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The Evolution of Democracy:
Part 8:
Jefferson and the Declaration:
February 18, 2002:
On May 15, 1776 the members of the Virginia House of Burgesses
were assembled at Williamsburg, the colony's capital. At that
time, they instructed their delegation to the Continental Congress
to propose a resolution of independence for the colonies. The
senior member of the Virginia delegation was Richard Henry Lee.
On June 7, 1776, Lee offered this resolution to the Continental
Congress, assembled at Philadelphia.
"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 connections between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved."
On July 2, 1776 the Continental Congress adopted Lee's resolution. So, legally speaking, it is the American Declaration of Independence. However, the congress appointed a committee to prepare a formal declaration to the effect of Lee's proposal. That committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.
The committee appointed Jefferson to draft the declaration. So, it was Jefferson's draft, modified by the Congress which was adopted on July 4, 1776 and is now known as the Declaration of Independence.
It is fair to say, that this document is a clear statement of the political philosophy of Jefferson and of Adams and Franklin as well. these men were bound by love and honor to the fate of the colonies. However, they were no less citizens of that universal community of thinkers known as philosophers. They were influence by, and in turn influenced, the age of enlightenment.
The degree of agreement between these three men is accented by the fact that Adams and Franklin made only five minor changes when Jefferson's submitted his draft to them. The Congress, with its special interests, was not so kind. Still, the document which came out of Congress is Jeffersonian in character. The intent was still solidly intact. Let's look at paragraph two of that document.
"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."
The document goes on to list the details of the King's abuses against the colonies. In fact, it reads more like an indictment than anything else. Even without the details, we can perhaps see why the King may have been put off. He probably though that he was a pretty decent guy doing a grand job of administering the colonies. Then ,suddenly, he has these smart mouthed upstarts telling him, in very clear language, that he is nothing but a dirty, low-down bully. There was nothing for it, but to go to war.
Well, that was the first time, but not the last, that fools in foreign countries underestimated America's resolve. Later on, Germany and Japan were to make the same error. More recently Iraq and Afghanistan have joined the ranks of fools. For the king, the little cleanup action that he envisioned turned into a rout of the English troops and the Colonies won their independence.
Back to Jefferson. He was, if not a philosopher in the classic sense, a leading thinker and experimenter in the sciences and humanities. Formally educated and well read, he was still a man of his time. His thinking and writing reflected the political temper of the times. Western civilization everywhere was rejecting the notions of divine right and arbitrary rule. Men were coming to favor the rule of law and reason over the rule on men. The natural rights of men to life and liberty were being expressed by leading thinkers throughout the western world. The concepts of government by contract and constitution had become guiding principles.
The Declaration of Independence then was more that a specific indictment by a people against a specific government. It was an expression of the political temper of the entire western world.
In practical terms, the declaration was also a call for help or, at least, benevolent negligence on the part of the powers of Europe. The United Colonies needed all the help they could get. In reality we had a group of upstart republics, mostly led by renegades and special interest groups. They had no credible military and precious little industry. Yet, they were setting themselves up to defy the most powerful and most industrialized nation in the world. That these United Colonies actual brought it off is a miracle outside the scope of these essays.
The logic and prose of the Declaration of independence is within the scope of this work. Perhaps the most powerful part of that is the second paragraph, cited above. In that, Jefferson summarizes the political thought which justified the revolution and established the philosophical foundation for the Untied States of America.
This is a fitting place to end the series of essays on the
evolution of democracy.
Back to The Evolution of
Democracy.
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