University of Virginia Library

THE DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE

CHAPTER I

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

It is often forgotten that the document which
we know as the Declaration of Independence is
not the official act by which the Continental
Congress voted in favor of separation from Great
Britain. June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, on
behalf of the Virginia delegation, submitted to
the Continental Congress three resolutions, of
which the first declared 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."[1] This resolution, which
may conveniently be called the Resolution of
Independence, was finally voted by the Continental
Congress on the 2 of July, 1776.[2] Strictly
speaking, this was the official declaration of independence;
and if we were a nation of antiquaries
we should no doubt find an incongruity
in celebrating the anniversary of our independence
on the 4 of July.

Meanwhile, on the 10 of June, three days
after Richard Henry Lee introduced the Resolution
of Independence, it was voted to appoint
a committee to "prepare a declaration to the
effect of the said first resolution." The committee,
appointed on the following day, consisted
of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin
Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R.
Livingston.[3] On the 28 of June, the committee
reported to Congress the draft of a
declaration which, with modifications, was finally
agreed to by Congress on the 4 of July.[4] This is
the document which is popularly known as the
Declaration of Independence.

This title is not, strictly speaking, the official
title of the document in question. The
document never knew itself, in any of its various
forms, by that name. Jefferson, in making the
first draft, gave it the following title: A Declaration
by the Representatives of the United States of
America, in General Congress assembled. This
title was retained in all the copies of the Declaration,
except the engrossed parchment copy. On
the 19 of July, 1776, Congress voted that the
Declaration be engrossed on parchment, "with
the title and stile of The unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen united States of America." It is
true, the Declaration, in the form adopted by

Congress, incorporates in its final paragraph the
resolution of July 2; and so the Declaration may
be said to be a declaration of independence, inasmuch
as in it Congress once more declared what
it had already declared two days before. Nevertheless,
the primary purpose of the Declaration
was not to declare independence, but to proclaim
to the world the reasons for declaring
independence. It was intended as a formal
justification of an act already accomplished.

The purpose of the Declaration is set forth in
the first paragraph — a striking sentence, in
which simplicity of statement is somehow combined
with an urbane solemnity of manner in
such a way as to give that felicitous, haunting
cadence which is the peculiar quality of Jefferson's
best writing.

The ostensible purpose of the Declaration was,
therefore, to lay before the world the causes
which impelled the colonies to separate from
Great Britain. We do in fact find, in the
Declaration, a list or catalogue of acts, attributed
to the king of Great Britain, and alleged
to have been done by him with the deliberate
purpose of establishing over the colonies "an
absolute tyranny." These "causes" which the
Declaration sets forth are not quite the same as
those which a careful student of history, seeking
the antecedents of the Revolution, would set
forth. The reason is that the framers of the
Declaration were not writing history, but making
it. They were seeking to convince the world that
they were justified in doing what they had done;
and so their statement of "causes" is not the
bare record of what the king had done, but
rather a presentation of his acts in general
terms, and in the form of an indictment intended

to clear the colonists of all responsibility and to
throw all the blame on the king. From whatever
causes, the colonists were in rebellion against
established and long recognized political authority.
The Declaration was not primarily
concerned with the causes of this rebellion;
its primary purpose was to present those causes
in such a way as to furnish a moral and legal
justification for that rebellion. The Declaration
was essentially an attempt to prove that rebellion
was not the proper word for what they
were doing.

Rebellion against established authority is
always a serious matter. In that day kings
were commonly claiming to rule by divine right,
and according to this notion there could be no
`right' of rebellion. The framers of the Declaration
knew very well that however long their
list of grievances against the king of Great
Britain might be, and however oppressive they
might make out his acts to have been, something
more would be required to prove to the world
that in separating from Great Britain they were
not really engaged in rebellion against a rightful
authority. What they needed, in addition
to many specific grievances against their particular
king, was a fundamental presupposition
against kings in general. What they needed
was a theory of government that provided a

place for rebellion, that made it respectable, and
even meritorious under certain circumstances.

Before enumerating the specific grievances
against the king of Great Britain, Jefferson
therefore proceeded to formulate a general
political philosophy — a philosophy upon which
the case of the colonies could solidly rest.
This philosophy, which affirms the right of a
people to establish and to overturn its own
government, is formulated in the first part of
the second paragraph of the Declaration.

