The Fourth of July is a great
opportunity to renew our dedication to the principles of liberty
and equality enshrined in what Thomas Jefferson called "the
declaratory charter of our rights."
As a practical matter, the Declaration
of Independence publicly announced to the world the unanimous
decision of the American colonies to declare themselves free and
independent states, absolved from any allegiance to Great Britain.
But its greater meaning-then as well as now-is as a statement of
the conditions of legitimate political authority and the proper
ends of government, and its proclamation of a new ground of
political rule in the sovereignty of the people. "If the American
Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of
Independence," wrote the great historian Samuel Eliot Morrison, "it
would have been worthwhile."
Although Congress had appointed a
distinguished committee-including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin,
Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston-the Declaration of
Independence is chiefly the work of Thomas Jefferson. By his own
account, Jefferson was neither aiming at originality nor taking
from any particular writings but was expressing the "harmonizing
sentiments of the day," as expressed in conversation, letters,
essays, or "the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle,
Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc." Jefferson intended the Declaration to
be "an expression of the American mind," and wrote so as to "place
before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain
and firm as to command their assent."
The structure of the Declaration of
Independence is that of a common law legal document. The ringing
phrases of the document's famous second paragraph are a powerful
synthesis of American constitutional and republican government
theories. All men have a right to liberty only in so far as they
are by nature equal, which is to say none are naturally superior,
and deserve to rule, or inferior, and deserve to be ruled. Because
men are endowed with these rights, the rights are unalienable,
which means that they cannot be given up or taken away. And because
individuals equally possess these rights, governments derive their
just powers from the consent of those governed. The purpose of
government is to secure these fundamental rights and, although
prudence tells us that governments should not be changed for
trivial reasons, the people retain the right to alter or abolish
government when it becomes destructive of these ends.
The remainder of the document is a bill
of indictment accusing King George III of some 30 offenses, some
constitutional, some legal, and some matters of policy. The
combined charges against the king were intended to demonstrate a
history of repeated injuries, all having the object of establishing
"an absolute tyranny" over America. Although the colonists were
"disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable," the time had come
to end the relationship: "But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design
to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is
their duty, to throw off such Government."
One charge that Jefferson had included,
but Congress removed, was that the king had "waged cruel war
against human nature" by introducing slavery and allowing the slave
trade into the American colonies. A few delegates were unwilling to
acknowledge that slavery violated the "most sacred rights of life
and liberty," and the passage was dropped for the sake of
unanimity. Thus was foreshadowed the central debate of the American
Civil War, which Abraham Lincoln saw as a test to determine whether
a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal" could long endure.
The Declaration of Independence and the
liberties recognized in it are grounded in a higher law to which
all human laws are answerable. This higher law can be understood to
derive from reason-the truths of the Declaration are held to be
"self-evident"-but also revelation. There are four references to
God in the document: to "the laws of nature and nature's God"; to
all men being "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights"; to "the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of
our intentions"; and to "the protection of Divine Providence." The
first term suggests a deity that is knowable by human reason, but
the others-God as creator, as judge, and as providence-are more
biblical, and add a theological context to the document. "And can
the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed
their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that
these liberties are a gift of God?" Jefferson asked in his
Notes on the State of Virginia.
The true significance of the
Declaration lies in its trans-historical meaning. Its appeal was
not to any conventional law or political contract but to the equal
rights possessed by all men and "the separate and equal station to
which the Laws of Nature and nature's God" entitled them. What is
revolutionary about the Declaration of Independence is not that a
particular group of Americans declared their independence under
particular circumstances but that they did so by appealing to-and
promising to base their particular government on-a universal
standard of justice. It is in this sense that Abraham Lincoln
praised "the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for
national independence by a single people, had the coolness,
forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary
document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all
times."
The ringing phrases of the Declaration
of Independence speak to all those who strive for liberty and seek
to vindicate the principles of self-government. But it was an aged
John Adams who, when he was asked to prepare a statement on the
50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, delivered two
words that still convey our great hope every Fourth of July:
"Independence Forever."
Matthew Spalding,
Ph.D., is Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American
Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
QUOTATIONS ON THE DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE
I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will
cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these
states. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of light and
glory; I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and
that posterity will triumph.
