It may be the single best document ever written by the hand of man.
Marx and Engels wrote an impressive little screed that inspired millions, yet The Communist Manifesto is juvenile whining when placed against these thirteen hundred words.
Lincoln spoke well on the fields of Gettysburg, but the limits of the immediate occasion meant that he could only emphasize one part of this document. A funeral oration may speak to our greatest aspirations, but it remains constrained by the rhetorical need for honoring the past and dead.
No one since 1776 has understood economics better than Adam Smith, but much as I love An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, it has dozens of pages that could be safely ignored by everyone to whom I have recommended its reading over the years.
The Bible is more, but — at least if you share my theological belief — it wasn’t just written by the hand of men.
Oh, my calling this document from just over 232 years ago, the “best ever written” is a bit hyperbolic. I have no doubt that anyone who reads this blog entry will be able to point to other works of words that are just as “great” or even greater.
But, to be honest, I have no desire to hear that sort of argument today.
Because today is July 4th. And today we should be remembering this document more than any other.
The document which ought to more than inspire us. Which is more than just a list of complaints and aspirations and “ideals” to be shunted aside in our pursuit of fireworks, barbeque, and family fun.
2008 is an election year. As I watched the caucuses, straw polls, and primaries unfold over the last several months I found myself becoming guardedly optimistic. For the candidates rising to the top in each party were both men of ideals and ideas. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain will have a platform I have much patience for, but at least it looks like we are going to be choosing between men of principle rather than just among competing cynics, manipulators, and opportunists.
Yet on this day when every year every American becomes an optimist, I can’t help feeling depressed. And not just because I remain underwhelmed by both Obama and McCain as choices.
But because, unlike most Americans, I have read and studied and thought about the words of the Declaration of Independence.
The words that speak of what governments are for (“securing” our “unalienable” rights), and of our duties in that regard.
We — and by “we” here I’m not talking about Messrs. Obama and McCain, but about “we, the poeple” — talk about rights and duties and the role of government all the time. But we do not talk of these things as Thomas Jefferson did.
We have instead contented ourselves with being corrupted by the madness of King George. We have abused our power to give the consent of the governed. We have replaced the securing of fundamental rights with one attempt of social engineering after another. Homeland security, cradle-to-grave subsidized health care, smoking bans, hundreds of other smart ideas that demand hundreds of thousands of pages of federal, state, and local regulations to implement.
All of which are nothing less than attempts to alienate the unalienable. We have avoided some of the acts of tyranny Jefferson listed, but what is amazing is how many of them we have not. Our self-inflicted injuries, abuses, and usurpations run much longer than Jefferson’s list of twenty-seven. And I have no doubt that the convention platforms of each party will demand an extended list of new injuries, abuses, and usurpations.
Tyranny is no less because it it done “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” It is only more insidious. Smart ideas aren’t always good ideas.
Obama versus McCain offers us a better choice than Clinton vs. Romney. Better than Bush vs. Gore or Bush vs. Kerrey. Hoorah.
It would be something worth celebrating. Except that once upon a time, other people called Americans decided to choose between a John Adams and a Thomas Jefferson.
The Declaration of Independence. Read it here. Really read it.
And weep.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:00 am
When I taught European Politics and Society at Iowa, I taught it as a history of classical liberalism and its rejection, socialism. During the early classical liberalism part of the course, I would pull out the Declaration and read huge swaths of it to my students to show them the classical liberal concepts embodied in it. I seriously question whether teaching economics can every provide as much satisfaction for me. I’m not sure about which provided more benefit to the student. Either way they get a subversive dose of the classical liberalism that the modern (or more accurately, postmodern) liberalism of the education establishment rejects.
July 4th, 2009 at 9:40 am
[...] Last year I spoke of the Declaration of Independence. Of how “we the people,” following the mad example of King George, have become addicted to our own abuses and usurpations. [...]
July 4th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
‘Tis brilliant, no doubt. I prefer the Bill of Rights. 10 simple straight forward statements about Freedoms that today’s Americans are too chickenshit to defend.
July 4th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
I do have to say my favorite part of the Declaration of Independence is when it says it’s not only our Right, but our Duty to overthrow a corrupt government.
I think the same thing makes us both depressed – we have become too complacent, too lazy, too apathetic as a nation to stand up for this fine document.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
Today’s British are doing the same thing with their offshore oil rigs. I say we nuke ‘em.