- [Kim] On July fourth, 1776, the delegates to the
Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. We know parts of it very well. For example, "We hold these truths to be self-evident," "that all men are created equal." The Declaration of
Independence was really the point of no return for the young United States of America, making an appeal to the rest of the world, to say that their time as a
colony of the United Kingdom had ended. The principle author of the
Declaration of Independence was this man here, Thomas Jefferson. I tried to find a picture
of him as a young man. In fact, at the time, he was about 10 years younger
than you even see him here. He was 33. Where did young Thomas
Jefferson get all of the ideas that he expressed in the
Declaration of Independence, and what happened to those ideas, once he put them down on paper? In this video, I'd like to explore some of the origins and effects of the
Declaration of Independence. We often think that the
Revolutionary War started with the Declaration of Independence. We think of 1776 as being this opening moment of the Revolution. In fact, parts of the
Revolutionary War had been going on for some time. It was in 1765, more
than a decade earlier, that some of the first
unrest over taxation, specifically the Stamp Act, had begun. In 1773, the famous Boston Tea Party, when a group of colonists
dumped over 300 crates of tea into Boston Harbor had happened. In 1775, over a year before the
Declaration of Independence, the first shots of the Revolutionary War had
taken place outside Boston, at the towns of Lexington and Concord. By the time the delegates
had met in Philadelphia, the Revolutionary War
had been a shooting war for more than a year. Why was it that in July of 1776, the delegates finally made the
Declaration of Independence? The primary reason that
they did it at this time, was because they wanted help, and they were particularly
eager to get the assistance of the nation of France, which had been a long time
enemy of the United Kingdom, and the delegates really knew that the new United States of America
would have no hope of winning a war against a massive imperial
power like Great Britain, without the help of another
world power, such as France. In a way, what Jefferson was doing in the Declaration of Independence, wasn't so much declaring,
but rather explaining why the states were declaring
themselves independent, with the hope that they
could get the sympathy and the help of the
international community. Let's read some of the
Declaration of Independence. I know that this is a
gigantic block of text here, but bear with me. We'll grow through it fairly quickly. "The unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen" "United States of America." You'll notice here that
he specifically points out that there are 13 United States. This is important, because
it gives you a sense that they aren't really thinking
of the individual former colonies, now states,
as one larger country, but rather as a collection of states, a confederation of allied states, instead of a single nation. "When in the course of human
events it becomes necessary" "for one people to dissolve
the political bands" "which have connected them with another" "and to 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." "A decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires" "that they should declare
the causes which impel them" "to the separation." Here's this explanation part, saying, we feel it necessary
to explain why we want to separate from Great Britain. "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." "That to secure these rights," "governments are instituted among men," "deriving their just powers from the" "consent of the governed." "That whenever any form of
government becomes destructive" "of these ends," "it is the right of the people to alter," "or to abolish it," "and to institute new government," "laying its foundation on such
principles and organizing" "its powers in such form," "as to them shall seem
most likely to effect" "their safety and happiness." I think this might be the
most important passage of the Declaration of Independence, and let me tell you why. In this paragraph, you can really see the influence of the Enlightenment
on Jefferson's thought. The Enlightenment was a
period in the 1600s and 1700s, when people began to explore scientific observation and reason. They became more interested
in observing the world around them, and trying to make reasoned arguments from what they saw, as compared to accepting
the religious explanations for how the world worked. During the Enlightenment,
many philosophers began to rethink government as well, and of questioning whether
the governmental system in Europe and other places
was the right system. There was one philosopher, in particular, who really captured
Jefferson's imagination, and his name was John Locke. John Lcoke was an English philosopher, who had lived in the 1600s, and he wrote a book that
had really influenced Jefferson and many thinkers
in this time period, called Two Treatises on Government. There are two really important
points in Locke's work. One was the idea of natural rights. What Locke meant by natural rights, are rights that were endowed by nature, that all people were born with. If you think about Europe
in this time period, there was a sense that
some people were born with more rights than others. In fact, there was the idea
of the Divine Right of Kings, that the king, or monarch of any sort, had been born the king
because God wanted that person to rule. Locke rejects that. He says when people are born, they're all born the same, and they all have rights
that can't be given away, that are unalienable, and those are life, liberty, and property. Sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it? The other important idea that Locke had, was the idea of the Social Contract. The idea of the Social Contract was that, government came from the people, that society members got together, and agreed on what the forms
of government should be, so that the only just government, was one that took into
account the opinions of the people who live within it. You see that here, too. "Governments are instituted among men," "deriving their just powers from" "the consent of the governed." There's a third thing
that Locke suggests that Jefferson also gets at, which is that when
governments become tyrannical, when they do not abide
by the Social Contract, it is the right of the people to rebel. All right, back to the Declaration. Most of the rest of the
Declaration is just a list of grievances of what the King has done to the colonies that has
made them very angry. This is an extremely
abridged list of them. I highly recommend you read
the entire Declaration, 'cause I think it gives
you a really good sense of what the colonists were
thinking at this time period. Here are some of the highlights. Jefferson says that the "King has kept among
us, in times of peace," "standing armies without the
consent of our legislatures." Those are the British regulars
who have been stationed in North America for a long time. "For cutting off our trade
with all parts of the world." The Navigation Acts,
that said the colonies could only trade with Great Britain. "For imposing taxes on
us, without our consent." The idea of taxation
without representation, which really motivated
the colonists to rebel. And so forth and so on. Now, it's worth noting that the
Declaration of Independence, as an explanation hoping
to get France on the side of the new United States, worked very well. The United States allied with France, which led them to win the
Revolutionary War in 1783. As we close, it's worth pondering, what it was that Thomas Jefferson really meant by the phrase, "All men are created equal." The Revolutionary War
didn't abolish slavery in the United States. In fact, Jefferson himself
owned over 100 enslaved people of African descent. When Jefferson said, "All
men are created equal," was he thinking only of all white men? Was he thinking only of elite white men? After all, after the Revolution, only a handful of propertied
elite men could vote. But then, there's this larger idea here. He's saying that your
ordinary man wasn't born any different than someone
who was born a king, so why should someone who was born black be different than someone
who was born white? It's hard to imagine how
Jefferson separated those things in his mind. Certainly, others at the time period, realized that there was
an inherent contradiction between slavery, and also between the rights of women, and the idea that all
men are created equal. Over time, the rhetoric of the
Declaration of Independence would go on to spur many
different movements for independence and civil rights. The most notable of which
being the French Revolution, which took much of its rhetoric from the American Revolution. Later, in 1848, the first
women's rights movement would gather at Seneca Falls, New York, and release what they called the Declaration of Sentiments. Which began, "All men and
women are created equal." So Jefferson's ideas here, are both deeply radical, insisting that ordinary people
are just as good as kings, and even more, entitled to decide their
own form of government. But that Revolution only went so far. It didn't change much about the status of every day citizens in the United States. But it put forward an ideal which we've been working toward ever since.