According to the Declaration of Independence, What Are the Three Most Basic Rights?

The Declaration of Independence and Natural Rights

Thomas Jefferson (Library of Congress)

Thomas Jefferson, drawing on the current thinking of his fourth dimension, used natural rights ideas to justify declaring independence from England.

Thomas Jefferson, age 33, arrived in Philadelphia on June 20, 1775, as a Virginia delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Fighting at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Loma had already broken out between the colonists and British troops. Even so, almost in Congress wanted to work out some common agreement with the mother land.

For more than than a year, the Americans had sent petitions to England proclaiming their grievances against the British government. Colonists even appealed to the British people, pleading with them to elect unlike members of Parliament who would be more open to compromise. But the "British brethren" refused to do this.

Soon subsequently Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia, Congress assigned him to draft a certificate explaining why the colonists had taken upward artillery against England. Even at this belatedly engagement, the Congress still blamed only Parliament and the king's government ministers, not King George himself, for the growing conflict. Jefferson's Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Artillery stopped short of declaring independence, simply pointed out the folly of governing the American colonies from England.

Neither Parliament nor King George, withal, were interested in negotiations to forestall all-out war. In August 1775, Rex George issued a announcement charging that the Americans "had proceeded to open and avowed rebellion." A few months later, Parliament passed a significant human activity that placed the American colonies outside the rex'south protection. This act allowed the seizing of American ships, justified the burning of colonial towns, and led to sending war ships and troops, including foreign mercenaries, to put down the rebellion. Meanwhile, the imperial governor of Virginia offered freedom to slaves who joined the British cause. These actions by the British king and government inflamed Americans who were undecided well-nigh independence and made state of war with England all but certain.

In May 1776, the Continental Congress took a fateful stride and passed a resolution that attacked King George himself. This was not the first time in English history that such a thing had occurred. In 1688, Parliament had similarly denounced King James 2. This led to the and then-called Glorious Revolution, which drove James off the throne. Now, almost 100 years later, a formal proclamation of independence by the Continental Congress was the only thing standing in the style of a complete intermission with King George.

The Declaration of Independence

Even before the Continental Congress declared independence, most colonies along with some towns, counties, and fifty-fifty private organizations had issued their own declarations. In most cases, these statements detailed British abuses of power and demanded the right of self-government.

On June 8, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to write a declaration of independence and quickly appointed a committee to draft a formal document. But the job of actually writing the typhoon cruel to Thomas Jefferson, mainly because John Adams and other commission members were busy trying to manage the rapidly escalating war with England.

Working off and on while attending to other duties, Jefferson completed his draft of the declaration in a few days. He argued in his opening ii paragraphs that a people had the right to overthrow their government when it abused their key natural rights over a long menstruum of time. Then in a direct set on on Rex George, Jefferson listed 20 instances when the king violated the rights of the American colonists. Having thoroughly laid out his proof that the rex was a "tyrant" who was "unfit to exist the ruler of a people," Jefferson continued on to condemn the British people. "These unfeeling brethren," he wrote, had reelected members of Parliament who had conspired with the rex to destroy the rights of the colonists. Jefferson ended his draft by stating, "we do assert and declare these colonies to be free and contained states. . . ."

When Jefferson submitted his draft to the Congress on June 28, the delegates spent piffling time on his opening paragraphs, which today are the most famous parts of the Declaration of Independence. Instead, they concentrated on Jefferson's list of grievances against King George and the British people.

The delegates made some small changes to better the Declaration'southward clarity and accuracy. But they also ripped apart the last sections of Jefferson's draft, deleting most 25 percent of it. They eliminated most of his harsh language directed against the British people and totally cut out Jefferson's passionate assail on slavery and the slave merchandise.

The removal of the section on slavery, Jefferson'southward final grievance confronting the king, probably resulted from objections by Southern slave-property delegates. But Jefferson's argument was weakened when he blamed the king alone for standing the slave merchandise and and then condemned him for offering freedom to slaves who joined the British in fighting the American rebels.

Jefferson grew depressed as more and more than of his words were cutting or changed. He later wrote that the Congress had "mangled" his typhoon.

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to declare the independence of the American colonies from English language rule. On the Fourth of July, they approved the concluding edited version of the Declaration of Independence. There would be no turning back at present.

Natural Rights

The members of the Continental Congress made only 2 minor changes in the opening paragraphs of Jefferson's draft proclamation. In these two paragraphs, Jefferson adult some key ideas: "all men are created equal," "inalienable rights," "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Where did Jefferson get these ideas?

Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment. This was the flow during the 17th and 18th centuries when thinkers turned to reason and science to explain both the physical universe and human behavior. Those similar Jefferson idea that by discovering the "laws of nature" humanity could be improved.

Jefferson did not invent the ideas that he used to justify the American Revolution. He himself said that he had adopted the "harmonizing sentiments of the day." These ideas were, so to speak, "in the air" at the time.

As a human of the Enlightenment, Jefferson was well acquainted with British history and political philosophy. He as well had read the statements of independence drafted by Virginia and other colonies besides every bit the writings of swain revolutionaries similar Tom Paine and George Mason. In composing the declaration, Jefferson followed the format of the English Proclamation of Rights, written after the Glorious Revolution of 1689.

