We Hold These Truths...
The Declaration of Independence - historical context, hopeful ideals, and heroic battles.
Greetings, Readers!
We continue to welcome new members to our Think On These Things community each week and hope that you will consider sharing with others who would appreciate our content. For those who have been here, you may recall from our inaugural edition that our mission here at CivicSophisticate is to build an educated and civil society through the revival of critical thinking skills (i.e. reason), the study and appreciation of history, and the enjoyment of culture and the arts. The dual elements of being educated and civil are fundamentally tied to our ability to engage as citizens of our nation, as well as uphold the responsibility we bear as such.
One of the most important pieces of history that undergirds our ability to understand that responsibility is how our nation came to be. Today, there is a significant void of knowledge and understanding around the founding of the United States of America. There is no absence of discussion on the topic, but the extent to which those are based on historical context directly impacts the extent to which they have merit. In order to truly educate ourselves on this important topic, we must dig into the people, events, and circumstances that led to and followed the founding.
In the spirit of celebrating Independence Day, we turn our focus toward history with the original source itself, the Declaration of Independence. It was an extraordinary accomplishment in 1776 and remains a pivotal moment in marking the birth of a new nation—serving as the preamble of our Constitution and a seminal documentation of ideals and convictions that laid the foundation for the freedoms we enjoy.
The words in the document call our minds and souls to inspiration with language such as “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.” However, the actions of the individuals who wove it together and then pledged their lives to its cause call our own into view with each fresh reading. It is a weighty document with weighty implications.
Before we dig in, a word about context:
Exploring history and historic documents challenges us to understand the context within which they occurred. Too often in 2024, we encounter authors, journalists, politicians, even historians—and thereby the American populace—using a modern day lens to look back into history, not able to comprehend how and why things happened the way they did. However, any honest assessment of history quickly reveals that pesky thing called reality, something economists often call constraints. Every person, society, and time in history has constraints within which things operate and people make decisions. Altering a single component of a complex situation (or equation/model in the economists’ case) inevitably impacts other variables and outcomes.* Andrew Wilson, in his book Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post Christian West, reminds us of the role studying history plays in perspective.
“Memory, in contrast, should generate humility: the acknowledgment of our past, with all its strengths and weaknesses, and the recognition that the reason we have the moral convictions we do, and the material advantages we do, is because of our ancestors. As James Baldwin relentlessly pointed out, we are our history.”
Let us begin.
Leading up to the 1776 drafting of the Declaration of Independence, we find ourselves in the second half of the 18th Century. The document itself indicates much of the direct context for us—but it is important to first set the backdrop of what lead to this specific moment in history and the truly extraordinary series of events that followed.
As our primary subject matter expert and guide, we will lean on renowned historian, professor, and author Wilfred McClay and his book Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story. He describes the early British Colonies as “haphazard” and “experimental” as they began to form in the early 1600s and following. Each established its own culture, religious practices, economic interests, and even local government. Although operating under British Law, it was at a distance. The practical reality was that each colony had to survive in a new and unknown place, which engrained unique characteristics in the people—ingenuity, self-reliance, independence, opportunity, adventure. These characteristics sound familiar to us today, don’t they? What was different from today was also significant.
“Of course, citizenship and the ability to participate in the political process in these colonies were severely restricted when measured by our present-day standards, since women, Native Americans, and African Americans were not permitted a role in colonial political life. But it is important to keep that fact in correct perspective. Such equality as we insist upon today did not then exist anyplace in the world. That said, no other region on earth had such a high proportion of its adult male population enjoying a free status rooted in the private ownership of land. A greater proportion of the American population could participate in elections and have a role in selecting their representatives than anyplace else on the planet. These colonists were acquiring the habit of self-rule, and they were not likely ever to want to give it up easily or willingly.”
Over the next hundred and fifty years, the colonies became more established. New generations had come and gone. The population grew. Sadly much of that population was enslaved Africans. McClay provides important insight to help us understand how initial customs of indentured servitude, which occurred with poor Europeans who wanted a chance to earn their way to the New World, eventually gave way to the existing practice of slavery that was already rampant across the known world. The British Colonies were not immune to this great evil that has plagued human history across all ages and all places across the globe.
Indeed, this is a part of our history that we wish could be replaced and one that we struggle to comprehend through our 2024 lens. It would take the blood of many to put an end to the practice of slavery in America—first through the initial ideals and principles of the founding documents, the American Revolution, and its subsequent forming of a national government, and then eventually through the American Civil War in the following century. The Declaration of Independence set the precedent for the very future of righting this wrong. There is evidence in much of the writings of the Founders that they understood the conflict of the evils of slavery and the ideals that they were drafting and establishing for the new nation. The constraints of their time, however—their own self interests, but also the threat of fracturing a nascent nation before it even started and the political environment—meant that they must first establish the national ideals that would inspire future action.
And action came. Let us briefly step into the future of 1776 to hear what Abraham Lincoln had to say in 1858 and 1863 about the founders.**
“The fathers of this government expected and intended the institution of slavery to come to an end. They expected and intended that it should be in the course of ultimate extinction….They found slavery among them and they left it among them because of the difficulty—the absolute impossibility of its immediate removal.” - 1858
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” - 1863, Gettysburg Address
Now, let us step back into the lead up to the Declaration.
By the 1760s, following England’s victory in the French and Indian War/Seven Years War in 1763—also where George Washington began to shine—and the subsequent series of rapid fire focus from England beginning to exercise the full measure of British rule and law (including increased taxation and increased military presence) on the colonies, things escalated. In addition to McClay’s work, there are helpful timelines from Colonial Williamsburg and from American Battlefield Trust that show the many events that took place between 1762 – 1774. In addition, we suggest Ron Chernow’s biographies George Washington: A Life and Hamilton, as well as the timeless historical fiction piece by Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain
The actions of England and responses of the colonies eventually culminate in 1774 as the colonies come together to form the Continental Congress.
By April of 1775, Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride warned about the impending Battles of Lexington and Concord.
By 1776, events continued to escalate and the Congress determined that they must unite in declaring independence. It took some convincing, but following the rapid distribution of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in early 1776 (the mention of which now likely calls to mind the 2015 hit musical Hamilton’s brilliant lyrics) and continued battles ongoing, they reached agreement on July 4th.
What followed in the Declaration of Independence set the course of history yet to be written. As we conclude with a fresh reading of this work, let us remember the principles and ideals that birthed our nation, challenged injustices, and inspired the more perfect union that we enjoy—and must preserve—every day.
The Declaration of Independence - July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 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, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
*For more on the concept of constraints, we suggest the work of economists Thomas Sowell (“Basic Economics” and “A Conflict of Visions”) and Roland Fryer (his work on policing is particularly fascinating and references both concepts of constraints and variables).
**For more on this topic, we suggest the work of Thomas G. West: “Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America” and “The Political Theory of the American Founding”
***Other helpful resources include the free online courses of Hillsdale College, featuring both Wilfred McClay and Thomas G. West.
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