An essay by A.G. Madison
When it comes to the teaching of history at the high school level it often has a fait accompli feel to it. America is a shining city on a hill. A model for all to follow. The Declaration of Independence flowed into the Constitution, and then because of pushback, the Bill of Rights was added. Justice is sometimes two steps forward and one step backward.
There is a lot of ground that must be covered quickly. It becomes history by bullet points, and the humanness is often erased from it. It's as if the main characters from history were playing roles that had been written for them with the ending already determined. Of course, that is not the case. History is made by humans. Complicated humans with flaws to be seen once one digs a little bit below the surface.
Regardless, the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights are probably the three most enlightened documents to come out of the world of the late 18th Century. It is not a stretch to proclaim they are the greatest documents ever written for the benefit of humankind. All three documents are rather short, and it would be great if every American, say by the age of eighteen, had them internalized, if not memorized.
Let's start with the Declaration of Independence, which is celebrated every year on the 4th of July. It is so short; it is included here in its entirety.
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.
The most familiar part of the declaration is its beginning. It quickly gets to the sentiment that all men are created equal, and everyone has a right to pursue what makes them happy without any prohibitions put up by the government. These principles are the north star of American democracy. Debates would be had over how they should be implemented, but individual freedom was made a priority, and no ruler – be they a king or president or governor had the right to take this away.
It took a while to get to the part that all men are created equal. Even longer to add women to the equation. But the era of the late 20th century to the early 21st century has become an unprecedented time for humans with regards to freedom and democracy.
The declaration with its list of grievances was just the beginning of the Revolutionary War period. The outcome was certainly not destined. There were many times George Washington and his army could have suffered defeat, either by the hand of the enemy, or through an internal collapse. But providence was on the side of the colonies. Washington was the right man for the job.
The essence of the document comes down to the unalienable rights that one has – Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. All are created equal, and the government derives its power from the consent of the governed. In an Age when some of the great minds of the Enlightenment believed a benevolent monarch was the best form of government, calling for democracy was itself a revolutionary idea.
The Declaration of Independence paved the way for an independent United States. Its spirit of independence should be honored. But what is freedom if it cannot be held. In my 8th grade classes I often read Animal Farm by George Orwell. It is a novel I'm sure many of you are familiar with. It is a short fable about farm animals who rise up and overthrow the tyrant of the farm, farmer Jones. It follows the course of the Russian Revolution.
Everything starts out great as all the animals work for the betterment of the farm. A list of commandments is drawn up with the essence being that all animals are equal. They complete the first harvest in record time. However, the smartest animals on the farm are the pigs. They begin to take advantage of the benefits their intelligence brings them. By the end, the pigs are so corrupted by their power, they are treating the other animals worse than Farmer Jones was. It ends with that famous altering of history from – All Animals Are Equal to All Animals Are Equal, But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.
While Jefferson gets credit for the Declaration of Independence as well as a successful presidency, one of his proudest achievements was the founding of the University of Virginia. An informed and educated populace is what a democracy needs to survive. While all citizens may not need a college degree to succeed in this world, for democracy to succeed, its citizens need a basic understanding of the structure and foundation of its government.
On a recent cross-country trip with my wife and daughter, we stopped at Monticello. We walked the grounds and saw Jefferson's gravesite. It is well known, Jefferson wanted to acknowledge his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and his founding of UVA. His tombstone does not mention the fact he was President of the United States.
It is also worthwhile to know some history from the Revolutionary period, because these individuals were men and not gods. I tend to reference the classic western, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly to help students put the history of the country in its proper perspective. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves and despite his high-minded rhetoric he could be as petty as anyone. He was a product of his time, though I'm not sure this should excuse him entirely. Life is full of contradictions, and to pretend otherwise is to fall into that old trap of believing that people should act the way we think they should, rather than how they are. Jefferson was flawed, but he created a document that would allow us to look at our flaws and correct them.
The last point I will make revolves around providence. The United States was founded on Judeo-Christian religious principles. Jefferson is often described as being a deist. But whether one is religious or not, the death of Jefferson and his chief rival and friend, John Adams, helps reinforce the narrative that the arc of the universe is towards justice.
To highlight how young many of the founders were, I often ask the question – do you know when Jefferson and Adams died. It's been a while since a student knows the answer to that.
Both died on July 4th I will say. Any idea what year. None will guess that it was on July 4th, 1826, the fifty-year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It's a remarkable thing.
The Declaration of Independence gave the colonies its freedom. But what is freedom without structure. As the novel Animal Farm showed, toppling the government in power is the easy part. What comes next, is the challenge. Fortunately for us, the men of the day were up to that challenge.
— A.G. Madison