The History, Philosophy, and Lasting Significance of the Declaration of Independence

The following was presented to the LBCCS discussion group at the September 18 meeting.

The History of the Declaration:

The Declaration of Independence was the culmination of a long series of offenses against the American colonists. The colonists were British citizens and were proud of it until their rights started being infringed upon. Here is a basic history of the build-up to the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence.

In 1765, the Stamp Act was passed which caused an uproar within in the colonies. Each colony had a legislature of their own, but Britain had bypassed the elected officials of the people and had put a direct tax on all paper goods from mail to newspapers to playing cards.

In 1766, Britain abandoned the Stamp Act, but then proceeded to pass the Declaratory Act which stated that Britain had full authority over the colonies and could do whatever they wanted regardless of local authorities. This started an even bigger firestorm.

In 1768 Britain declared marshal law in Boston and brought troops in to keep order. The colonists for the first time realized that they might need to use force to protect themselves, and as result started gathering weapons and ammunition.

In 1775, British troops left Boston to seize the rebels stores in Concord but the colonists were warned and the first shots of the Revolution were fired in the town of Lexington. The Continental Congress convened and decided to raise an army with George Washington as the head.

In 1776, the British fled Boston following Washington's brilliant taking of Dorchester Heights above the city. In Boston they found correspondence showing that King George was hiring Hessian mercenaries (ruthless killers from Germany) to join the British troops in America. Soon afterward, the booklet Common Sense was released to the public and instantly became a bestseller. So while there was still opposition among many high-level officials (specifically in Pennsylvania and South Carolina), the common folk of America took a stand firmly for Independence.

In June of that year, Richard Henry Lee called for independence but was strongly opposed by many in the Congress. But regardless, they decided to form a committee to draft a declaration, and then they would convene in three weeks to debate whether or not to accept it. The committee they chose included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (among a few others). John Adams refused to write it because he was unpopular among many in the Congress, and Benjamin Franklin's own son was the royal governor of New Jersey which disqualified him from writing such a document. So Thomas Jefferson, the shy philosopher from Virginia was chosen to write the Declaration. Following completion of that draft, Franklin and Adams joined with Jefferson to hammer out the final product.

On June 28, the Declaration was presented to the Continental Congress and after much deliberation, was adopted by vote on July 2 (although signatures did not start being collected until July 4). Until his death, John Adams refused to celebrate the Fourth of July, insisting that the correct day to celebrate was July 2.

The Philosophy Behind the Declaration:

It is clear in the Declaration that our founders in general, and Thomas Jefferson in particular, understood the difference between indigenous power and surrogate power. Indigenous power is that natural power given to man by his Creator. When a person wakes up in the morning, he decides what he wants to have for breakfast, then prepares it. He decides where he wants to go and what he wants to do. He can produce, or destroy. He can think and reason and act on decisions. That is what makes up man's indigenous power. And reason leads us to conclude that with that indigenous (natural) power comes natural rights. God endowed us with indigenous power, and rights to protect that power. We have a right to our life, liberty and earned property. God gave us that power and those rights, and therefore it is only He that can take them away (not any individual or government). That is called the "laws of nature and nature's God." Jefferson initially wrote that all men were "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and property." Adams and Franklin, both firmly opposed to slavery, convinced him to change the wording to "pursuit of happiness" so the South would not see it as legitimizing their keeping of slaves, whom they considered "property." But regardless, the meaning was understood by all at the time. And they also understood "that to secure these rights, government are instituted among men."

Surrogate power is power granted by individuals to a surrogate entity. Governments and businesses are examples of surrogate entities. Does a business have any natural power? Can a business in and of itself make decisions and act on those decisions? A business only has what power is given it by the individuals that make it up. So when people start a business, they plug some of their indigenous power into it, which gives it surrogate power. It is the same way with governments; people take some of their indigenous power and plug it into the government to give it power. But problems arise when a surrogate power forgets that it has no power of its own and starts usurping the natural power and rights of others. That is a corrupt surrogate that needs to be stopped.

Our founders understood that governments have only surrogate power and derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed" (the indigenous power of the individuals within it). And why are governments created? "To secure these rights" of life, liberty and earned property. And when "any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government."

One single individual has more power than any government does of itself. Individuals have natural power and natural rights and governments have only the power granted to them by the individuals who make up society.

When a person understands this, he can understand why our founders felt that they had a "right" and "duty" to "throw off such government" as the tyrannical Great Britain and "institute new government."

The Lasting Significance of the Declaration:

Progressives will say that the Constitution is "vague" and more of a "theory" than an actual manual for our government. They see the Constitution as a short document created to get the wheels of government turning but that would become irrelevant once the government was firmly in place and be replaced by some form of glorified pragmatism. They can believe this because they separate the Constitution from the Declaration of Independence. We know that those two documents are inseparable.

The Declaration declares the purpose of government, and the Constitution declares the means of accomplishing that purpose.

The purpose is simply to protect man's natural rights, and that is the reason why the Constitution is so short. There is a short list of responsibilities within the Constitution itself and the 10th Amendment clearly states that those are the ONLY responsibilities of our government. The lasting significance of the Declaration of Independence is that it is the lens with which to look at and understand the Constitution. Using it we are able to understand that the Constitution is a small document because our government was designed to be a very small government.

Sources:
The Declaration of Independence (read online or download free MP3)
Common Sense; Revisited (commonsenserevisited.com)
Liberty! The American Revolution (Amazon.com)
The 5000 Year Leap (Amazon.com; NCCS.net, download free MP3)
The Real Thomas Jefferson (Amazon.com; NCCS.net)
Second Treatise of Civil Government (Amazon.com, read online or download free MP3)
Common Sense (Amazon.com, read online or download free MP3)
The Constitution in Exile (Amazon.com)