natural right to not be bound involuntary to others??

Snicker. ..

[Oklahoma]

Do you really believe the North was that much better than the South, Rino?

Malarkey.

[DesertRhino]

NO, but im laughing at southerners who are angry at Lincoln for forcing them to stay where they do not wish to remain, and never noticing how that’s quite ironic, and laughable.

[Oklahoma]

Lincoln “did” do damage to the Constitution. Slavery existed for another hundred years in a different form and hundreds of thousands died and were maimed because of Lincoln and the Radicals.

[DesertRhino]

Reading is fundamental. Ill discuss continuing bigotry post war another time.

My point is that the south whines that Lincoln forced them to stay in the union against their will. And they forget they were forcing slaves to stay in the south against THEIR will. Exact same thing.

You are only proving my point, the south thought it was ok to enslave people. So where do they get off complaining when someone does it to them?

[Oklahoma]

The moral arrogance of Northern apologists is breathtaking.

The North also believed in enslaving human beings. According to Wikipedia (I know, not the most reliable source) the first African slaves in New England were in Massachusetts. It remained legal up until 1865 although it died out due to economic reasons in the late 18th century.
“Massachusetts was the first colony in New England with slave ownership and was a center for the slave trade throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. No legislation was passed that abolished slavery until the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 was ratified by the state. Technically it remained legal until the end of the Civil War, but as an institution largely died out in the late 18th Century through judicial actions litigated on behalf of slaves seeking manumission.” If New England had a cotton or rice crop slavery probably would have survived to the 20th Century.

New York had actual slavery until 1827, a mere 34 years before the war. They also had child labor for years after which is just another form of involuntary servitude. I guess that makes them morally superior to the cotton farmers in the South.

If you are implying someone must be “Simon pure” before they can exercise their rights you are dead wrong. If that were the case nobody would ever have rights.

Finally, from the New Testament: Matthew 7:5 King James Bible
“Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

[Godebert]

Note the reference to Natural Law in the first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.

It is crystal clear that the Founding Fathers used the Natural Law definition of 'natural born Citizen' when they wrote Article II. By invoking "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God" the 56 signers of the Declaration incorporated a legal standard of freedom into the forms of government that would follow.

President John Quincy Adams, writing in 1839, looked back at the founding period and recognized the true meaning of the Declaration's reliance on the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." He observed that the American people's "charter was the Declaration of Independence. Their rights, the natural rights of mankind. Their government, such as should be instituted by the people, under the solemn mutual pledges of perpetual union, founded on the self-evident truth's proclaimed in the Declaration."

The Constitution, Vattel, and “Natural Born Citizen”: What Our Framers Knew

The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term “natural born citizen” to any other category than “those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof”.

Citizenship Terms Used in the U.S. Constitution - The 5 Terms Defined & Some Legal Reference to Same

"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.

A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789

The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 20 - Use of The Law of Nations by the Constitutional Convention