Nearly scholars today believe that Jefferson derived the nearly famous ideas in the Declaration of Independence from the writings of English philosopher John Locke. Locke wrote his Second Treatise of Regime in 1689 at the fourth dimension of England'due south Glorious Revolution, which overthrew the rule of James II.

Locke wrote that all individuals are equal in the sense that they are born with sure "inalienable" natural rights. That is, rights that are God-given and tin never be taken or even given away. Among these fundamental natural rights, Locke said, are "life, liberty, and property."

Locke believed that the most basic human law of nature is the preservation of mankind. To serve that purpose, he reasoned, individuals have both a right and a duty to preserve their ain lives. Murderers, however, forfeit their right to life since they deed exterior the law of reason.

Locke too argued that individuals should exist gratuitous to brand choices about how to behave their own lives as long as they practise non interfere with the liberty of others. Locke therefore believed liberty should be far-reaching.

Past "property," Locke meant more land and appurtenances that could be sold, given away, or even confiscated past the authorities under certain circumstances. Property also referred to ownership of one's cocky, which included a correct to personal well beingness. Jefferson, all the same, substituted the phrase, "pursuit of happiness," which Locke and others had used to describe freedom of opportunity likewise as the duty to help those in desire.

The purpose of government, Locke wrote, is to secure and protect the God-given inalienable natural rights of the people. For their part, the people must obey the laws of their rulers. Thus, a sort of contract exists betwixt the rulers and the ruled. But, Locke concluded, if a government persecutes its people with "a long train of abuses" over an extended period, the people have the right to resist that government, alter or abolish it, and create a new political organisation.

Jefferson adopted John Locke's theory of natural rights to provide a reason for revolution. He then went on to offer proof that revolution was necessary in 1776 to end Rex George's tyranny over the colonists.

"All Men Are Created Equal"

Since 1776, no words in the Declaration of Independence accept received more attention than Jefferson's phrase, "All men are created equal." Merely how could Jefferson and the other signers of the declaration believe this when slavery existed in the colonies? Some slave owners argued that slaves would become equal and worthy of natural rights only when they became civilized. For Jefferson, a life-long possessor of slaves, this was a much more circuitous issue.

At an early on historic period, Jefferson ended that slavery was incorrect. To his credit, he attempted to denounce slavery, or at least the slave merchandise, in the Announcement of Independence. Some scholars believe that Jefferson agreed with the Scottish philosopher, Francis Hutcheson, that all men are born morally equal to one another and that "Nature makes none masters, none slaves." Merely, how does this explain that Jefferson kept most of his slaves throughout his lifetime?

It appears that while Jefferson opposed slavery in principle, he saw no obvious manner to end it one time it became established. If the slaves were freed all at once, Jefferson feared that white prejudice and black bitterness would effect in a state of war of extermination that the whites would win. He fretted that if slaves were individually emancipated they would have nowhere to get and no means to survive on their own. Of class, Jefferson along with well-nigh other Southern plantation owners were also economically dependent on slave labor.

The best Jefferson could come with was a programme to have slave children from their parents and put them in schools to exist educated and taught a trade at public expense. Upon becoming adults, they would exist transported to a colony somewhere and given tools and piece of work animals to showtime a new life as a "complimentary and independent people."

Nothing ever came of Jefferson's fanciful program. Slavery in the new United States of America would terminal another 89 years until the end of the Civil War. But even then, the equality promised in the Declaration of Independence was denied not but to African Americans, but also to other minorities and women. Even today, Americans are even so not sure what equality means in such areas as affirmative activeness, sex bigotry, and gay rights.

The Announcement of Independence has no legal authority. It is not part of the basic police of the The states like the Constitution and the Pecker of Rights. Just its words have resonated every bit the ideals of the United States. Abolitionists in the 19th century asked Americans to live up to the ideal of equality and eliminate slavery. The civil rights motility of the 20th century pressured America to honor the commitment fabricated in the declaration. The document nevertheless speaks to us today near the rights of Americans, as it did in 1776.

The complete text of the Declaration of Independence

For Discussion and Writing

1. List the main ideas in John Locke's theory of natural rights and revolution. Then read Jefferson's first two paragraphs in the Declaration of Independence. What similarities and differences do you run across?
2. Write a letter of the alphabet to Thomas Jefferson expressing your views on his ideas about equality and slavery.
3. "All men are created equal." What do y'all think this means for the states today?

For Farther Information

2 interviews with with Pauline Maier, a Professor of History at MIT and author of American Scripture: Making the Proclamation of Independence. PBS Newhour

Booknotes

A C T I V I T Y

"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"

In this action, students discuss some of the ideals in the Annunciation of Independence.

1. Form pocket-size groups to hash out the meaning of the 3 natural rights that Jefferson identified in the Declaration of Independence: "Life, Freedom, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
2. For each 1 of the iii rights, group members should answer this question: What does this right specifically refer to in our lives today?
3. The groups should and so post their answers for the rest of the class to see.
4. Concord a general grade discussion and vote, if necessary, to driblet or continue the meanings that each group has adult for the iii rights.

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Source: https://www.crf-usa.org/foundations-of-our-constitution/natural-rights.html

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