July 4, 2023

Happy Independence Day! Today we Americans celebrate the declaration and intent of our Founders to dissolve the political bands which had connected them with the King of England and their intent to thereby “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.”

That line, of course, is from the Declaration of Independence, which was unanimously approved by the thirteen original colonies and reflected the sentiment of all of our revolutionary mothers and fathers. Thomas Jefferson’s eternal words, themselves influenced by his contemporaries and those that came before him, represent the spirit of our idealistic nation. The Declaration inspired our eventual Constitution, which adds practical structure and protection to these ideals as well as the ability for them to flourish and manifest in new ways.

The natural law basis of the system we produced, derived from objective moral principles revealed by reason (instead of mere words of men backed by a forceful government), adds a legitimacy to our system that is not often seen elsewhere in the world. The fundamental inalienable rights of man are legitimately recognized and secured from infringement by this natural law-centered government and true progress (moral and material) is created by the citizens and the society that create, uphold, and compliment it. Our nation’s system, the first of its kind, given the circumstances of its birth, seems the result of a minor miracle, and its longevity despite all its challenges and detractors, seems to be another.

Every 4th of July (and indeed the rest of the year as well) we see heavy criticism from certain malcontent groups (usually on the Left) of the Declaration, of the Founders, and of the Constitution, the Republic, and American principles in general. The criticisms vary, but one of the primary approaches by the loudest of these groups is the attempt to demonize the ideological foundations by pointing out the imperfection of the circumstances at the time of the Founding; the imperfect product of the Revolution that left much work to be done in terms of securing the promise of the Declaration for all, and the imperfection (real and perceived) of the men that crafted the form of government we eventually adopted. This line of reasoning is flawed however – if we require perfection as a prerequisite to pursuing the good, we will never come anywhere near perfection at all. From our start we have always strived to merely “Form a more perfect Union” upon conceding perfection is unlikely to be achieved. Indeed, the flaws of the Articles of Confederation led to the creation of the Constitution, which the Framers hoped, would be “more perfect” than that which came before it. We should always strive first to look at the validity of the arguments in themselves rather than how well they are or have been applied in the past or how useful they may be in achieving certain ends in the future. Even the best and most valid ideas and universal truths can be misapplied by flawed men. Worthy systems built on solid foundations can have flaws too, so long as there is a pathway towards remedy and a virtuous population willing to recognize the errors and work towards fixing them.

Moreover, these critics contend, since we still have challenges fighting injustice, inequality, and rights abuses today, there must be something faulty with our foundations, otherwise the problems we see today would not exist. We are then offered a “throw the baby out with the bathwater” proposition; enact policies that contradict our principles and foundations, policies that may violate the rights of some “for the greater good,” and strive to achieve immediate end goals desired by preferred groups. This “ends justifies the means” style of proposition works the opposite way of our Constitutional Republic and our natural law foundations as referenced in the Declaration. Whereas our system works from objectively-derived first principles towards legal and practical solutions to our challenges that necessarily must be subordinate to, and compatible with, these principles, their preference is a system that favors placating populations with grievances via laws and policies molded towards that end, rationalizing away any rights violations and unintended consequences along the way. Their ethical position therefore necessarily shifts towards one based on subjectively-derived moral imperatives that justify their preconceived conclusions – the exact opposite of that which America is based. This is not sustainable long term and will likely cause more problems than it means to solve.

How do we counter this growing sentiment of unamericanism? It is certainly easier to appeal to emotions and selfish desires than it is to do the hard work explaining and bolstering complex moral and legal principles to maintain the stability and just systems necessary to make steady progress on a variety of other issues people care about. But we must do so nevertheless. As Benjamin Franklin quipped upon being asked what they had created on the last day of the Constitutional Convention, he responded, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” Keeping it requires a certain diligence amongst the citizenry to maintain belief in, and consistency with, the Founding principles. Reading the Declaration of Independence on Independence Day has been a tradition in my household; my young children will grow up understanding the substance of each line, the moral legitimacy of the document, and its importance to the Founding of our system and way of life.

In public school, children may hear the famous line, “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.” But are they really absorbing it? I, for one, certainly do not hold that my class throughout school was instructed properly on this material in primary school. Luckily, I remained interested enough to figure it out on my own later and be in a position to critique said instruction. Many are not so lucky. Unfortunately, we have a concerted effort by some “educators” to deliberately misinform our youth about the Declaration and its importance. We have political leaders that do not properly respect it. Some do it purposefully for ideological reasons, others out of ignorance. As indicated above, many hold a warped view of the circumstances of the Founding era. They judge it by their preferred view of today’s standards so they can further their contemporary causes instead of seeking understanding. So while everyone ought to read the finished Declaration this Independence Day, this year some ought to also read Thomas Jefferson’s original rough draft of the Declaration for some additional insight as to what many of our Founders truly recognized as needed to be done, even then in their time, and how much of our eventual moral progress was made possible by the work they accomplished.