This is a frank assertion of the right of
revolution, whenever "the people" are convinced

that the existing government has become
destructive of the ends for which all
government is instituted among men. Many
difficulties lie concealed in the words "the
people"; but it is sufficient to note in passing
that a large part of the people in the colonies,
not being convinced that the British government
had as yet become destructive of their
liberties, or for some other reason, were either
indifferently or strongly opposed to separation.
Yet the leaders of the Revolution, being now
committed to independence, found it politically
expedient to act on the assumption that
the opposition was negligible. Very naturally,
therefore, Jefferson endeavored to make it
appear that the people of the colonies were
thoroughly united in wishing to `institute new
government' in place of the government of
the king.

Accordingly, having affirmed the right of
revolution under certain conditions, the Declaration
goes on to state that as a matter of fact
these conditions prevail in the colonies, and
that `the people' have submitted to them as
long as it is humanly possible to do.

So at last we come to the `facts,' the list or
catalogue of oppressive measures, the `repeated
injuries and usurpations' of the king of Great
Britain.

Such were the `facts' submitted to a candid
world. It is important to note that they were
not submitted as being, in themselves, a justification
for rebellion; they were submitted to
prove that the deliberate and persistent purpose
of the king was to establish an `absolute
tyranny' over the colonies. A most significant
thing about this long list of the king's alleged
actions is the assumption that in each case the
king acted with deliberate intention and from
a bad motive. It is the bad general purpose

of the king, rather than his bad particular
acts, that makes the indictment so effective.
And this effect is enhanced by the form in which
the `facts' are presented — the steady, laborious
piling up of `facts,' the monotonous enumeration,
without comment, of one bad action after
another. How could a candid world deny that
the colonies were rightly absolved from allegiance
to so malevolent a will!

Nevertheless, in spite of multiplied and long
continued grievances, the colonies had not
rushed into rebellion.

Thus the framers of the Declaration presented
their case. Having formulated a philosophy
of government which made revolution
right under certain conditions, they endeavored
to show that these conditions prevailed in the
colonies, not on account of anything which the
people of the colonies had done, or had left
undone, but solely on account of the deliberate
and malevolent purpose of their king to establish
over them an `absolute tyranny.' The people
of the colonies must, accordingly (such is the
implication), either throw off the yoke or submit
to be slaves. As between these alternatives,
there could be but one choice for men accustomed
to freedom.

From the foregoing analysis it is clear that,
apart from the preamble and the conclusion,
the Declaration consists of two parts, apparently
quite distinct. The first part is contained in
the second paragraph. In these few lines the
Declaration formulates, in general terms, a
democratic political philosophy. The second
and much longer part of the Declaration
enumerates the specific grievances against the
king of Great Britain, which, ostensibly, are
presented as the historical causes of the Revolution.

These two parts of the Declaration,
apparently quite distinct, are nevertheless intimately
related in the logic and purpose of
the Declaration. Superficially, the Declaration
seems chiefly concerned with the causes of the
Revolution, with the specific grievances; but
in reality it is chiefly, one might say solely,
concerned with a theory of government —
with a theory of government in general, and a
theory of the British empire in particular.
The theory of government in general is explicitly
formulated; the theory of the British empire
is not explicitly formulated but is implicitly
taken for granted; and the second part of the
Declaration was carefully phrased so that no
assertion or implication might appear as a
contradiction or a denial of the assumed theory.

The Declaration thus bcomes interesting
for what it omits as well as for what it includes.
For example, it does not, in its final form, contain
the word `Parliament' — a most significant
omission, considering that the controversy
of the preceding decade was occasioned,
not by the acts of the king, who plays the
leading part in the Declaration, but by the
acts of the British Parliament. In all the controversy
leading up to the Revolution the thing
chiefly debated was the authority of the British
Parliament. What is the nature, and what precisely

are the limits, of the authority of the
British Parliament over the colonies? This
question was in fact the central issue. Nevertheless,
the Declaration does not mention the
British Parliament.

