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AP®︎/College US History
Course: AP®︎/College US History > Unit 3
Lesson 3: Philosophical foundations of the American RevolutionThe Declaration of Independence
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . . " In this video, Kim explores the origins of the Declaration of Independence in the ideas of Enlightenment philosopher John Locke and its resounding message in history.
Want to join the conversation?
- The Declaration states, "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." Why, then, were practices that denied people liberty and did not treat all men as equals, such as slavery, able to exist in the United States after the Declaration was created?(8 votes)
- The Declaration is not a governing document. It is just a statement of principles and reasons for seceding from Britain. Inconsistencies in holding to these principles through the formation of governing documents were bound to occur due to conflicting interests.(28 votes)
- Is Thomas Jefferson a hypocrite for saying that "all men are equal" yet owning 100+ slaves?(12 votes)
- The "Thomas Jefferson Foundation" states "there is a considerable body of evidence" that Jefferson fathered children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings, and "it is now the Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s view that the issue is a settled historical matter".
In addition the Foundation furthers states, "Although he (Jefferson) made some legislative attempts against slavery and at times bemoaned its existence, he also profited directly from the institution of slavery and wrote that he suspected black people to be inferior to white people in his Notes on the State of Virginia".
In my experience, people can often be complicated and simultaneously exhibit contradictory qualities - some admirable and some less so. As part of that, sometimes people - myself included - do things that may violate their values and beliefs to some degree because it is expedient and/or profitable to do so.
While Jefferson was certainly a prominent and arguably brilliant member of the Founding Fathers and stood for many laudable ideas, he was also a self interested human being with flaws - as we all are to varying degrees. I feel the role of history is to illuminate all the facts as much as is possible and let the record stand for everyone to see.(10 votes)
- At, she says "life, liberty, and property". However, I have always heard "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Is this a typo, or a different thing? 8:00(5 votes)
- "life, liberty, and property" is what an enlightenment thinker, John Locke initially wrote. This was readapted as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence.(10 votes)
- Why is it even called the Declaration of Independence(0 votes)
- The reason that it was called the Declaration of Independence is because it was a message to King George III, saying that the Americans did not like the way the British ruled over them. It said that because they had no say in laws or taxes, they were seceding from the British and becoming their own country. When it was signed, the colonies were called United States of America, but they still had to win the war for them to be officially the United States.
Hope that helps!(13 votes)
- I have read somewhere that Thomas Jefferson originally tried to abolish slavery in the Declaration of Independence but it was edited out by others. Is this true? If so, then if Thomas Jefferson was against slavery why did he own slaves?(5 votes)
- That is true that he tried to abolish slavery, but that was removed in the final draft because the Founding Fathers thought that would spark conflict among themselves, as a country.(3 votes)
- In context of “all men are created equal” and the fact the Jefferson and many of the others that stood behind those words owned and/or had no concern for the slavery of African and African Americans, could that imply that slaves and possibly even African Americans in general, considering how they were viewed in society during the time, weren’t even considered human in the minds of these men? Otherwise the Declaration of Independence would have applied to slaves and others of the sort as well, would it not?(3 votes)
- Fortunately that is not true. Jefferson, due to his concern about "men that don't have those endowed rights," he tried to abolish slavery in the declaration of independence, but he had to remove it in the final draft because of the fact that that would cause conflict. Franklin tried to abolish slavery and even filed a petition about it in his later life.(5 votes)
- Why did France so interested in Thomas? Or, like him?(2 votes)
- Probably most of the people of France at that time were totally ignorant of Jefferson's very existence.
But, Jefferson was an aristocrat in his home of Virginia, and a cultured and educated man. Aristocrats were likely drawn to his intelligence and demeanor. (He was famously impecunious, so likely also owed money to a lot of them.) There's the traditional rivalry between France and England. The united colonies across the Atlantic, of which Jefferson was an emissary, were in a war with England. Under the principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", Jefferson was welcome among the political leaders of France.(6 votes)
- why did Jefferson like and follow John Locke's ideas so much(2 votes)
- I could be wrong, but here is my take: John Locke's (and other enlightenment thinkers') ideas were widely acclaimed and accepted as sound arguments. These ideas would've been especially helpful during a revolution and time of political stress (as Jefferson was in). John Locke's ideas of the Social Construct directly tied in with how the colonists had a tyrannical government, and the concept of natural rights served as a basis for the country.(3 votes)
- AtI was wishing I could go inside Thomas Jefferson's brain when he wrote " All men are created equal" because he didn't get rid of his slaves or free them. Could he have meant just white men? Or was it all men? And Why didn't he write mankind? Was he not refering to women? 11:20(3 votes)
- Does anyone know the approximate percentage of the colonists wanted peace rather than independence when the declaration was signed? (Percentage of the people who were Loyalists or on the fence) What percentage of those at the Second Continental Congress wanted independence more than peace?(2 votes)
- I'm not sure if there is a good answer to your question because the people of that day were not constantly being asked their stance by pollsters as we are today.
One thing that seems pretty clear is that those who were for independence knew pretty well that there would be heavy costs and I understand that long after the shooting started, they still hoped there would be terms of peace offered by the British. So you might say, even those who were for war - preferred peace.
Beyond that, people don't change a great deal over time. You might imagine some small percentage that were anxious to go to war - another small percentage that were completely anti war, and varying degrees of people in the middle grounds.(3 votes)
Video transcript
- [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.