“Democracy is never a thing done. Democracy is always something that a nation must be doing. What is necessary now is one thing and one thing only, that democracy become again democracy in action, not democracy accomplished and piled up in goods and gold.”
– Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982), poet and Librarian of Congress
We learn as time proceeds. Even strict lessons of childhood and vaulted principles of social equality and democracy require our review and questioning as we find misconceptions surely exist. MacLeish knew that a successful system of government depended on renewed actions from a public bent on pursuing the ideals of democracy.
The 4th of July and the bedrock of our freedom – the Declaration of Independence – are no exceptions. As we seek the truth, we find ourselves confronted with new information that requires careful consideration. Why should we care? It is precisely our better understanding of pertinent knowledge that bids us to accept that “democracy is never accomplished and piled up in goods and gold.” Our wisdom beckons our involvement.
So, this blog entry deals with Independence Day with both a light heart and a heavy understanding of continued commitment. The date itself is ironic. However, the Declaration can be largely misunderstood. Changes? You be the judge.
The Date
Would it surprise you to know that celebrating the signing of Declaration of Independence on July 4 is technically incorrect?
Author and historian Ray Raphael tells NPR's Guy Raz …
"It is the right day to celebrate the Declaration of Independence. It is not the right day to celebrate the signing of the declaration or the right day to celebrate independence. The vote for independence was on July 2 – two days before – and the first signing of the declaration ... was not until August 2 – a month later."
In his book Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past (2004), Raphael says that even the writers of the declaration expected July 2 to be the day that went down in history
"Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, on the 3rd of July, the day after they voted for independence, saying the 2nd of July will always be remembered and will be celebrated with parades and illuminations and patriotic speeches," Raphael says. "He described the Fourth of July to the tee, but he called it the 2nd."
Instead, America ended up with the 4th because that's the day the Declaration of Independence was sent out to the states to be read. The document was dated July 4, so that's the day they celebrated.
(“The Fourth Of July And Other Myths Of Independence.” Excerpted from Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past by Ray Raphael. NPR. July 4, 2010.)
The Declaration
As likely the most important document in American history, the Declaration of Independence helped allow the original thirteen colonies to break free from British rule and establish good cause for seeking independence. It also helped shape some of the amendments of our Constitution. The Declaration is revered because without it, the United States of America may not have ever come to exist.
The major purposes for the Declaration are …
Preamble and reasons for separation.
Among the reasons for the separation were statements about the king, George III. It said that he was a harsh and evil king and that the colonists shouldn’t have to be under his rule
A theory of government.
In this part of the Declaration, Jefferson stated the basic principles of democracy. They were “all men are created equal, They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; . . . among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The purpose of the government was to secure these rights.
A formal declaration of war.
This basically stated that war did exist. If the Patriots failed to win independence, the leaders of the revolution could be judged guilty of treason against the British Crown and executed.
Imperfections
It is in its “(2) theory of government” that the Declaration bears some of the shortcomings of its era: racism, sexism, and prejudice against Native Americans sadly mark the work as a product of its time.
(Matthew Rozsa. “Fourth of July's ugly truth exposed: The Declaration of Independence is sexist, racist, prejudiced.” Salon. July 4, 2019.)
Racism Against Blacks
In the original list of grievances against King George III, future President Thomas Jefferson – who co-authored the document along with future President John Adams, as well as Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman – wrote that "he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither."
These words from Jefferson – an unrepentant racist and a slave owner who acknowledged that slavery was an "abominable crime" and ultimately wished to see it purged from the new country – were ultimately scrapped in order to keep the colonies united against their common enemy. In fact, in 1782, only six years later, Jefferson wrote this …
“Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made ... will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.
“To these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral. The first difference which strikes us is that of colour. ... They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites.
“Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid: and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.”
(Extract from Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. January 1, 1782 to December 31, 1782.)
Sexism
Less than four months before the Declaration of Independence was ratified, Abigail Adams – the wife of future President John Adams and thus a future first lady – urged her husband to "Remember the Ladies" when contemplating the legal premises that should guide the nascent republic. In a letter to her husband John in 1776, as he and other colonial leaders were meeting in Philadelphia in the Second Continental Congress, she wrote …
“I long to hear that you have declared an independancy and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could …
“That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness.”
(Letter – Abigail Adams to John Adams. Braintree. March 31 1776.)
John Adams' response was tone deaf and unsympathetic. From patronizingly saying, "I cannot but laugh" at his wife's suggestion to sounding like a blatant misogynist in arguing that "we have only the Name of Masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat,” he gave ample explanation why the famous “all men are created equal” line was not penned as “all people ...”
Prejudice Against Native Americans
Thomas Jefferson, by all accounts a man of the Enlightenment, did not take kindly to American Indians. His hostilities are legion and complex. Originator of the United States government's ethnic cleansing policies of the early nineteenth century termed "Indian Removal" and enthusiast and sponsor for the Lewis and Clark Expedition that among its several purposes identified intelligence for use in the subjugation of Indian nations west of the Mississippi River.
(John R. Wunde. "Merciless Indian Savages" and the Declaration of Independence: Native Americans Translate the Ecunnaunuxulgee Document.” American Indian Law Review. No. 25. 2000.)
The Declaration of Independence accused King George III of unleashing "merciless Indian Savages" against innocent men, women, and children. The work is structured in three parts: the introduction, the complaints, and the conclusion. The complaints (or “indictments” if you prefer) take the form of “he has” (King George has).
For example …
“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
This image of ferocious warriors propelled into action by a tyrannical monarch fixed in memory and imagination the Indians’ role in the Revolution and justified their subsequent treatment.
But many Indian Nations tried to stay out of the conflict, some sided with the Americans, and those who fought with the British were not the king’s pawns: they allied with the Crown as the best hope of protecting their homelands from the encroachments of American colonists and land speculators.
The British government had afforded Indian lands a measure of protection by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which had attempted to restrict colonial expansion beyond the Appalachian Mountains, and had alienated many American colonists. Indians knew that the Revolution was a contest for Indian land as well as for liberty.
And, consider that it was Oneida people who broke the famine at Valley Forge, who taught the revolutionaries, with George Washington, how to process Indian corn so that it was digestible and nutritious.
The Vision Continues
Archibald MacLeish described both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as "these fragile objects which bear so great a weight of meaning to our people." He believed the story of the Declaration of Independence as a document can only be a part of the larger history, a history still unfolding, a "weight of meaning" constantly, challenged, strengthened, and redefined. Teaching these frangible foundations to new generations should be undertaken with reverence and a commitment to honesty. I am of the opinion that obscuring the truth from the youth of America does them no good and even gives cause for distrust. On the other hand, discovering and actively righting wrongs once inherent in the system is paramount to the moral development of a great nation.
Trivia – Did you know it is believed that 26 copies of the Declaration of Independence still exist? After the Declaration of Independence was adopted, the “Committee of Five,” which consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston, was responsible for the reproduction of the approved text.
On July 5, Philadelphia printer John Dunlap sent out all the copies he made to newspapers across the 13 colonies, in addition to commanders of the Continental troops and local politicians. There were initially hundreds of copies known as “Dunlap broadsides,” but only 26 of them survive and are mostly being exhibited in museum and library collections. (One of the most recently discovered “Dunlap broadsides” was found by a Philadelphia man in the back of a picture frame that was purchased at a flea market for $4 in 1989)
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