Many of today’s malcontents mentioned above have made much out of the fact that the Founders talked a lot about the inalienable rights of man – yet many of them owned slaves. Likewise, ultimately these same Founders created a system to secure fundamental rights from infringement – for some – while ignoring and even deliberately and directly allowing for the infringment of the same rights of others, especially regarding the institution of legalized slavery. There certainly is, and was, an inherent contradiction in this regard. We do not need to try to ignore this or try to smooth it over when we discuss it today. We also should not confuse recognizing the legitimacy of the Founding natural law principles (as referenced in the Declaration) with the failures of those putting them into practice. What we must understand today is that while many of the Founders recognized the moral evils upon which slavery is based, they were limited in their ability to completely eradicate those evils due to the realities of their contemporary positions, long-standing practices, and the existence of and power within their opposition. To that point, reading Jefferson’s original rough draft of the Declaration, one of the grievances he listed against the King was as follows;

“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of INFIDEL Powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.”

Clause from Jefferson’s original rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, eventually struck out of the document by Congress

Clearly Jefferson, as with many of this contemporaries, recognized slavery was immoral and wrong, even as it continued within the society in which he was a part (before and after the Revolution). The above clause was ultimately removed from the document by Congress before the adoption of the Declaration. According to Jefferson’s autobiography it was, “Struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it.” He further added, “Our northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.” Indeed, many continued to profit off of the continuation of the slave trade after the Revolution; they did so with legal backing, but an ever-eroding one. Just as Christian and Enlightenment moral principles began to slowly erode the normalcy of slavery as it was commonly practiced worldwide (thousands of years old, if not longer), so too did the precedent of the Declaration and the orientation of natural law principles in America begin to slowly erode slavery as a justifiable practice in the Union and among the States. If one wishes to direct a criticism towards a particular actor from the time period, or a particular group, that is one’s prerogative, but it is separate from this discussion. It also must be acknowledged, that given there is still slavery and involuntary servitude in various forms today, (by some accounts even more than in America during the Founding era) and few of us reject the entirety of the economic systems that benefit from it while we seek to create positive change, passing negative judgment on well-meaning individuals in the past for failing to end all injustices much larger than them seems born of ignorance rather than virtuous intent.

We saw, from the Revolution onward, eventual prohibitions on importation of new slaves from abroad, more States outlawing the practice, and more people adopting an abolitionist attitude. The Republican Party was founded in opposition to slavery and cited the Declaration and the Founding principles as justification for its position. The Civil War, of course, settled the matter by force and the Constitution was appropriately amended to include more people under its protection. Abraham Lincoln, for one, recognized the relationship between the Declaration and the Constitution and acted accordingly. I am at this point summarizing greatly; additional extraordinary struggles and efforts occurred before and since the Civil War in the attempt to settle the issue. Racial bigotry, hatred, and discrimination continued on and even persists today, albeit at lower levels than in our past. Jefferson, long before the Civil War, struggled with the practical problem of what society might do upon sudden emancipation of black slaves that had been so deprived of their ability to develop individually and as a group. He lamented, but understood, it would necessarily be a challenge for future generations. After the Civil War this premonition came true. We saw great men like Frederick Douglass, himself a former slave, at times in his early life understandably expressing hostility at the system that oppressed him, others of his generation and those long before him. Douglass eventually came to embrace the sentiment of the Declaration, the Constitution, and American principles as a boon for freed black folks. As we moved forward in time through the Jim Crow era and beyond, new battles emerged in the fight for equality under the law that were greatly aided by appealing to our Foundations. None of these battles were trivial or unworthy of mention, but for the sake of brevity the point is that we have been able to make great strides in relatively short periods of time when we embrace the natural law principles of the Declaration and cite them as justification for our actions. The opposite strategy being promoted by some groups today of blaming the people that failed to fully implement these principles and applying the same criticism to groups based on race or physical characteristics today in order to achieve certain ideological ends is illogical and divisive. The race-based revisionist histories gaining popularity today commit some of the same fallacies as racism itself, and may reverse some of the gains we have achieved in terms of moral progress towards recognition of all people as beings of equal worth and dignity. In some ways we have seen declines in opportunity and prosperity for black populations as political forces in the last several decades successfully expanded the bureaucracy and increased government dependence in ways that moves us away from Constitutional governance in general as well. This is one of the intentions of the proponents of these divisive theories; limited, checked government is an obstacle to achieving their goal of “fundamentally transforming” America.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” This is the lesson I hope people take away from a reading of Jefferson’s original rough draft of the Declaration and a survey of subsequent events in American history pertaining to the issue of slavery and its eventual abolition. The same lesson ought to be applied to all the debates of today; where it may seem like progress is not moving fast enough, if we remain true to our principles and do not cause ourselves unnecessary obstacles, we will surely get to a better place. We may never achieve perfection, but we can surely strive to always be “more perfect.” We must not be tempted to destroy or ignore that which is inherently right, good, and valuable in an attempt to achieve what appears to be a quicker victory.