The Declaration of Independence

 

Signed on July 4, 1776

A critical historical review

By Steve Halpern

The signing of the Declaration of Independence is a national holiday in the United States on July 4th every year. Based on my personal experience, while this is a national holiday, there is little discussion of the words in this document, or why this document was signed by representatives of the thirteen colonies.

We can begin by looking at a passage from this declaration that many people are familiar with. 

“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.”

Thinking about those words, we might also think about a speech Frederick Douglass gave in the year 1852 on the meaning of the Fourth of July holiday. Douglass was a slave for the first nineteen years of his life. He violated the slave laws and risked his life at the age of 13, in order to learn to read. He needed to do battle with a “slave breaker” by the name of Covey, just to maintain some sense of who he was. This is what Douglass had to say about the Fourth of July celebration:

“I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me … This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.”

In another section of this speech, Douglass argued:

“Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reins without rival.”

So, looking at the words of the Declaration of Independence and Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech, we might ask a basic question: How did the nation that was born with the ideals of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, become the nation of “revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy?”

In beginning to answer this question, we might also think about a basic problem with the way the so-called educational system in this country teaches history. One the one hand, there are the outright falsifications that James Loewen documented in his book Lies My Teacher Told Me. Then, there is the idea that there were only good and bad sides in history. The idea that history reflects differing forces that interacted with one another is, for the most part, missing from the educational system in this country.

We see this clearly when we look at the fact that the Declaration of Independence was written by a slave owner by the name of Thomas Jefferson. How could someone who’s entire wealth came from the labor of slaves, believe that all men have, “certain inalienable rights?”

In order to begin to answer this question, we need to look at the reality of what the rule of kings and queens was in the system known as feudalism. In that system, working people, and even individuals with considerable resources had no rights. The Gentry class ruled, and their power came from the fact that their parents were members of the royal family. 

Although Britain had a government, the King had ultimate authority and he was viewed as the “father’ of the people. Because the thirteen colonies were colonies, the British power brokers wanted to use those colonies to enhance their own privileged status. For those reasons, although Thomas Jefferson lived a life of comfort, he was also a debt slave to British bankers.

So, those who lived in the thirteen colonies began to understand that their future would be severely compromised as long as they lived under British rule. In the 245-year history of this country, very few people argue that we would be better off if this country had remained a British colony. 

So, before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine wrote his popular pamphlet titled Common Sense. In that pamphlet Paine argued that the king was nothing more than a “sceptered savage.”  

On the other hand, most Black people, as well as most Native Americans supported the British during the revolution. They rightfully understood that a revolutionary government in the United States would mean the strengthening of the system of slavery, as well as increasing genocide against Native Americans. 

Clearly the genocide against Native Americans has been a constant in this history of this country. Clearly, the system of slavery and brutal discrimination against Black people has also been a constant in the history of this country. However, the revolution of the thirteen colonies did signal a significant change in many areas. 

Six out of the thirteen colonies abolished slavery after the Revolution. The political division of the revolutionary government consisted of the federalists and the anti-federalists. The federalists supported a centralized government that was moving away from slavery. The anti-federalists supported slavery, and became the Democratic Party that we know today. These two factions of the government had disagreements that became intolerable with the election of Abraham Lincoln for President.

After the Revolution Shay’s Rebellion erupted and demanded concessions for those who fought in support of ending British rule. The government responded to that rebellion by drafting the Bill of Rights to the Constitution.   

Sections of the Declaration of Independence

The actual Declaration is a list of grievances settlers in the thirteen colonies had with the British. I believe the following quotation gives an idea of the sentiment of the signers of that document.

“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 then 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…” 

So, the signers of this declaration weren’t merely about writing letters to government officials. They had reached the point where they were preparing to remove the British representatives by force of arms. Because feudalism was a problem throughout the world, revolutionaries from Europe came to the thirteen colonies to join in the battle to have a government that at least pretended to represent the will of the people, and where citizens would have certain rights.

We also might consider that in the year 1776, Britain had the most powerful army in the world. However, as powerful as that army was, the colonists had good reason to believe that they needed a completely different armed force to defend their interests. 

This passage, I believe is an eloquent argument that supports the idea of using armed force to remove a despotic government from power. There are many nations in the world today where those words would apply.

In the following section, the Declaration argues that the signers opposed British restrictions of immigration to this part of the world.

“He has endeavored 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…”

We might think about the fact that at the time of the signing of the Declaration there were only about three-million residents of the thirteen colonies. Today there are about 340 million citizens of this country. 

However, the words of the Declaration are clear. The original signers of this document favored unobstructed immigration to this country. Today, the government has invested a huge amount of resources to keep immigrants out. At the same time there are about twelve million people who live here who were born in another country. Many of these people have horrendous jobs that few citizens in this country want. 

While the colonists of the thirteen colonies favored immigration, they had a completely different attitude towards Native Americans. The signers of the Declaration labeled Native Americans as “Indian Savages” and made it clear that they supported a war against the original inhabitants of this land. 

So, when I look at the Declaration of Independence, I’m looking at a document that reflected opposing class interests. Today, my opinion is that there is an international working class that has a clear interest in establishing governments that make a priority of human needs over profits. That class did not exist in the year 1776.

Because the working class was in its infancy in those years, the government that came to power because of the Revolution had conflicting interests. On the one hand, this government worked to separate the church from the state and abolish the power of the monarchy. On the other hand, this same government worked to defend the horrendous institution of chattel slavery, as well as advance the genocide of Native Americans. 

Because of the Revolution, forces went into motion that would eventually mobilize millions of soldiers to overthrow the system of chattel slavery in the Civil War. However, those same forces would also betray President Lincoln’s words in his Gettysburg Address when he argued that the soldiers who perished in battle did not die, “in vain.”

The facts are that the Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew the Union Army from the former slave states. That action effectively allowed the Ku Klux Klan to take political power and institute the Jim Crow laws. Those laws effectively stripped Black people of citizenship rights in this country. Those actions were a clear violation of the words in the Declaration of Independence that argued for the “self-evident” truth, that “all men are created equal.”            

Last summer, I participated in a massive demonstration against police brutality in Philadelphia. There were similar demonstrations around the world. Those demonstrations prompted the government to place Derrick Chauvin on trial and convict him of the murder of George Floyd.

I also took part in a demonstration this spring protesting the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip. Today the Palestinian people can appreciate the words in the Declaration that argue: “But when a long train of abuses, and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce then 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…” 

So, for me, there are two sides to the Declaration of Independence. One side is the promise of liberty and justice for all. Then, there is the reality of a government that today can only be realistically described as a brutal and repressive dictatorship. In looking at this Declaration, we can see the forces that were set in motion to liberate humanity, as well as to advance a brutal system of wage slavery.

The words of Frederick Douglass, I believe support this sentiment:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them. And these will continue, until they are resisted with words, or blows, or both.”