Does the Declaration of Independence Tell the Truth? (How are these truths "self-evident" ?)

American Thinker ^ | 07/04/2010 | E. Jeffrey Ludwig

[SeekAndFind]

At this time of the year, while most U.S. citizens are contemplating U.S. independence and the Declaration of Independence, 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. 

This serious omission of patriotic fervor can be attributed to the leftist influence on the school system.  Most leftists believe the Declaration of Independence was primarily a document driven by the class interests of the signers. The gentry and economically powerful merchant groups in the U.S. and the aristocratic southern plantation economy joined forces against powerful interests in the mother country that would limit their growth, their economic well-being, and their power.  Talk about inalienable rights, equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were rationalizations for underlying issues of class and status. Charles and Mary Beard had set the stage for this analysis, and it has been carried forward by Howard Zinn's Peoples' History of the United States. Are they correct?

First, a caveat: even if the document were a justification of class interests in part, would that be so wrong?  If we have an economic leadership based on wealth amassed through faith, hard work, determination, and intelligence, then is it not just for them to defend that wealth and influence from usurpations by those who would unlawfully take said wealth and influence away from them? The truth of "no taxation without representation" is a valid truth, but it certainly oversimplifies the dynamics behind the Declaration of Independence.

Let us consider one of the more contentious statements of the Declaration:

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;...

John Locke in his treatises on government made a cogent analysis of the body politic, and stressed that life, liberty and property could best be protected if the locus of power in the government lay with the representatives of the people rather than with the executive -- in his context: the monarchy. The signers of the Declaration, aware of the moral ambiguities of slavery in the American context, deleted the word "property" and preferred to substitute "pursuit of happiness."  They introduced this Aristotelian goal in order (1) to acknowledge the existence of a summum bonum, (2) to point to the unity of happiness and virtue (happiness for Aristotle was arrived at by strenuous contemplation and implementation of virtue, and was not, as in our times, associated with hedonism or with "self-fulfillment" a la Abraham Maslow), and (3) to introduce the idea of the newly independent USA as a land of opportunity, both economically and politically. How can this be offensive?

Although the Declaration was not in one accord with the 17^th century Westminster Shorter Catechism that announced the purpose of life to be "to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever," by insisting that the values expressed were "endowed by their Creator" we can see that the Declaration is an echo of the earlier Westminster document.  The language suggests to me that the Declaration was deeply rooted in Protestant theology more than in class interests.

What about the self-evidence of the truths claimed in our founding document? This assertion is directly out of the rationalist enlightenment playbook.  R. Descartes had affirmed that he could only believe truths that were "clear and distinct." To be clear and distinct they had to meet the challenge of his method of doubt.  If there were any possibility that the truths he perceived could be contingent or could be based on misperception, they would be excluded. Through experience and various other mechanisms, J. Locke's empiricism believed that certainty could be arrived at through experience, science, and intuition.

While these self-evident truths for the signers were not the same as revealed truth as found in Holy Scripture; yet they are "endowed" to all men by God the Creator. In theological language, they would be considered part of common grace, whereas for the believing Christian the Bible comes under special or revealed grace. Thus, the Bible tells us that the rain falls equally on the just and the unjust, and in similar fashion all men are endowed with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Almighty God must be assumed because without Him, how could one explain that all men are so endowed?

As we contemplate our independence as a nation and the exercise of our inalienable rights, as we sing hosannas of gratitude for these blessings, let us remember to also reject all Marxist views that would depreciate the values of the Declaration.

[Repeal The 17th]

“...The debate has everything to do with The Constitution...”
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May I call your attention to the title of this thread:
Does the Declaration of Independence Tell the Truth? (How are these truths “self-evident”?)
Please try to keep a single train of thought.

[OneWingedShark]

I believe Washington was correct: the evil of destroying families is greater than the evil of slavery.
Just look at the family-unit of today and the condition of slavery compared to the family-unit and the condition of slavery at the time of the Founding.
Or, if you want to eliminate one of those variables and look at only one: look at the condition of the family unit just after the civil war and the family-unit of today.

It is my belief that morally-strong individuals [tend to] come from strong families, whereas there is no real/readily-apparent indicator for the morally-weak (we are all sinners and QUITE susceptible to temptation). So, if the family produces the strong/moral citizen then if the government wants moral citizens then they would encourage/support families, where if they do not want moral citizens (which is one profound thought from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged) because they can only really control the criminal then they will do everything they can to dissolve the family and promote criminal behavior.

