In performing this analysis, I will address each paragraph separately and in turn, breaking it down by sentence, clause, or phrase as I deem appropriate. Beginning with the Declaration of Independence:
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The Continental Congress, which was a meeting of delegates from some of the British colonies extant on the North American continent, was held in Philadelphia in 1774, and reconvened several times to argue their purpose and intent. It had no legitimate power of government at the time. There was no governing body called "Congress" in the Americas in 1776. "In Congress", as used here, simply means "during our meeting".
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
There are two points of interest here:
- First is the use of the word "unanimous". Although it may have been intended to imply that every citizen in the colonies agreed with the content of the Declaration, in fact, we are only assured that the representatives themselves had actually come to a consensus. Furthermore, many of those likely had to be browbeaten into going on record as supporting it as written. There are also questions concerning how those individuals came to be representatives of the several colonies. There was no Constitution at that time, and thus no formal, agreed-upon procedure in place among the colonies for choosing such representatives, nor were such selections necessarily ratified by the populace of a colony.
- Second, is the phrase "united States of America". Note that the word "united" is not capitalized. The reason is that there was not, at the time, a nation called the United States of America, nor did the Declaration create one! Rather, the document declares that the individual colonies were each claiming an independent identity as a nation-state, and that they were all united in the purposes elaborated upon in the Declaration.
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.
Although it sort of makes an effort to appear as if the Founding Fathers were actually addressing this statement to all of the extant governments on Earth, and it doesn't address the British King and his parliament directly, this entire paragraph is really nothing more than an apology to Great Britain, in advance of telling them news that they aren't going to like.
The next paragraph, however, sets forth what are probably the most important philosophies upon which the American Revolution, and subsequently, our Constitution, were founded. It is pretty complex, so we'll examine it sentence by sentence - sometimes phrase by phrase.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
We (the representatives) have observed facts that we are going to present to you, and we believe that any reasonably intelligent person can observe them as well.
that all men are created equal,
Clearly people are not all born with the same physical, mental, and emotional capabilities; and just as clearly they are not born with the same prospects and opportunities. This clause doesn't claim that they are; rather, it simply states that people, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, have the same rights, and are all entitled to equal protection under the law: i.e., that the requirements of any law should be the same for, and applicable without regard to, the station in life to which one is born.
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
This is a direct attack on the authority of government to establish individual human rights. In crediting the Creator with the power to establish such rights, it also makes several other points:
- There is a Creator - by whatever Name you choose to call him/her/it - with ultimate authority over the universe and all that it contains;
- In that those rights are granted by the Creator those rights are "unalienable" - i.e, no earthly power has the authority to set them aside;
- Coupled with the previous clause, only the Creator - and not any earthly power - has the authority to grant such rights.
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Inclusion of the phrase "among these" establishes that the list of unalienable rights includes these specific rights, but is not limited to them. The clear implication is that there are other, numerous unalienable rights that are not specifically named, but nonetheless exist.
There is, however, frequent misunderstanding concerning the interpretation of "the pursuit of Happiness", to wit: some people equate pursuit of Happiness to achieving Happiness; but achieving Happiness is not a right - only the pursuit thereof, and then only to the extent that one's pursuit of Happiness does not infringe upon the (equal) rights of others. If your pursuit of Happiness results in actions that violate someone else's higher order rights - for instance, the right to life or liberty - reason dictates that it is not so unalienable.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
This is actually a rather radical departure from past history of human governments. Historically, governments were established to secure, propagate, and enhance the wealth and power (and perhaps the breeding opportunities) of a few privileged individuals. The premise that government has the purpose of protecting individual human rights was pretty new on the scene in 1776, and mostly only being bandied about by a few French philosophers. At any rate, it establishes the position of the representatives that government has no other legitimate purpose.
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
This also is a radical departure from historical practice. Generally speaking, pretty much all governments extant at and prior to the time derived their powers from the force of arms (sometimes posited as a birthright), or at least the threat thereof. The wishes of the governed were rarely considered, if at all. None the less, it sets forth the premise that, at least in our nation(s), the populace at large must somehow ratify any powers assumed by the government.
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,
Without clearly stating exactly how such a decision is made, or by what mechanism a people may accomplish it, this clause simply sets forth another unalienable right - the right of a whole people to dump an existing government and replace it with something new.
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.
This is an artificial requirement, but a good one. If, as a people, you're going to impose a new government upon yourself, you should somehow formalize and codify the guiding principles and powers of the new government, so that your unalienable rights are, in fact protected, and you don't end up with just another bad government.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
One shouldn't make massive changes in government for trivial reasons, and reasonable people don't expect or require such actions. Of course, things that are trivial to you may be extremely important to me... or vice-versa!
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Reasonable people, however, have a right and a duty to overthrow a severely oppressive government, and institute one more respecting of their rights, welfare, and happiness.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
In consideration of the foregoing facts, taken together, we colonists now find it necessary to renegotiate our status with the current government of Great Britain.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
The government of Great Britain, embodied by its King, has repeatedly and without apparent remorse, taken direct action to quash the rights of the colonists, making life intolerably difficult. Our list of specific grievances follows.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
At the time of the Declaration, all laws required at least ratification by the King in order to be enforceable. The complaint here is that the King arbitrarily and capriciously refused to agree to laws that the colonies felt were necessary.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
This compliant is that the King would not even allow his own appointed Governors could enact regulations with immediate effect, even to deal with emergency conditions.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He ignored the legislative needs of the people of the colonies unless they gave up any right to influence the content of laws under consideration in parliament.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He made the lawmakers meet at inconvenient and uncomfortable places and times, for the sole purpose of destroying their will to do the right thing.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He unilaterally dissolved colonial legislative bodies, revoking their authority of to meet and act, when the membership opposed actions undermining the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
The complaint here is that the King dallies too long in allowing the colonies to establish replacements for the legislative bodies that he abolished, which they also complain prevents the affected colony from enforcing existing law against unacceptable behavior, as well as mounting any effective defense against outside adversaries.
