The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence

Introduction

The American Revolution was both a war for independence and a conflict that gave rise to a new society and political culture. The Declaration of Independence was the document in which the people of the thirteen British North American colonies declared their separation from Great Britain and set forth the broad principles on which America built, and continued to build, the nation. Un-happy with the way in which the British government was ruling the colonies, the colonists began the Revolutionary War in April 1775 to establish their rights within the British Empire. Later, many of them began to call for outright independence, resulting in the formal adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, by the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia.

Discussion

Adopted on July 4, 1776, by the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence is the founding document of the United States of America. In addition to the Congress's official explanation of “the causes which impel” Americans to declare their independence from Great Britain, the document also identifies the founders' political philosophy of limited government dedicated to the protection of individual rights.

On June 11, 1776, anticipating a vote on Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee's resolution calling for independence, Congress appointed a five-man committee to draft a declaration justifying that momentous step. The committee members were John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Jefferson was assigned the task of drafting the document.

Late in life, Jefferson wrote that the purpose of the Declaration was “to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify” American independence. In drafting the document, he sought to express “the harmonizing sentiments of the day,” the views of Americans' rights, and their violation by the British government—subjects, he maintained, on which “all American whigs thought alike.” “Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind.”

In making the case for American independence, Jefferson employed the language of 18th-century logic and rhetoric. The argument of the Declaration is in the form of a syllogism, with a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. Jefferson supplemented those basic components of the syllogism with corollary principles that reinforced the overall argument.

The second paragraph, which states the major premise, posed the greatest difficulty for Jefferson as the many changes he marked in his “original rough draught” attest. “We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable,” he originally wrote, “that all men are created equal & independent, and from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.” After Jefferson substituted the more precise term self-evident for the phrase sacred & undeniable, he made further changes suggested by ...