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Self-evident?
Are self-evident matters of freedom and human dignity really as self-evident as claimed in the Declaration of Independence? We had better have a national conversation about this question soon.
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “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.” Notice that Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths.” For whom was he speaking? Certainly the committee that drafted the Declaration and those who signed it agreed that human dignity and basic rights were self-evident and God-given.
Yet, the Constitution was written just 11 years after the Declaration and, sadly, black men and women weren’t considered equal to their white brethren. “Self-evident” was fuzzy even at this early point in our history.
But it certainly wasn’t fuzzy to slaves. Although they didn’t have the same level of education as many of the Founders, slaves didn’t need a Ph.D. in political philosophy to know that their unalienable rights were being violated. Harriet Jacobs wrote an autobiography about her life as a slave titled Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. When Jacobs was 12 years old, her mistress (owner) died and she thought she would be set free. When her mistress’ will was read and it was revealed she had been bequeathed to a 5-year-old white girl, Harriet had the following thoughts:
“My mistress had taught me the precepts of God’s Word: ‘Though shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ ‘Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.’ But I was her slave, and I suppose she did not recognize me as her neighbor. I would give much to blot out from my memory that one great wrong.”
Sadly, “self-evident” and “endowed by our Creator” were not clear concepts to Harriet’s mistress. Why would she teach her God’s Word? Did she think three-fifths of Harriet would be admitted to heaven one day?
Are inalienable rights endowed by our Creator self-evident or not?
The Founders wrote the Constitution to execute the principles described in the Declaration—yet it took bayonets and musket balls to arrive at an understanding of “self-evident.”
We’re experiencing serious moral confusion again today. Do the beating hearts in a womb constitute life protected by the Constitution? Is it self-evident that a woman should be forced by law to spend her hard-earned cash to buy a car for her neighbor via Cash for Clunkers? We can ask the same question about any of the bailouts du jour. Moreover, is it self-evident that young people should support retirees? Generating gigantic deficits and robbing future generations to pay for the excesses of today, is that a self-evident good as well? The answers to these questions will direct the future of our nation and the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people.
The mid-19th century teaches us that the nation plunged into chaos because self-evident wasn’t self-evident. The same could happen today, and it could happen suddenly if the economy collapses. I think we need to have a national conversation about terms like “self-evident,” “endowed by our Creator,” and “unalienable rights” to prevent our country from exploring the depths of chaos again.
back to top15 Comments to “Self-evident?”
The patriot painter (John Trumbull) who did that work of art of the Founding Fathers only had one eye. Not bad for one eye, eh? He came from a family of great civic leaders in Connecticut!
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I have long thought of Jesus’ Golden Rule as one of the main and most effective anti-lavery passages in the Bible.
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“..The mid-19th century teaches us that the nation plunged into chaos because self-evident wasn’t self-evident…”
—–
But now..
…evident right down to the specific information in DNA..
http://www.signatureinthecell.com/
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While the Declaration of Independence does not explicitly condone slavery, it implicitly does by the fact that the Continental Congress rejected the part of Jefferson’s original draft condemning the practice:
“he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce:[11] and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”
So,the Declaration and the Constitution can be said to be consistent with each other. Neither document can be said to be wholly based on Christian principles. (1 Tim. 1:10)
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Had either document stood clearly against slavery (and it is easy today to wish they had, as indeed I wish they could have), a theoretical moral stand may have been made but the United States of America would certainly not have been founded. The Founders who opposed slavery had to choose; either get a nation founded upon incredibly unique and noble principles with a compromise on slavery to enlist the support of the Southern delegates, or completely fail to get the support necessary to begin a new nation at all. Both options would have left slavery in place where it was already, but the choice made by our Founders at least laid the ground work for the future end of slavery.
I oppose slavery through and through, but simply as a historian, I realize that the Founders made the best choice available to them all things considered. They got the new nation founded on principles that ALSO eventually did indeed undermine slavery.
It was impossible for Northern opposition against slavery to end it’s existence and practice in 1776 in the Southern colonies no matter how the delegates had voted.
Had the anti-slavery Founders made the anti-slavery stand then, it would have scuttled the process required at that particular time with those particular people to get the nation started in ANY united way at all.
Remember, there were stubborn sinners back then too.
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The American Founding documents are profoundly great and incredibly wise and precious in practice and in principle. Still, the Bible is the only document “wholly” based on Christian principles. Nothing new there.
“Wholly” sets a totally pristine bar and no human document can get there. Not even most comments posted on this blog can get there.
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ODannyBoy,
It was Jefferson who rejected that part of the draft and he didn’t write it. He was the final writer, but not the sole writer of the rough drafts. As a slave holder himself he objected to the portion of the Declaration that would free all men. He held that slavery should be gradually done away with, but to do it all at once would be too big of an economic burden. It was his pen that did the editing. And, ironically, a Virginian forbear of Robert E. Lee who pushed hardest to have slaves freed at the same time that a nation was born.
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From a historians point of view the Civil War was inevitable because “gradual” didn’t happen. Freeing the slaves did cause the collapse of the southern economy, but that it was the right thing to do was, well, self-evident.
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Joel Mark (#5): And stubborn Christians too? Fill in the blanks differently here:
“Had the anti-_______ _______ made the anti-_______ stand then, it would have scuttled the process required at that particular time with those particular people to get the nation ________ in ANY united way at all.”
Perhaps there is a lesson for us 200+ years later.
(Enjoyed 2nd paragraph of #6, too.)
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Adios,
“Jefferson’s draft” is shorthand for the “committee of five” who tasked Jefferson with the writing of the first draft and then did their own editing along the way. At this point, I have no idea what Jefferson did when it was brought before the Congress. (I would love for you to share any references you have.) The Congress did reject the section condemning slavery which is my point. The nation has been paying for that ever since and will probably continue to do so because of what is being done with the 14th Amendment in the courts.
Please don’t assume anything about me politically. I think all Democrats are dullards, Republicans are prevaricators, Libertarians are looney. I’m either all the above or above it all and none of the parties would have me while the mushy middle would think I’m too opinionated.
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According to the Library of Congress, Jefferson not only wrote that section, but ” was critical of changes to the document, particularly the removal of a long paragraph that attributed responsibility of the slave trade to British King George III.”
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jeffdec.html
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Adios, not sure I’ve ever heard before the argument that freeing the slaves caused the collapse of the Southern economy and frankly I doubt it did. The war and the events of the following years did so; slavery was probably on its way out anyway, as of limited economic profitability. The war just destroyed the South, including the slaves, who were suddenly free but with nothing–no home, no livelihood, few people able to employ them because of that sudden economic collapse, etc. The war wasn’t “good” for anybody, probably even the North. I won’t get into it but did want to address that point.
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The WE certainly never included anybody outside of this country. And while Jefferson, I believe it was, said we have no quarrel with the Musselmen, it can be said that freedom is still not self-evident to them.
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“Did she think three-fifths of Harriet would be admitted to heaven one day?”
The three-fifths compromise for the allocation of taxes and representation wasn’t saying that slaves were 3/5 human. A slaveholder could force his slaves to vote as he wished thereby guaranteeing slavery would continue. Disallowing the slave vote altogether probably would have hastened its demise. Although in the end war was probably inevitable.
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“A slaveholder could force his slaves to vote as he wished thereby guaranteeing slavery would continue”
On the right track, but a little wide of the mark. Slaves couldn’t vote. The 3/5ths of a person compromise was for the purpose of determining representation. If southern states could include the numeration of their slaves, they could have more congressional representation due to the larger population, and those congressmen, elected by slaveholders, would provide additional votes in Congress.
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