Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence

 

"It can be lost, and it will be, if the time ever comes when these documents are regarded… merely as curiosities in glass cases."

 

So spoke Harry Truman about the Declaration of Independence. He also called it a “supreme expression of our profound belief.” How did this world-shattering document come about? From the pen of one man, Thomas Jefferson. On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft a declaration of independence. The committee was composed of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman.

One of these five was a renowned writer. That person did not write the Declaration of Independence. Often, we forget that Benjamin Franklin was a bestselling author. For nearly thirty years, only the Bible outsold Poor Richard’s Almanac; his Autobiography has never been out of print, and his articles made the Pennsylvania Gazette the most successful newspaper in the colonies. Franklin, however, declined to draft the declaration, purportedly due to poor health, so the committee asked the thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson to draft it.

In less than three weeks, Jefferson presented the committee with this historic document. For the most part, the committee accepted the Declaration as drafted, except that Franklin made some subtle but important revisions. For example, Jefferson had written “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable,” which Franklin revised to “self-evident.” Some have suggested that Franklin was pushing the text toward the analytic empiricism of David Hume, but it’s more likely that the master editor was wordsmithing for a more graceful rhythm to the words.

On June 28th, the Committee of Five reported out the declaration to Congress, and they began arguing over every sentence, making thirty-nine revisions. Thankfully, Congress left the preamble alone, so altering the list of grievances did not dilute the earth-shattering ideas in the first two paragraphs. Although Jefferson never uttered a word of complaint, he fumed at the incessant meddling.

Jefferson reported afterward that Franklin admitted he avoided drafting papers for committee review. You can almost hear the seventy-year-old patriarch chuckling as he gives this advice to the young Virginian. According to Jefferson, Franklin told him the following story.

"When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words, ‘John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money,’ with a figure of a hat subjoined. But thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word ‘Hatter’ tautologous, because followed by the words ‘makes hats,’ which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word ‘makes’ might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats. If good and to their mind, they would buy them, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words for ready money were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Everyone who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, ‘John Thompson sells hats.’ ‘Sells hats!’ says the next friend. ‘Why, nobody will expect you to give them away. What then is the use of that word?’ It was stricken out, and ‘hats’ followed it as there was one painted on the board. So, the inscription was reduced ultimately to ‘John Thompson,’ with the figure of a hat subjoined."

A few have criticized the Declaration for failing to present new concepts. Five centuries after Magna Carta (1215), Englishmen had gradually gained individual rights, and by the late eighteenth century were exercising some self-government. The King and nobility still wielded substantial power, but Parliament -- especially the elected House of Commons -- had gained authority. Meanwhile, toward the end of the period, Enlightenment thinking began to influence those outside the aristocracy. Enlightenment thinkers challenged religious, governmental, and social norms, arguing that mankind not only possessed the capacity for self-government but had it as a natural right.

The Enlightenment turned the world upside down. Instead of the divine right of kings, individuals were endowed with God-given rights. The Founders, thoroughly schooled in this doctrine, knew their words were not breaking new ground but were doing something far more powerful: putting those revolutionary concepts into practice.

This understanding was shared by the committee. In 1822, John Adams answered a query about the Declaration of Independence:

"As you justly observe, there is not an idea in it but what had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before. The substance of it is contained in the declaration of rights and the violation of those rights in the Journals of Congress in 1774. Indeed, the essence of it is contained in a pamphlet, voted and printed by the town of Boston, before the first Congress met, composed by James Otis, as I suppose, in one of his lucid intervals, and pruned and polished by Samuel Adams."

Jefferson himself told Henry Lee:

"This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take."

The Declaration of Independence never claimed to plow new ground, but it did an exceptional job of articulating the Enlightenment vision. Or, in Jefferson’s words, made the Enlightenment ideas plain and firm. Some claim the best-known sentence in the English language is, “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.”

Thomas Jefferson rightly deserves enormous recognition and praise for writing an eloquent and powerful expression of this revolutionary concept, but it was an idea more universal than one man -- or even one generation.

(This article was originally published in the American Thinker.)

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Samuel Adams and the Boston Tea Party

“Friends! Fellow Countrymen! We have petitioned. We have remonstrated. We have supplicated. We have prostrated ourselves before the throne of British majesty, and it avails us nothing! This meeting can do nothing more to save the country! Let every man now turn his face toward Griffin’s Wharf.”

