Jefferson's Declaration (original) (raw)

Analysis of the Declaration of Independence from a Rhetorical Standpoint

America’s Declaration of Independence has profoundly affected the foundation of the United States more than any other event or document in American history. The Declaration of Independence was and still is the basis for what the country is established on. July 4th of 1776, Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States was chosen to draft the Declaration of Independence. His purpose was to persuade the colonists of the thirteen colonies to break away from England. The document reports and emphasizes on the reasons as to why the colonists should declare their independence.

The Declaration of Independence, Annotated

2005

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America 4 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 5 and of Nature's God entitle them, 6 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 7 men are

Best Friends: The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution 1

2004

The relation between the Declaration and the Constitution has a different affect today than it did in 1860, when enemies to the more perfect union could find no pillar bearing more weight – and thus to be dislodged – than what they called the “self-evident lie” that “all men are created equal.” Those critics insisted that men indeed are not by nature made equal, nor should be. Today’s enemies of the more perfect union believe that “all men” in 1776 only meant all white males and, moreover, that not even they were by nature made equal though they should be. These critics insist, however, that what nature and history refused to humankind law can create (and they would indeed have all men equalized, the Constitution notwithstanding). In 1860 nothing and no one so stoutly resisted the enemies of the Declaration than the Defender of the Constitution. Today nothing and no one so stoutly resist the enemies of the Constitution than the Defender of the Declaration. Abraham Lincoln established at Gettysburg that the nation “conceived in liberty” and confirmed “in the proposition that all men are created equal” must conduct its affairs through limited, constitutional union. Today we require to learn that limited, constitutional union can only be justified on the basis of the Declaration of Independence. What we mean, then, when we say that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are best friends, is that they are necessary and reciprocal supports for each other. Two proofs are necessary to complete this argument: first, that the Declaration requires limited, constitutional union and, second, that the Constitution requires the principle of equality founded in laws of nature and creation.

Declaration of Independence: A Preliminary Critical houghts and Reflections

The American Declaration of Independence was and still is a great document for its open and succinct affirmation of human equality. It has continued to inspire the world as the struggle for social justice becomes central to human existence everywhere. Unfortunately the noble document was vitiated, trampled upon and bastardized by the framers who produced it by the chattel slave system they set up and many other crimes, savagery, holocaust they committed. The tragedy of this noble and immutable awesome document is that Americans continue to venerate and adore the perpetrators of the crimes against humanity who ignored the great document, which is sad and shameful.

The Declaration of Independence in Constitutional Interpretation: A Selective History and Analysis

1998

2. See LYSANDER SPOONER, THE UNCONSTITUTIONAITY OF SLAVERY 36-39 (1847). 3. Washington v. Confederated Bands and Tribes of the Yamika Indian Nation, 439 U.S. 463, 479 n.23 (1979). 4. See id. 5. In his rebuttal argument at the close of People v. Simpson, Christopher Darden told the jury the following story. I also looked back at the Constitution last night, I sent my clerk to go get it for me, and I looked through the Constitution, and you know what I saw? I saw some stuff in the Constitution about Ron and about Nicole, and the Constitution said that Ron and Nicole had the right to liberty. It said they had the right to life. It said that they had the right to the pursuit of happiness. 108 [Vol. 32:107 CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION People," who continue to debate the nature and limits of the rights we regard as basic. H. A SAMPLING OF APPEALS TO THE DECLARATION IN SUPREME COURT OPINIONS Over the course of American judicial history, the United States Supreme Court has articulated constitutional rights of liberty' and the pursuit of happiness 9 as grounded in the Declaration of Independence. The Court has also referred to the Declaration in working out, among other matters, the limits of executive power 0 and military power,' the origins of national citizenship,' the scope of the right of trial by jury," and the meaning of equality before the law.' 4 An examination of a few such uses illustrates the variety of ways in which the Declaration has figured in Supreme Court opinions over the last two hundred years. A. The Declaration as the Legal Act of American Independence An early example of appeal to the Declaration in judicial adjudication is Shanks v. Dupont, 5 where Chief Justice Joseph Story used the Declaration as a legal marker for determining that a woman born in South Carolina (before the ratification of Declaration of Independence), married to an English officer, and returning to England with him after the Revolutionary War to reside there until her death, was a British subject and not an American citizen. 6 The Court would have regarded her as an American citizen had she married a citizen of one of the states 8. See infra Part HI.C.2. 9. See infra Part ILB. 10. See Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 641 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring) (the Declaration shows that the founders intended to form an executive of limited powers). The Court cited this portion of Jackson's opinion in Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654, 662 (1981). 11. See Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2, 37 (1866) (citing Declaration for the principle of the subordination of the military to the civil power). 12. See infra Part ILA. 13. See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 152 (1968). 14. See infra Parts VA-B. 15. 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) 242 (1830). 16. See id. at 244-47. 1997] UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND LAW REVIEW [Vol. 32:107 34. This was the position of the antislavery constitutionalists. See, e.g., SPOONER, supra note 1, at 43-44 (arguing that self-evident truths have legal force, even when not expressly stated in the Constitution). Spooner also treated declarations of natural rights found in constitutions as having legal force. See id. at 46-48. 35. See ROBERT C. POST, CONSITUTIONAL DOMAINS: DEMOCRACY, ComuUNrY, MANAGEMENT 30-31 (1995). 36. See id. 37. Id. at 31. 38. Referring to the Establishment Clause, Post observes that [elven if the very first judicial decision to interpret the establishment clause had concentrated its attention on the specific words of the clause or the intentions of its Framers, the practice of doctrinal interpretation would require the second decision to focus chiefly on the meaning of the first decision, the third decision chiefly on the meaning of the second, and so forth. Id. at 31-32. 39. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE para. 1 (U.S. 1776).

THE AMERICAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: An Analysis

The The Declaration of Independence, completed and signed in July of 1776, marked the official separation between the 13 colonies and Great Britain. An armed struggle between the colonies and Britain had begun just over a year before, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The formal declaration of independence established the new American revolutionary government and officially declared war against Great Britain. The primary purpose of the declaration was to assist the Second Continental Congress in obtaining aid from foreign countries. The document also clearly outlines the history of abuses the colonists had suffered under British rule since the end of the French and Indian war in 1763.

John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and the Declaration of Independence

Academia.edu, 2024

Thomas Jefferson was the principal architect of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, but the Second Continental Congress modified his draft. This essay discusses the famous first two sentences of the second paragraph of the Declaration: how Jefferson’s draft of this language was changed, and what it means in light of John Locke and Abraham Lincoln.

The ideas of Thomas Jefferson in The Declaration of Independence

2010

2009. This minor thesis discussed about the ideas of Thomas Jefferson as included in The Declaration of Independence. This research took the form of library research utilizing the descriptive technique. The primary data are the words, phrases, and interpreted statement which in the Declaration of Independence text. The secondary data are collected from books, magazines, journals, and internet websites about Jefferson's background, the Declaration of Independence, and articles. The purpose of this research is to find out the ideas of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence text. To achieve the goal, the researcher employees historical approach, biographical approach and philosophical approach. Those approaches were related to me each other in order to find out the ideas of Thomas Jefferson as described in the text of Declaration of Independence. Historical approach was applied to explain the event at that time. Biographical approach was applied to understand more about how the author's intention in the work is related to his background. While philosophical approach was used to know how the philosophy expressed in the one of Thomas Jefferson works. The analysis of this research lead that there were three ideas reflected in the Declaration of Independence values: that all men are created equal, all men have natural rights, and government is used to secure these rights with democracy and freedom.