Another bit of political philosophy is also interjected here, in that it is stated that the powers of legislation cannot be destroyed, and if the legitimate legislative body is disbanded, then right to exercise those powers devolves directly to the people of the colony. The legitimacy of this stance is based on the previous contention that governments derive their authority from "the consent of the governed".
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has acted to obstruct immigration and to usurp the authority previously held by colonial governments to distribute land grants, for the sole purpose of preventing population growth in the colonies.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
By refusing to ratify legislation that would establish local courts in the colonies, he has effectively prevented the enforcement of other laws intended to protect the rights of colonial citizens, as well as settle civil disagreements and punish crime.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
The real issue here is that judges so appointed have no objectivity. They must march to the King's personal drum or be terminated - sometimes literally! If the issue under judicial review happens to involve a complaint against the King's government, the case would, without fail, be dismissed.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
The King has expanded colonial bureaucracies beyond any reason, specifically for the purpose of increasing the burden on the people.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
The King has essentially imposed martial law, assigning his military forces to enforce his will over the people and their behavior. This was done in the absence of any need or requirement identified by the colonial legislative body, and without its consent.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
Again, martial law. The King's Army and Navy has supplanted the civil government of the colony as the effective legislature as well as the enforcement authority and source of judicial review.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
The King and his agents, whether of parliament, newly appointed governors, or the military, assume the powers previously held and exercised by the colonial government, and the King has ratified everything that they have done, without regard to the needs of the colonial people.
The phrase "foreign to our constitution" does not refer to the US Constitution, but rather means "ignorant of our mindset, beliefs, and needs".
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
Forcing colonists to provide housing and board for large numbers the King's soldiers, usually at the colonist's expense.
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
Protecting the King's cronies and soldiers from prosecution for their criminal activities, including the most heinous crimes.
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
Preventing open commerce with nations other than Great Britain, thus limiting the profits that might be made, or costs that might be saved by said commerce to whatever British agents might be willing to provide.
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
"Taxation without representation!" Colonial America had no representation in the British parliament to protect its interests, so parliament (and the King) took great advantage of this fact by enacting tax laws affecting exports and imports in the colonies very deleterious to profits for colony-based enterprise.
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
Denial of due process. People are being jailed and sometimes executed without having been tried according to the laws of the British Empire.
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
Arrest, detention, and removal of colonists on trumped-up charges.
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
Imposing martial law in an area that had previously been subject to English civil law, and from that base, encroaching on the boundaries of its neighbors, for the sole purpose of intimidating the colonists into surrendering to the rule of a despot.
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
Both of these sentences are a complaint that the King and his agents have removed the authority of the colonies to govern themselves, and in the process, radically changing the relationship between the colonies and Great Britain.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
By treating us as enemies, rather than good, full citizens of Great Britain, he gives up the right to govern us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
His Navy acts like a bunch of pirates attacking our coastal communities, burning them down, upsetting and often killing our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
Besides what he is doing with British armed forces, he is importing paid foreigners to wreak havoc upon our people, doing horrible things to them that no King should allow to occur.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has instituted conscription of our sailing men, forcing them at peril of their own lives to become a part of his Navy for the purpose of attacking their own homeland and fellow citizens.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured 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.
He has encouraged the dissident factions of the colonies to attack their fellow citizens and legitimate governing bodies, as well as having encouraged our genocide at the hands of the Indians.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Every time we were hurt in these ways we followed due process to try and obtain relief, but your response has only been to impose yet more insult and injury. This sort of behavior makes you unfit to govern.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
When the King and parliament ignored us, we appealed directly to the people of Great Britain, as brethren and fellow citizens, concerning the way that we have been treated. We reminded them that we migrated to the Americas in order to make our way in a land free of mistreatment, rather than pursue redress through rebellion; but they didn't listen to us either. We have to face the fact that we must sever our ties with the British Empire, and treat its members like any other nation: if we are at war with you, you are our enemy; if we are at peace, you are our friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare,
Submitting to the judgement of our Deity concerning whether we are right or wrong, we, as representatives of the several States, under the authority of our people, say:
That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States,
that each of the former British colonies is, and has a right to be, a separate nation-state,
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown,
that they no longer owe respect and obedience to the King, or to the British parliament,
and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;
any pre-existing agreement, charter, or oath, that gives Great Britain power or authority in the colonies is no longer in force.
and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
and that each of these nation-states has the right and power to do all of the things that any other nation on Earth can do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
And, believing that our Deity will protect us, we mutually agree to support this Declaration and to risk everything we hold dear.
The remainder of the document simply lists the names of the signatories, in their own hand.
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
I will eventually get to doing a similar analysis of the language of the Constitution, but my brain is a little tired now, so don't hold your breath waiting for it.
