A Revised Look at the Declaration of Independence - Surprises!

On the day after another July 4^th, Independence Day (US), I still find the discussion on Thursdays NPR’s Diane Rehm Show to be a fascinating subject for a blog post! From Ms. Rehm's guest, Danielle Allen, I learned a number of significant, new things about The Document behind our three-day weekend celebration (http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-07-03/danielle-allen-our-declaration).

In her recent book, Our Declaration, Danielle Allen presents more interesting stuff than I can possibly properly flirt with here! But I want to toy with a few things I think you’ll find interesting.

The Rehm Show link cited above says Our Declaration “makes the case for a new interpretation of the document – as a living, relevant text with an argument for equality at its core.” Personally, I think one needs to find a plain font copy of the Declaration of Independence before it seems like a “living, relevant text.” Maybe you can get more meaning out of reading the handwritten reproduction of the Declaration, but I tend to get to distracted by the fancy hand writing of the day… even if the ink well/quill combo is rather artistic.

Anyway, I have always mistakenly thought that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration. While he did write the final rough draft (and a darn good one) a small group in the Continental Congress, including Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, and eventually the entire Congress changed it in some relatively significant ways before it was officially adopted. So as Allen points out it went through a process not entirely unlike our current Congressional process, albeit apparently it was a faster, simpler and perhaps less combative...

According to Allen we have documents showing the path of some changes in the Declaration. For example, Jefferson’s final rough draft just said we were “endowed” with certain “rights.” It was Franklin and John Adams who led the in adding “by their Creator.” This may go hand in glove with what we now know about Jefferson’s personal pocket-Bible which is on display at the Smithsonian Nation Museum of American History. I would strongly encourage you to check out the link below; notice it says “how-thomas-jefferson-created-his-own-bible!” This is just the tip of the iceberg of another very interesting, true story! (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-thomas-jefferson-created-his-own-bible-5659505/?no-ist)

But I digress… I want to toy with one more thing as I understood Allen on the NPR Show. She made the point that she believes that where the Declaration says “all men are created equal…” they were likely including women and children. She concludes this from the section of the Declaration that talks about slavery and simply talks about “men” when in context it appears to her to also include women and even children that were caught up in horrors of slavery.

While Allen maybe right in some ways, it appears to me that the men who drafted the Declaration weren’t in favor of allowing women to pursue life, liberty and happiness in the same way they could? Not to mention, though I am, the lesser rights of children at the time. And even then, did it include “all men” or just the slice of that population the Founding Fathers had in mind which seems to be those essentially just a lot like them?

So does all this make any difference? I think so. However and whomever might be endowed with the right “to life liberty and pursuit of happiness” is, as Allen argues, indeed a “living” and extremely relevant issue in continuing to understand and apply the Declaration. What do you think? Allen read it on the radio show and I heard it with “fresh ears.” You might want to read it with “fresh eyes,” over this holiday weekend!