I heard these words from Samuel Adams at the Old South Meeting House in Boston. I immediately leaped to my feet and joined the throng marching to Griffin’s Wharf. The destination of the rowdy mob was a cargo of tea owned by the British East India Company. We tossed the tea into the harbor in protest of taxation without representation.

My participation was not on December 16, 1773, the famed night of the Boston Tea Party. It was December 16, 2005. Although a reenactment, it remained a stirring call to arms. Adams’s meaning was clear: the time for talk was over. Samuel Adams’ famous words, “This meeting can do nothing more to save the country!” forced the protesters out of their pews and into the street.

Every revolution needs a rabble-rouser, and Adams was the pervasive firebrand of the American Revolution. He was of normal height for the time, with sharp, angular features. One observer described him as “lean as a greyhound.” John Adams, his second cousin, said, that when riled, his eyes “sparkled like diamonds.” His roots were Puritan, and he disdained finery. A British officer sneered that he looked like a “threadbare clergyman.” Despite appearing average in stature, Adams possessed a larger-than-life personality.

Samuel Adams formed the Boston Committee of Correspondence (1772) to share information, coordinate protests, and expose British tyranny. Within two years, there were 300 similar committees throughout the colonies, converting Boston activism into a colony-wide fight. He amplified a small riot until it became the infamous “Boston Massacre.” He helped found the clandestine Sons of Liberty, which added street muscle to the resistance. He popularized James Otis Jr.’s slogan, “no taxation without representation,” orchestrated the Boston Tea Party, and helped organize Paul Revere’s Ride. Samuel Adams was omnipresent. No wonder he is called the “Father of the American Revolution.”

Adams was a revolutionary, but of a different nature than most. British officials scoffed that Adams’ followers were a “tippling, nasty, vicious crew” from seedy taverns. The truth of the matter is that he recruited Sons of Liberty partisans from church choirs. Adams blended faith and rebellion to build a grassroots army that toppled an empire.

Today, we hear “no taxation without representation” and think the hullabaloo was about taxes. Our Revolution was primarily about the lack of representation, rather than taxes. Prominent men of the era, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, were angry that they did not have the privileges of British citizenship. They were subjects of the empire. If the colonists could not be British, then they would become Americans.

Adams signed the Declaration of Independence immediately after John Hancock’s oversized signature. He did not serve as a soldier in the war, stating that his weapon was “the pen, not the sword.” Adams refused to attend the Constitutional Convention because he feared giving more power to the government and fought for a Bill of Rights before supporting ratification. Revolutionaries often fade away in disillusionment or take control of the government they helped foment. Adams chose the second course and served three terms as governor of Massachusetts. Ironically, as governor, he crushed Shays’ Rebellion.

Revolutions require more than rabble-rousers; otherwise, they go awry. Successful revolutions require a clear and workable philosophical underpinning. The Enlightenment provided the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution. The Founding of the United States of America is the crowning achievement of the Enlightenment.

Samuel Adams studied Enlightenment ideas at Harvard and referenced Locke in his short and forceful “Rights of the Colonists” (1772). He did not write intellectual treatises. He was a man of the street. He turned Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau into slogans, riots, and policy.

Samuel Adams had a knack for exciting people to act. He envisioned a new nation where “The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.”

His genius was getting others to share this vision … and make it happen.

This article was first published in Constitution America.

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A Republic, if You Can Keep It . . .

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787,  Franklin was queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation. In the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention,  a lady asked Dr. Franklin “Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy.”  Franklin replied, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.”

Our Constitution created a limited representative republic.  A republic is different from a democracy.  In a democracy, the majority can directly make laws, while in a republic, elected representatives make laws.  Basically, in a pure democracy, the majority has unlimited power, whereas in a republic, a written constitution limits the majority and provides safeguards for the individual and minorities.

In the United States, we actually have both systems.  There is no way for Americans to directly enact legislation at the national level, but half of the states allow ballot initiatives which, if passed by a majority of the voters, have the force of law.

The Founders’ intent at the national level was a representative republic.  The word democracy is not mentioned in the Constitution.   Most of the Founders distrusted pure democracy.  Some had been frightened by Shays Revolt and equated democracy with mob rule. Others were convinced by Madison that different factions would come together until they formed a majority, and then take advantage of those who were not members of their coalition. In fact, Madison showed that throughout history, this phenomenon had destroyed every experiment in democracy.

