The Declaration of Independence

Disclaimer: I am no bleeding-heart patriot. The words of the Declaration of Independence do not bring tears to my eyes nor make my heart flutter with pride of country. I'm not going to spend the next 368 words praising the document as a paragon of liberty. Neither, however, am I going to make this into a hyper-critical diatribe. My object in this post is more to figure out what I think of this historical document.

The first thing that strikes me is the great irony of the Declaration of Independence's existence. The document begins with an appeal to Rousseau's philosophy that government is a SOCIAL CONTRACT to justify their move to "dissolve the political bands" that tied them to their mother country. The drafters declared the right to abolish government, but that kind of thought no longer exists as part of the American political identity. In fact, it no longer existed by the time of the Civil War.

Further, the address of grievances to the King, rather than to Parliament (from whence stemmed the listed grievances). This seems to me to be primarily because a cry for greater liberty is more poignant when it's against a King - a figurehead - than against a group. The colonial system of government, as well as the system the Founding Fathers were looking to set up, were by similar groups. By trying to mark the British as monarchial, rather than moving-towards-republican, they could add more clout to their argument as the more just and liberal cause.

It is worth noting, on this same note, that the signers of the Declaration of Independence did not explicitly suggest what kind of government would replace the one they threw off. It is evident, however, that the government would be less centralized. The name they gave their new nation was the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA which were "FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES." This title itself recognizes the decentralization the signers wanted. Each state would be semi-autonomous. As "free" and "independent," the signers acknowledge this political principle espoused by Locke and Rousseau - consent of the governed. The states would consent to be governed by a central authority. Although none of this is explicit in the document itself, knowing the history of the Constitution makes it easy to see evidences for the type of government the Founding Fathers sought to build in their newborn nation.