Have We Been Reading the Declaration of Independence All Wrong?

The Wire ^ | 7/3/14 | Abby Ohlheiser

[Kartographer]

First, let's pinpoint what's in question here. The official transcription from the National Archives reads (emphasis ours):

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. See that period? According to Princeton professor Danielle Allen, it's not actually in the original document. If she's right, then the individual rights of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" would share a sentence with what follows:

[Kartographer]

Interesting.

[21twelve]

Oh yeah - Jefferson wanted to put the emphasis on a strong government. Sure.

[bakeneko]

I would get yahooey out of my life entirely if not for their finance streaming quote page.

[Fungi]

No. The problem is Yahoo, not Jefferson. Arrogant bastards.

[lavaroise]

They do that with the second amendment which turns into run ons and makes no sense. This is gibberish.

[Talisker]

The Doctrine of Negative Rights is described in the passage referencing government, so it doesn’t matter whether it was a period or not. The American government derives it’s powers from the People, and not the other way around.

End of subject.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

How about just moving on to the part about abolishing the government?

[FredZarguna]

Correct, and not only that, but whether the period is there or not, the purpose of government, which is to secure rights already granted to the people by Extratemporal Authority, does not change. In particular, the government has a mandate to secure the right to pursue happiness but has no authority to secure a right to happiness itself.

[Ray76]

Does it matter?

with a period
Journals of the Continental Congress, Volume 5
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=lljc&fileName=005/lljc005.db&recNum=94

with semicolon
Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, July 8, 1776, with Declaration of Independence
http://memory.loc.gov/master/mss/mtj/mtj1/001/0500/0564.jpg

with period
Thomas Jefferson, et al, July 4, 1776, Copy of Declaration of Independence
http://memory.loc.gov/master/mss/mtj/mtj1/001/0500/0556.jpg

with long and short dash
Continental Congress, July 4, 1776, Printed Declaration of Independence, George Washington Papers
http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw4/037/0000/0020.jpg

[SandwicheGuy]

I would get yahooey out of my life entirely if not for their finance streaming quote page.

There is good in the worst of us... /g ditto.

[Irishguy]

it is interesting. in context and the federalist papers, there is no doubt what was meant.

jeeze, the just got rid of a king...now the argument is they wanted a govt and pres who could become king...er not if you read anything about the signers.

for a bunch of powdered wigged slave owners, they sure seemed to know a lot about people and not an ipad among them. this comment says it all...when the people can vote themselves money...that is the end of the republic. if you want to know whats wrong with the world, anything from franklin, jefferson or washington will explain it.

for fracks sake, im irish and i know this...what the hell is going on over there in the US!!!

happy 4th of july people...

[gusopol3]

Your old nemesis is back in the news. This is the same “genius’ who tried to “expose” Freepers as the source of e-mails supposedly “smearing “ candidate Obama. She was a Stalininst idiot then, because she mis-identified the source, in spite of her being given equal intellectual status to Albert Einstein because she worked at Institute for Advanced studies, as he had. We had threads at the time, but I can’t search that far back in Fre republic archives without taking all day long. Here was the laudatory WaPo article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/27/AR2008062703781.html

[muir_redwoods]

Except for the obvious and very visible period in the document ant the initial capital “T” in the word “That” which follows as the first word in a next sentence. In any event, hierarchy is established by word order. The individual rights are listed first.

This is a grasping, conniving and clearly desperate effort of an effete statist.

[Dr.Deth]

Deconstructionism. For those times when just lying to yourself is no longer cutting it.

[tumblindice]

Yeah, she’s got advanced degrees in “classics” and “government”, Princeton grad like Chewbacca and appears from her bio to be an Obama clone.
Suppose it’s not surprising she’s arguing that Anti-federalist Jefferson actually meant a strong federal government by arguing how many statists can dance on a period.
I’m sick of these people.
Happy Fourth of July, and bugger Obama.

[Arthur McGowan]

Idiotic.

All this focus on a period—one that clearly doesn’t belong there—is a distraction from the fact that the list of “self-evident truths” does not end with “happiness.” The self-evident truths include the necessity of the consent of the governed for a government to govern justly—and the natural right of revolution. Hardly the STATIST passage these morons want to make it.

[BCW]

I think Jefferson’s other writings at the time also speak volumes on how we all were brought up knowing that GOVT is not the answer to all Citizens freedoms, but a deterrence.

This professor is discounting everything Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers have written.

One could argue that a mere ink dot that slipped from the quill could have been an error and should be disregarded...this debate over the GOVT needs to control the CITIZEN is BS - we all know it - we all know why the Revolutionary War was conducted - to defeat a tyrant - then same type that is presently occupying the WH!

[RetSignman]

The ignorant not only wouldn’t understand it, they wouldn’t be able to read it...it’s in cursive.

[MosesKnows]

Have We Been Reading the Declaration of Independence All Wrong?

We have not been reading it wrong; we have understood it wrong.

British subjects wrote the Declaration of Independence to notify King George why they were resisting. This obligation resulted in the most perfect document ever created by man. It is as applicable today as it was then.

The link between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution created an unbreakable bond.

The Declaration of Independence declared that the reason for a free people to institute a government is to protect their rights. Free people do not need to institute s government to grant rights.

Many Americans were educated to believe that the founders ratified America’s Constitution to establish a government empowered to take care of them. Reading the Constitution would help correct this highly flawed position.

[JimRed]

...for fracks sake, im irish and i know this...what the hell is going on over there in the US!!!

Forty years of government schools teaching less and less about the founders and the founding principles or outright lying about them has dumbed down a large percentage of the population.