John Adams wrote that “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide,” and James Madison wrote in Federalist 10 that “Democracies have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” The reason pure democracies fail is that majorities learn that they can legally take property and/or liberties away from others. Those subjected to abuse can be anyone outside the majority coalition, and their minority status can be based on race, religion, wealth, political affiliation, or even which city or state they reside in. Demagogic leaders become adept at appealing to the emotions of jealousy, avarice, and entitlement. They also denigrate opponents in order to justify prejudicial actions taken by the majority.  Soon, oppression of minority classes causes enough conflicts to collapse the democratic process.

A major difference between a republic and a democracy is immediacy. The Founders wanted laws made by representatives in order to put a buffer between popular passions and legislation. In a democracy, decisions are made in the heat of the moment, while periodic elections in a republic provide a cooling off period. To a great extent, democracies are ruled by feelings, while in a republic, the rule of law governs. In a republic, politicians can take principled actions that go against the will of many of their constituents with the knowledge that they will be judged by all the actions they take during their entire term in office. Political leaders are also given time to explain the reasons for their actions.

Of course, if an elected official does something grievously offensive, then the voters can follow the advice of Alexander Hamilton, who in Federalist 21 wrote, “The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.” 

When the people’s will is thwarted, regular elections give them the opportunity to dismiss their representatives and appoint new ones.

Our American Heritage

The colonists did not only revolt against taxes; they revolted to stop the British from taking away the self-governance they already had been exercising since the earliest colonization. The crown appointed governors for the colonies, but over three thousand miles of ocean in the day of wind-powered ships gave ordinary Americans more freedom than a minor noble living in Bristol, England. (Connecticut and Rhode Island even elected their own governors.) Americans bristled over dictates from Parliament because colonial legislatures had been exercising substantial power for well over a century.

Plymouth Plantation Today

Time Magazine: “Does It Still Matter?”

“Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. ... If it is, then we have no Constitution.” Thomas Jefferson

“Can it be of less consequence that the meaning of a Constitution should be fixed and known, than a meaning of a law should be so?” James Madison

The cover of the 10th Annual Time Magazine History Issue from a couple years ago shows the Constitution being shredded under the title, “Does it still matter?”

Richard Stengel, Time’s managing Editor, opens his essay with these words, “Here are a few things the framers did not know about. World War II. DNA. Sexting. Airplanes. The atom. Television. Medicare. Collateralized debt obligations. The germ theory of disease. Miniskirts. The internal combustion engine. Computers. Antibiotics. Lady Gaga."

Commentary: Is the Constitution’s purpose to advance life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Conor Friedersdorf published an article that reflects the thinking that has gotten us so far away from constitutional government.

The title of the article is illustrative: “Preserving Liberty Is More Important Than Making a Fetish of the Constitution: Though important, the document isn't an end in itself—advancing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the end.” The title could have as easily read, “The Constitution should never stand in the way of lofty goals.”

James Madison

Conor Friedersdorf

(I trust my liberty to the guy on the right.)

As a writer, I’m familiar with the effect of selecting emotion-laden words. For example, the article would have been different if titled, “Preserving Liberty Is More Important than Adhering to the Constitution.” The change from fetish to adhere makes the argument clear and allows the opposing side a measure of respect. Now, readers would dig into the article to find out whether adherence to the Constitution is dangerous to liberty.

(By the way, at the risk of being accused of “making a fetish of the Constitution,” it annoys me when someone uses a quote from the Declaration of Independence to make an argument about the Constitution.)

The Founders on Limited Government

Governments govern … which means they exercise power.

James Madison wrote, “The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” 

Fear of an overly powerful government was a basic principle of the Founders. They firmly believed liberty could not exist with unrestrained government.  Many modern Americans find this belief odd or quaint. After all, a powerful government is needed to right all the wrongs in this world. And there are so many wrongs. Certainly benevolent rule is preferable to wrongs perpetuated on innocent people. Except all-powerful government has been the norm throughout history … and people have been duped, subjugated, robbed, imprisoned, and even murdered by governments.

The Founders weren’t paranoid; they came by their fear of power through personal experience and their study of history. They believed governments oppress and liberty depended on decentralized authority and potent restraints on the abuse of power.

To prevent the government from becoming overly powerful, the Founders used a number of techniques:

• Enumerated powers
• Three branches of government with power balanced between them
• Each branch was given checks on the exercise of power by the other branches
• A federal system with the states acting as a check on the national system
• Different terms of office for elected and appointed officials
• Limited taxing authority (Superseded by the 16th Amendment)
• A list of things the government could not do ... commonly called the Bill of Rights