John Adams, letter to Abigail
Adams, July 3, 1776
There! His Majesty can now read my name without glasses. And he
can double the reward on my head!
John Hancock (attributed), upon
signing the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang
separately.
Benjamin Franklin (attributed), at
the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4,
1776
The flames kindled on the 4th of July 1776, have spread over too
much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of
despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all
who work them.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John
Adams, September 12, 1821
With respect to our rights, and the acts of the British
government contravening those rights, there was but one opinion on
this side of the water. All American whigs thought alike on these
subjects. When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an
appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our
justification. This was the object of the Declaration of
Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments,
never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never
been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of
the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent,
and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled
to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment,
nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was
intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to
that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the
occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing
sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in
letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public
right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Henry
Lee, May 8, 1825
Independence Forever.
John Adams, toast for the 50th
Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4,
1826
I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the
ring-bolt to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I
regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving
principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all
occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever
cost.
Frederick Douglass, "What to the
Slave is the Fourth of July?" July 5, 1852
The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no
practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and
it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use.
Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a
stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a
free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the
proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such
should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they
should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.
Abraham Lincoln, speech on the
Dred Scott Decision, June 26, 1857
We have besides these men-descended by blood from our
ancestors-among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants
at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe-German,
Irish, French and Scandinavian-men that have come from Europe
themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here,
finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back
through this history to trace their connection with those days by
blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back
into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are
part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of
Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and
then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day
evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all
moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as
though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the
men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the
electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of
patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those
patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds
of men throughout the world.
Abraham Lincoln, speech at
Chicago, Illinois, July 10, 1858
We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of
material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our
Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first.
Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming
though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp.
If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed
to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We
must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the
reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must
follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We
must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling
flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.
Calvin Coolidge, speech on the
150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 5,
1926
Today, 186 years later, that Declaration whose yellowing
parchment and fading, almost illegible lines I saw in the past week
in the National Archives in Washington is still a revolutionary
document. To read it today is to hear a trumpet call. For that
Declaration unleashed not merely a revolution against the British,
but a revolution in human affairs. . . . The theory of independence
is as old as man himself, and it was not invented in this hall. But
it was in this hall that the theory became a practice; that the
word went out to all, in Thomas Jefferson's phrase, that "the God
who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time." And today this
Nation-conceived in revolution, nurtured in liberty, maturing in
independence-has no intention of abdicating its leadership in that
worldwide movement for independence to any nation or society
committed to systematic human oppression.
John F. Kennedy, address at
Independence Hall, July 4, 1962
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words
of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were
signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the
inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
. . . I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live
out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident: that all men are created equal."
Martin Luther King, "I Have A Dream,"
August 28, 1963
Our Declaration of Independence has been copied by emerging
nations around the globe, its themes adopted in places many of us
have never heard of. Here in this land, for the first time, it was
decided that man is born with certain God-given rights. We the
people declared that government is created by the people for their
own convenience. Government has no power except those voluntarily
granted it by the people. There have been revolutions before and
since ours, revolutions that simply exchanged one set of rulers for
another. Ours was a philosophical revolution that changed the very
concept of government.
Ronald Reagan, address at Yorktown,
October 19, 1981
A NOTE ON THE SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE
"...we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes
and our sacred Honor."
(Each year information about those who
signed the Declaration of Independence is circulated, not all of
which is accurate. The following note is based on research in
several established sources, which are noted below.)
Fifty-six individuals from each of the
original 13 colonies participated in the Second Continental
Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence. Pennsylvania
sent nine delegates to the congress, followed by Virginia with
seven and Massachusetts and New Jersey with five. Connecticut,
Maryland, New York, and South Carolina each sent four delegates.
Delaware, Georgia, New Hampshire, and North Carolina each sent
three. Rhode Island, the smallest colony, sent only two delegates
to Philadelphia.
Eight of the signers were immigrants,
two were brothers, two were cousins, and one was an orphan. The
average age of a signer was 45. The oldest delegate was Benjamin
Franklin of Pennsylvania, who was 70 when he signed the
Declaration. The youngest was Thomas Lynch, Jr., of South Carolina,
who was 27.
