Revolution in the Mind: A Look at the Declaration of Independence and More

Overview of the Forces and Trends Behind the Declaration of Independence and Revolution

The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams. Jefferson borrowed heavily from current colonial documents expressing the causes of independence, but he also borrowed heavily from the Enlightenment and from statements of rights in the past. The forces and trends behind the Declaration of Independence and the Revolution include:

  • The Enlightenment—reason, natural law, equality (including the “noble savage”), role of government in society
  • Concerns of British governmental conservatives, including concerns about the executive branch (cabinet and king) undoing the careful balance of dividing political power into three parts
  • Puritan and Calvinist views of the “city upon a hill” and their distrust of central power and instead their focus on division of power among the elect
  • The charter experience in the colonies–how the colonies had written their rules for government as a contract, not an evolving tradition (as the British had)
  • The actual representation experience in the colonies, including the idea of a republic
  • Knowledge of history–of how people in society acted before

 

Topics

Essential Terms and Concepts for This Webpage

Comparison: Then Current Events and the Charges against George III in the Declaration of Independence

Comparison: Additional Issues and the Charges against George III in the Declaration of Independence

Comparison:  Voices and Issues in 1869 (Glorious Revolution) and 1776

Comparison: The Enlightenment and the Declaration of Independence – and 2 of its 3 parts

The Voice and Role of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense

The Other Side of the Enlightenment

The Role of Ben Franklin as the “Noble Savage” in France

Women in the Revolution and in the New United States

Slaves and a Revolution Waged in the Name of Equality

 

Quotations from the Declaration of Independence are from http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/charters_of_freedom/declaration/declaration_transcription.html

 

Essential Terms and Concepts for This Webpage

The other webpage for this era is Revolution in Action. It has a separate list of essential terms.

 

Most of the essential terms and concepts for this webpage cover the Declaration of Independence:

  • Its 3 authors and the events leading up to it
  • The forces and trends behind its creation
  • Its Enlightenment principles and the general source of its principles of government
  • Its form or organization, its purposes, and its charges against George III

 

The essential terms and concepts also include:

  • Common Sense, its author, its purpose, and its Enlightenment principles and general arguments
  • Benjamin Franklin and his use of Enlightenment assumptions in winning French support
  • Positions of women and slaves in this revolution that was justified by Enlightenment principles

 

Comparison: Then Current Events and the Charges against George III in the Declaration of Independence

The events listed are not direct parallels to the charges in the Declaration of Independence and several charges are applicable to events that occur repeatedly (but are not repeated in this comparison) in the decade before the Declaration, but the events do illustrate how the public might have instant recognition of these events.  The column on the left lists the events; the column on the right, quotations from the Declaration of Independence.

 

Event

Declaration of Independence (1776)¾Charges against George III

1764 Sugar Act

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

and the vice-admiralty courts

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

1765 Stamp Act

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

1765 Mutiny Act

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

1766 Declaratory Act

For …declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

1767 Townshend Duties

 

and the dissolution of the New York assembly

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

1770 Boston Massacre

 

1773 Boston Tea Party

 

1774 Intolerable Acts

 

Closed port of Boston

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

Reduced powers of self-government

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: [Note the focus on charters.]

Royal officers tried elsewhere

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

Quartering Acts

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

Quebec Act (not part of the Intolerable Acts, but viewed as part of them—an unintended consequence)

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

 

Comparison: Additional Issues and the Charges against George III in the Declaration of Independence

The column on the left lists general concerns of the era; the right, quotations from the Declaration of Independence.

 

Issue

Declaration of Independence (1776) – Charges Against George III

General Enlightenment views of the purpose of government (in addition to the other violations listed in the prior comparison)

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. [In other words, we didn’t break our contract with George III. He broke it.]

Manner of warfare (impressment; use of Indians and Hessians in warfare)

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

 

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

 

Comparison: Voices and Issues in 1689 (Glorious Revolution) and 1776

This is not a statement that one document led to another, but rather that the issues in 1776 were built on long-standing traditions and long-fought-for rights. The column on the left contains quotations from the Declaration of Rights; the equivalent statement from the Declaration of Independence is on the right.

 

Declaration of Rights (1689)¾Charges against James II and the Agreements with William and Mary in the Glorious Revolution

Declaration of Independence (1776)¾Charges against George III

By raising and keeping a standing army within this kingdom in time of peace without consent of Parliament, and quartering soldiers contrary to law;

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law;

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

By levying money for and to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by Parliament;

 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

That levying money for or to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative, without grant of Parliament, for longer time, or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal;

 

By prosecutions in the Court of King's Bench for matters and causes cognizable only in Parliament, and by divers other arbitrary and illegal courses;

For protecting them [large bodies of armed troops], by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

And whereas of late years partial corrupt and unqualified persons have been returned and served on juries in trials, and particularly divers jurors in trials for high treason which were not freeholders;

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

By assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with and suspending of laws and the execution of laws without consent of Parliament;

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

By violating the freedom of election of members to serve in Parliament;

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

And that for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening and preserving of the laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently.

 

That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal;

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;

 

That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament;

For these, look to the Bill of Rights

and to the

United States Constitution

That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted;

 

That jurors ought to be duly impanelled and returned, and jurors which pass upon men in trials for high treason ought to be freeholders;

 

 

Comparison: The Enlightenment and the Declaration of Independence

Scan the introduction to the Declaration of Independence and its conclusion looking at the bolded items. Notice terms such as equality, nature, reason, and law.