That is, I believe, an adequate explanation for the state of Illegal Immigration here in the US.
It really is about Liberty vs. Tyranny, or as some have said: “It’s all about control”.

[TASMANIANRED]

Well done.

[TASMANIANRED]

Agreed...on all points.

One issue that I haven’t seen addressed in all the discussion.

Freedom is the anomoly.. Slavery historically was the norm.

[Artemis Webb]

You are welcome to complain to the mods that I’m not topical. Good luck with that.

[xzins]

“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?

[Eva]

I believe that the slaves were the property of his wife, from her first marriage. Washington owned very little of his own. He was more or less, a kept man, who benefited from the wealth of his wife’s first husband, who died.

[Yardstick]

Wow, thanks Steely Tom. Glad you liked it.

[Eva]

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.

[Yardstick]

Yep, agree 100% and well said.

[Oceander]

Correct, and well-said.

The principals of our founding documents and the constitution are designed to prevent enslavement of one class of men over another. The flaw wasn't the document, it was the definition of "men". That has since been corrected. Those principals are largely being ignored by government these days, unfortunately. Witness the selective taxation of some individuals for the benefit of others - de facto enslavement in essence. The present use of government power to steal from the productive is in direct opposition to the tenets of the constitution of this country.

Thanks, and I quite agree with you.

[dsc]

I like fishing and W.C. Fields, too.

However, you have an insufficient understanding of slavery and the mentality of slaveholders.

As Samuel Clemens wrote, “To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.”

[Charles Martel]

With all due respect, the revolution's success came from the clan of your user name, the French, who despised the British Crown.

The work of Benjamin Franklin as well as the rest of the Committee of Correspondence in appeasing France were the keys to victory, not ideology. The French gradually funneled aid throughout the campaign and when the rebellious colonist started making strong gains against Britain, France went "full bore" knowing victory could be achieved against their hated rival.

We are not in disagreement. The actual "revolution", as John Adams later noted, was in the minds of the people, beginning some ten to fifteen years before the Declaration of Independence. All that followed, including the marshaling of Britain's european rivals to render military aid, grew out from that ideological shift. It all fit together and worked; the "brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" drove the colonists to rebel - or at least to support the rebellion - and the proof of their resolve convinced the French to move against England.

God help us if those "brushfires" are ever fully extinguished.

[mo]

i think there is a pretty good argument to be made in that the self-evidence of these truths led to the death of an institution(slavery) thousands of years old, in less than one hundred years after these men put pen to paper and backed it up with the force of arms.

You need an ano-optic neurectomy.

[OneWingedShark]

Odd that you should mention that; but it is a fact that human trafficking is a problem here in the US. These people who were smuggled in are very often de facto slaves. It can even be argued that illegal immigrants are de facto slaves right now: they may or may not be justly [or even legally] paid by their employers and are afraid/unable to seek justice within the legal system.

Just because you change the term doesn’t make it different. Just because someone says something is illegal [or legal] doesn’t make it so; as an example the City’s Magistrate Court has a big “No Weapons Allowed in Building” sign on its door... however, the State Constitution says:
“No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons. No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms.”

[mo]

Big difference between state-sanctioned slavery and the under the radar trafficking. Although our border policy comes very near to state-sanctioned human exploitation.

[donaldo]

Re: Washington “was a man of his times. . .” Quite right. Peter Capstick put it this was: “History is the often unpleasant record of the way things actually were, not the way they should have been.”

[Oceander]

And yet, as compromised as the Founders were, they didn't lock us into their own misconceptions and miseries, but rather gave us a governing document - the Constitution - that itself provided us with the means to overcome the Founders' own historical limitations. In other words, though the Founders were men of their own times, and limited accordingly, the Constitution they gifted us with is not - it transcends the time in which it was written and the limitations of the people who wrote it, which is a substantial contribution in a world where so many are dedicated to trapping everyone else in the prison of their own impoverished imaginations. The Founders set us free, notwithstanding their own limited imaginations - liberals would confine us forever to the dank recesses of their own limited, impoverished imaginations.

[OneWingedShark]

>Big difference between state-sanctioned slavery and the under the radar trafficking. Although our border policy comes very near to state-sanctioned human exploitation.

There is a difference; but, as you point out, our border policy DOES come very near that state-sanctioned human exploitation. (Too close for my comfort.)

[savagesusie]

At first I was mad when I started reading your article until I realized that you were doing a parody of the Screwtape Letters. Well done! Strong-minded people educated in the Classical tradition are hard to manipulate and control. Governments have no use for them. Education is imperative for everyone in a Republic.