Eighteen of the signers were merchants
or businessmen, 14 were farmers, and four were doctors. Forty-two
signers had served in their colonial legislatures. Twenty-two were
lawyers-although William Hooper of North Carolina was "disbarred"
when he spoke out against the Crown-and nine were judges. Stephen
Hopkins had been Governor of Rhode Island.
Although two others had been clergy
previously, John Witherspoon of New Jersey was the only active
clergyman to attend-he wore his pontificals to the sessions. Almost
all were Protestant Christians; Charles Carroll of Maryland was the
only Roman Catholic signer.
Seven of the signers were educated at
Harvard, four each at Yale and William & Mary, and three at
Princeton. John Witherspoon was the president of Princeton and
George Wythe was a professor at William & Mary, where his
students included the author of the Declaration of Independence,
Thomas Jefferson.
Seventeen of the signers served in the
military during the American Revolution. Thomas Nelson was a
colonel in the Second Virginia Regiment and then commanded Virginia
military forces at the Battle of Yorktown. William Whipple served
with the New Hampshire militia and was one of the commanding
officers in the decisive Saratoga campaign. Oliver Wolcott led the
Connecticut regiments sent for the defense of New York and
commanded a brigade of militia that took part in the defeat of
General Burgoyne. Caesar Rodney was a Major General in the Delaware
militia and John Hancock was the same in the Massachusetts
militia.
Five of the signers were captured by
the British during the war. Captains Edward Rutledge, Thomas
Heyward, and Arthur Middleton (South Carolina) were all captured at
the Battle of Charleston in 1780; Colonel George Walton was wounded
and captured at the Battle of Savannah. Richard Stockton of New
Jersey never recovered from his incarceration at the hands of
British Loyalists and died in 1781.
Colonel Thomas McKean of Delaware wrote
John Adams that he was "hunted like a fox by the enemy-compelled to
remove my family five times in a few months, and at last fixed them
in a little log house on the banks of the Susquehanna . . . and
they were soon obliged to move again on account of the incursions
of the Indians." Abraham Clark of New Jersey had two of his sons
captured by the British during the war. The son of John
Witherspoon, a major in the New Jersey Brigade, was killed at the
Battle of Germantown.
Eleven signers had their homes and
property destroyed. Francis Lewis's New York home was destroyed and
his wife was taken prisoner. John Hart's farm and mills were
destroyed when the British invaded New Jersey and he died while
fleeing capture. Carter Braxton and Thomas Nelson (both of
Virginia) lent large sums of their personal fortunes to support the
war effort, but were never repaid.
Fifteen of the signers participated in
their states' constitutional conventions, and six-Roger Sherman,
Robert Morris, Benjamin Franklin, George Clymer, James Wilson, and
George Reed-signed the United States Constitution. Elbridge Gerry
of Massachusetts attended the federal convention and, though he
later supported the document, refused to sign the Constitution.
After the Revolution, 13 of the signers
went on to become governors, and 18 served in their state
legislatures. Sixteen became state and federal judges. Seven became
members of the United States House of Representatives, and six
became United States Senators. James Wilson and Samuel Chase became
Justices of the United States Supreme Court.
Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and
Elbridge Gerry each became Vice President, and John Adams and
Thomas Jefferson became President. The sons of signers John Adams
and Benjamin Harrison also became Presidents.
Five signers played major roles in the
establishment of colleges and universities: Benjamin Franklin and
the University of Pennsylvania; Thomas Jefferson and the University
of Virginia; Benjamin Rush and Dickinson College; Lewis Morris and
New York University; and George Walton and the University of
Georgia.
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Carroll were the longest
surviving signers. Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826,
the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Charles
Carroll of Maryland was the last signer to die-in 1832 at the age
of 95.
Sources: Robert Lincoln, Lives of
the Presidents of the United States, with Biographical Notices of
the Signers of the Declaration of Independence (Brattleboro
Typographical Company, 1839); John and Katherine Bakeless,
Signers of the Declaration (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1969); Biographical Directory of the United States
Congress, 1774-1989 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1989).
This essay was published June 28,
2007. Originally published as Heritage Foundation Backgrounder
No. 1451 on June 19, 2001.