 

For background on these terms and the Enlightenment: webpage entitled Voices of the Enlightenment.

 

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 and of Nature's God entitle them, 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, [text converted to bullets]

  • 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. –
  • That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
  • --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
  • 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 them 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.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

 

Between the introduction and the conclusion of the Declaration of Independence are the charges against George III, with some of those charges listed in earlier topics on this webpage.

 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

 

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare,

  • 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; and
  • that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. [These are all attributes of sovereign nations.]
  • And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

 

The Voice and Role of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense came at the right time in the revolutionary events of 1776. It sold over 100,000 copies. The best way to understand Paine’s appeal is to read his own words.

 

The quotations are from Thomas Paine (1737–1809) from the “Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs” section of Common Sense (1776).

 

The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; The wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.

Paragraph 4

 

But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.

Paragraph 11

 

But admitting, that we were all of English descent, what does it amount to? Nothing. Britain, being now an open enemy, extinguishes every other name and title: And to say that reconciliation is our duty, is truly farcical. The first king of England, of the present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the Peers of England are descendants from the same country; wherefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France.

Paragraph 14

 

But the injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that connection, are without number; and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance: Because, any submission to, or dependance on Great-Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels; and sets us at variance with nations, who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom, we have neither anger nor complaint. As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part of it. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do, while by her dependance on Britain, she is made the make-weight in the scale on British politics.

Paragraph 18

 

As to government matters, it is not in the power of Britain to do this continent justice: The business of it will soon be too weighty, and intricate, to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience, by a power, so distant from us, and so very ignorant of us; for if they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us. To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which when obtained requires five or six more to explain it in, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness—There was a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease.

Paragraph 28

 

America is only a secondary object in the system of British politics, England consults the good of this country, no farther than it answers her own purpose. Wherefore, her own interest leads her to suppress the growth of ours in every case which doth not promote her advantage, or in the least interferes with it. A pretty state we should soon be in under such a second-hand government, considering what has happened! Men do not change from enemies to friends by the alteration of a name: And in order to shew that reconciliation now is a dangerous doctrine, I affirm, that it would be policy in the king at this time, to repeal the acts for the sake of reinstating himself in the government of the provinces; in order that HE MAY ACCOMPLISH BY CRAFT AND SUBTILITY, IN THE LONG RUN, WHAT HE CANNOT DO BY FORCE AND VIOLENCE IN THE SHORT ONE. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related.

Paragraph 36

 

But the most powerful of all arguments, is, that nothing but independance, i. e. a continental form of government, can keep the peace of the continent and preserve it inviolate from civil wars. I dread the event of a reconciliation with Britain now, as it is more than probable, that it will followed by a revolt somewhere or other, the consequences of which may be far more fatal than all the malice of Britain.

Paragraph 38

 

Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore to us the time that is past? Can ye give to prostitution its former innocence? Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. The last cord now is broken, the people of England are presenting addresses against us. There are injuries which nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did. As well can the lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as the continent forgive the murders of Britain. The Almighty hath implanted in us these unextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of his image in our hearts. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The social compact would dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have only a casual existence were we callous to the touches of affection. The robber, and the murderer, would often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our tempers sustain, provoke us into justice.

Paragraph 52

 

O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.

Paragraph 53

 

The Other Side of the Enlightenment

No set of perceptions of government and of human beings, especially one that spread across many nations, is complete, or even consistent. Applying perceptions in the real world of politics and power increases the odds of inconsistency. Three examples illustrate this problem as well as provide details about the period.

 

Examples

Details

The role of Benjamin Franklin as the Noble Savage in France after 1778

The intellectuals in France had embraced the Enlightenment, including the idea of “the noble savage”–that an individual who had not been contaminated by civilization would act ethically and with cooperation toward other human beings. Benjamin Franklin, our representative in France beginning in 1776 and a noted scientist and inventor, manipulated that perception, and even wore a raccoon-skin fur cap to dress the part of the noble savage. It was Franklin, with his ability to manipulate, who got the loans from France in 1778 that were crucial to the survival of the new nation. (And it was Franklin who time and time again served the new American nation, including at the Constitutional Convention.)

Women in the Revolution and the new United States

The Declaration of Independence stated a “self-evident” truth “that all men are created equal.” Some of the realities for women were:

§         Women did aid in the war by maintaining family businesses and farms, by volunteering for work with the Patriot armies, and sometimes by fighting (as in the example of “Molly Pitcher”).

§         Some women did question what equality meant for women, with the most famous being Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and an exceedingly articulate communicator.

§         All women in this western world were limited in protections, especially once married. The limitations of English common law carried into the new United States and provided women with no rights to property, to legal action, to voting, to protect their children legally, and to divorce. The American Revolution as applied in some states made it somewhat easier for women to divorce. The state of New Jersey even allowed women to vote until 1807. To put it simply, these protections that individuals frequently assume women have always had did not exist as women began the 1800s.

Slaves and a revolution waged in the name of equality

As the study tool Revolution in Action … notes, during the Revolutionary War, the British did recruit slaves to fight with the promise of emancipation. After the Revolutionary War, New England states and Pennsylvania abolished slavery and Virginia law encouraged manumission, or the freeing of slaves. Slavery, however, remained a problem for the framers of the Constitution and for the growing nation.

 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2007

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or cjb_classes@yahoo.com

Last Updated:

2007

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/