“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.”
A new country was created on July 4th, 1776. This is the aspect of the day that people remember most, of course. But people seldom quote the part of the document that actually declares our independence. Rather, they are more likely to quote from the famous second paragraph. This paragraph reads in part: “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” (Source: text of the document). I will not endeavor to quote the rest of these words in this post. But suffice it to say that they are filled with ideas and philosophy. People remember these ideas better than the legal phrases that separated us from the mother country. That’s how important these ideas are.
Indeed, this is the part of the document that most stirs us today. Thus, this is the part of the document that this audiobook most focuses on in its presentation. But they also note how the document was viewed at the time. For the people of that time, the statement of philosophy was not the most interesting part of the document. This might surprise us, but it is nonetheless true. For many of them, its ideas were already familiar and obvious. This is why the Declaration referred to them as “self-evident.” Many Loyalists already agreed with these ideas. Many even agreed with a theoretical right of revolution, if the situation had indeed deteriorated enough to actually justify it. But had the situation really deteriorated enough to do so? This is the question that people actually debated. More specifically, they debated about whether the facts supported a charge of “absolute tyranny,” on the part of the King.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence
So what part of the document did its contemporaries view as the most interesting, then? Surprisingly, it was the list of colonial grievances. They were the part of the document dealing with the controversial questions of “facts” and evidence. This was the part that spoke to the debates of that time, which revolved more around facts than around ideas. For them, these grievances constituted the most significant part of the document, and certainly the most topical. This was the part that would speak to the concerns of that generation, and persuade them to support the cause of independence. If you ever read this list, you might bear this in mind.
The Declaration of Independence
Nonetheless, our generation does have reason to consider the statement of philosophy as the most interesting portion of the Declaration. These ideas might seem obvious to us today, but they were not obvious to the British side of the Revolution, even if they were obvious to a number of American Loyalists. Thus, this audiobook goes into the philosophy behind the Declaration, and shows how it was influenced by prior English philosophers. More specifically, it was influenced by such men as Algernon Sidney and John Locke. They give the evidence for John Locke influencing particular passages within the Declaration, as I show in one of my blog posts. But this was where I first heard of Algernon Sidney, who is one of the lesser-known influences on our Founding Fathers. Algernon Sidney wrote a book called “Discourses Concerning Government,” which defended a right of revolution. Mr. Sidney paid for that book with his life, because he was executed for it by the English government in 1683. This audiobook helped me to have greater respect for Algernon Sidney, whom I had never heard of before (as mentioned earlier).
John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence
Biographical information is minimal here, because the Declaration of Independence was something of a committee work. Although Thomas Jefferson wrote most of it, it was subject to revisions by the Second Continental Congress. This is why it is so different from Mr. Jefferson’s first draft. They note the paradox of many members of the Continental Congress being slaveholders, and show that Mr. Jefferson was not unique in being hypocritical on that particular issue. Nonetheless, they are very supportive of the Declaration of Independence, and help us to better appreciate its true significance. I highly recommend this audiobook to anyone interested in the Declaration of Independence, which quotes the entire text of the document within its hour and a half of runtime.
“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.”
If you liked this post, you might also like:
Part of the audiobook series
The Giants of Political Thought
Thomas Jefferson’s The Declaration of Independence
Others to be covered later
See also the audiobook series
The United States Constitution
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