Today, on its 249th anniversary, the Declaration of Independence has devolved into a source of dispute between two contending parties.
On one side stand millions of American patriots who love their country and its history. To them, the Declaration of Independence proclaimed universal truths that made the American experiment in self-government special. Without shielding their eyes from the myriad injustices their ancestors either committed or tolerated, modern patriots regard that experiment, on the whole, as wildly successful and thus worthy of celebration.
On the other side, one finds disgruntled Americans who, when asked, express shame in their country. In some cases, they might give their intellectual assent to the Declaration’s “self-evident” truths. But they regard the Declaration, by and large, as riddled with hypocrisies and thus best ignored. To them, all of American history reduces to a story of oppressors and their victims.
Among the patriots one finds middle- and working-class Americans well represented. These people have cause for resentment toward their elected leaders, whose globalist agenda has hollowed out American communities. But they do not nurse that resentment. Instead, they believe in their country and its promise. Most of them voted for President Donald Trump.
Alas, among the disgruntled who feel shame in their country, one finds elites well represented. These people have little cause for resentment toward America, but they harbor that resentment nonetheless. Most of them despise Trump and his supporters.
To a large extent, this curious division along class and ideological lines dictates how one views the Declaration of Independence and its self-evident truths of equality, natural rights, and government by consent.
For instance, those who venerate the Declaration tend to take the doctrine of equality seriously. Thus, they abhor public policies rooted in what the modern world calls “identity politics.”
Conversely, those who sneer at the Declaration and at America’s history in general have no problem dividing human beings into groups based on irrelevant physical characteristics and then demanding public policies that allocate resources and opportunities based solely on those differences.
It is a sharp contrast; it is also one we have seen before.
In the middle of the 19th century, Americans also argued over the Declaration of Independence. And the conclusions they drew largely dictated their sympathies during the Civil War (1861-65).
To illustrate, consider two of the century’s most famous speeches: “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” delivered in July 1852 by the great runaway-slave-turned-abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and the “Corner Stone Speech,” given in March 1861 by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens.
Both men had fascinating, instructive, and conflicting things to say about the Declaration and its principles.
Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (July 5, 1852)
Born into slavery in Maryland, probably in 1818, Douglass endured many of the hardships commonly associated with that wretched institution. He both witnessed and experienced the horrors of physical abuse and family separation. After childhood, he never again saw his mother.
Thus, if anyone had cause to harbor resentment and dismiss as humbug the Declaration’s vaunted principles, Douglass did.
In his 1852 oration, however, the former slave spoke of the Declaration with reverence.
“Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance,” Douglass said of America’s founding document. “I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the RINGBOLT to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”
Nor did Douglass cynically dismiss the Founding Fathers as slaveholding hypocrites.
“Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too—great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory,” he said.
As one would expect, Douglass then proceeded to bemoan the betrayal of the Declaration’s principles. He spoke at length about the impossibility of reconciling those principles with the toleration of slavery.
But he did not stop there. Indeed, Douglass described not only Independence but the entire American Founding, from the Declaration to the Constitution, in glowing terms.
“Fellow-citizens!” he said, “there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but interpreted, as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.”
In short, Douglass had every reason for cynicism about the Declaration and its principles. Instead, he saw in that document — as well as the Founding in general — everything that the modern American patriot sees.
Alexander Stephens, “Corner Stone Speech” (March 21, 1861)
A Georgia native, Stephens grew up poor but, through a successful legal career, rose to prominence as a landowner, slaveholder, and member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Thus, if anyone had cause to celebrate the Declaration’s doctrine of equality, which enabled his social ascendance, Stephens did.
Alas, in his 1861 address on the recently framed Confederate Constitution, Stephens spoke with condescension toward the Founding Fathers and the Declaration’s principal author, Thomas Jefferson.
“The prevailing ideas entertained by [Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away,” Stephens said.
The Confederate vice president had it right about the “general opinion of the men of that day” regarding slavery. They wrote that opinion into the Declaration.
Unfortunately, Stephens drew a very different conclusion.
“Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error,” he said.
The Confederacy, he insisted, had corrected the Declaration’s error.
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition,” he said.
Stephens then described the Confederate government as “the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
In short, Stephens had every reason to celebrate the Declaration’s promise of equality. Without it, he could not have risen from poverty. Instead, he concluded that the Founders erred, and he used that conclusion to justify a social order in which race dictated everything.
Conclusion
History shows that one’s view of the Declaration of Independence can have major consequences.
Those, like Douglass, who celebrate the Declaration and the country it spawned, even when they might have cause for serious resentment, are more likely to support equality and justice for all.
Conversely, those who, like Stephens, dismiss the Declaration and express shame in the country it spawned — the Confederates did, after all, declare themselves citizens of a separate nation — even when that country has treated them well, are more likely to support policies in which racial characteristics matter more than anything else.
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