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America Had More Than One Founding and More Than One Set of Founders America Had More Than One Founding and More Than One Set of Founders
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Read today, the Declaration of Independence is a freedom document. It stands for absolute human equality and represents the highest ideals of the American republic. On July 4, we celebrate it as much as we celebrate independence itself.Read today, the Declaration of Independence is a freedom document. It stands for absolute human equality and represents the highest ideals of the American republic. On July 4, we celebrate it as much as we celebrate independence itself.
But as scholars like Pauline Maier and Garry Wills have made clear, this relative consensus on the meaning and significance of the Declaration is the product of political, ideological and social developments over time.But as scholars like Pauline Maier and Garry Wills have made clear, this relative consensus on the meaning and significance of the Declaration is the product of political, ideological and social developments over time.
“During the first 15 years following its adoption,” Maier writes in “American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence,” “the Declaration of Independence seems to have been all but forgotten, particularly within the United States, except as the means by which Americans announced their separation from Great Britain.”“During the first 15 years following its adoption,” Maier writes in “American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence,” “the Declaration of Independence seems to have been all but forgotten, particularly within the United States, except as the means by which Americans announced their separation from Great Britain.”
The Declaration as we understand it was forged by struggle. Not the struggle with Britain but the struggle within the independent United States for freedom and equality against the weight of the Constitution and the American political system. As you might imagine, the key that shaped our understanding of the Declaration was the fight to end slavery.The Declaration as we understand it was forged by struggle. Not the struggle with Britain but the struggle within the independent United States for freedom and equality against the weight of the Constitution and the American political system. As you might imagine, the key that shaped our understanding of the Declaration was the fight to end slavery.
“The antislavery movement was not,” the historian Alexander Tsesis writes, “a creation of the Revolution.” Nevertheless, the ideology of the revolution was “inspirational enough to hearten Black petitioners, soldiers and litigants to protest against the resilience of hereditary bondage.” And in that movement, as well as those it spawned, the Declaration of Independence would stand, in the words of the historian David Brion Davis, as a “touchstone” and “sacred scripture” for opponents of slavery.
Examples of this use of the Declaration abound. As early as 1776, we have a pamphlet by Lemuel Haynes, a free Black Congregational minister in Vermont, titled “Liberty Further Extended: Or Free Thoughts on the Illegality of Slave-Keeping.” He begins by quoting the Declaration of Independence and then, embracing the language of natural rights, goes on to assert that “an African” has an “undeniable right to his liberty: Consequently, the practice of slave-keeping, which so much abounds in this land, is illicit.”