So striking an omission must have been intentional.
It was of course impossible to make
out a list of grievances against Great Britain
without referring to such acts as the Stamp
Act, the Declaratory Act, the Boston Port
Bill, and many other legislative measures;
and the framers of the Declaration, when they
brought these measures into the indictment,
had accordingly to resort to circumlocution in
order to avoid naming the Parliament that
passed them. There are, in the Declaration,
two such veiled references to the Parliament.
The first is this: "He [the king] has combined
with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged
by our laws, giving his assent to their pretended
acts of legislation." These `others'
who have passed pretended acts of legislation
are the members of the British Parliament.
The second reference is this: "We have warned
them [our british brethren] . . . of attempts
by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable
jurisdiction over us." Obviously, the framers
of the Declaration make it a point of principle

not on any account to pronounce the word
Parliament. "Of course," we seem to hear
them saying, "our British brethren have their
legislature, as we have ours. But with their
legislature we have nothing to do, God forbid!
The very name of the thing escapes us! At
least, let us pretend so."

Another significant omission is the term
`rights of British subjects.' Throughout the
controversy the colonists had commonly protested
against parliamentary taxation precisely
on the ground that they possessed the rights of
British subjects. They said that the British Parliament
could not constitutionally tax British
subjects without their consent, and that British
subjects in the colonies were not, and in the
nature of the case could not well be, represented
in the British Parliament. For ten years the
colonists had made the `rights of British subjects'
the very foundation of their case. Yet
this is just what the framers of the Declaration
carefully refrain from doing: the term `rights
of British subjects' does not appear in the
Declaration. Trial by jury is mentioned, but
not as a right of British subjects. `The system
of free English laws' is mentioned, but it is not
stated, or even implied, that the validity of
these laws arises from the fact that they are
English laws. Nowhere does the Declaration

say, and nowhere does it imply, that the acts of
the king are intolerable because they violate
the rights of British subjects.

The framers of the Declaration refrained from
mentioning Parliament and the `rights of British
subjects' for the same reason that they charged
all their grievances against the king alone.
Being now committed to independence, the
position of the colonies could not be simply
or convincingly presented from the point of
view of the rights of British subjects. To have
said: `We hold this truth to be self-evident,
that it is a right of British subjects not to be
taxed except by their own consent,' would
have made no great appeal to mankind, since
mankind in general could not be supposed to
be vitally interested in the rights of British
subjects, or much disposed to regard them as
axioms in political speculation. Separation from
Great Britain was therefore justified on more
general grounds, on the ground of the natural
rights of man; and in order to simplify the
issue, in order to make it appear that the rights
of man had been undeniably and flagrantly
violated, it was expedient that these rights
should seem to be as little as possible limited
or obscured by the positive and legal obligations
that were admittedly binding upon British
subjects. To place the Resolution of Independence

in the best light possible, it was convenient
to assume that the connection between the
colonies and Great Britain had never been a
very close connection, never, strictly speaking,
a connection binding in positive law, but only
a connection voluntarily entered into by a free
people. On this ground the doctrine of the
rights of man would have a free field and no
competitors.

The specific grievances enumerated in the
Declaration were accordingly presented from
the point of view of a carefully considered and
resolutely held constitutional theory of the
British empire. The essence of this theory,
nowhere explicitly formulated in the Declaration,
but throughout implicitly taken for granted,
is that the colonies became parts of the empire
by their own voluntary act, and remained parts
of it solely by virtue of a compact subsisting
between them and the king. Their rights
were those of all men, of every free people;
their obligations such as a free people might
incur by professing allegiance to the personal
head of the empire. On this theory, both the
Parliament and the rights of British subjects
could be ignored as irrelevant to the issue.

The specific grievances complained of in the
Declaration are grievances no longer. As concrete
issues they are happily dead. But the

way in which the men of those days conceived
of these concrete issues, the intellectual preconceptions,
illusions if you like, which were
born of their hopes and fears, and which in
turn shaped their conduct — these make the
Declaration always interesting and worthy of
study. It is not my intention to search out
those particular measures of the British government
which served in the mind of Jefferson
and his friends to validate each particular
charge against the king. This could indeed
be done, and has been sufficiently done already;
but the truth is that when one has found the
particular act to which in each case the particular
charge was intended to refer, one is likely to
think the poor king less malevolently guilty
than he is made out to be. Yet that Jefferson
and his friends, honest and good men enough,
and more intelligent than most, were convinced
that the Declaration was a true bill, we need
not doubt. How this could be may be understood,
a little at least, by seeing how the pressure
of circumstances enabled the men of those
days to accept as true their general philosophy
of human rights and their particular theory of
the British empire.