Short Paper #2
Morgan Slaughter
January 3, 2020
GOVT – 421
Adopted by the Continental Congress in 1776, the Declaration of Independence is the
founding document of the American political tradition. “It articulates ideas that form the
American nation: All men are created free and equal and possess the same inherent, natural
rights.” (1) The document essentially cuts ties between the colonies and Great
Britain due to the lack of equality and their infringement of rights. The colonists wanted to be
free from King George III’s rule because they felt unfairly taxed, watched over like
children, and ignored in their attempts to address grievances. (2) The Declaration of
Independence begins by stating “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.” (3) This document
allowed the colonist to revoke British citizenship and granting themselves American citizenship,
which ultimately granted them equality through both natural law and man’s law.
Biblical principles were very important to the Founding Fathers as they were writing the
Declaration of Independence. This can be shown by examining the people whose theories they
relied upon. The Bible was the most cited source by the Founders, accounting for 34 percent of
all citations. (4) The second most cited source by the Founders was Charles Louis Joseph de
Secondat, the Baron of Montesquieu of France. He is best known for his work The Spirit of
Laws. He believed all laws were in some way related to God. He thought men could make their
own laws, but they had to conform to the laws of God. Another source for the Founding Fathers
was Sir William Blackstone, an English barrister. Blackstone’s most famous for his work
Commentaries on the Laws of England, which are considered the most famous treatise on
common law. (5) The Founders were very interested in Blackstone’s work. One of
the delegates at the Constitutional Convention was a former student of his. One of the Founders
major takeaways from Blackstone’s work was his conviction that all law has its source in God.
John Locke, a British philosopher and political theory was another person who greatly influenced
the Founding Fathers as they were formulating a new nation. Locke was a fervent Christian who
frequently cited the Bible in his political writings. Locke made a few major contributions to the
thinking of the Founders. The first was his doctrine of natural law and natural rights. He
identified the basic natural rights of man as ‘life, liberty, and property.’ This phrase is part of the
Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution as well as the Declaration of
Independence. Second, Locke created the social compact theory. The idea of this theory is
men in a state of nature realize their rights are insecure, and compact together to establish a
government and cede to that government certain power so that government may use that power
to secure the rest of their rights. (6)
When writing the Declaration of Independence, the colonists had difficulty deciding whether
they should base their rights on the laws of nature, the common law, the English constitution, or
their colonial characters. In the preamble, Thomas Jefferson argued for the right of revolution
and succession based on the philosophy of natural rights. However, when Jefferson
turned to an enumeration of rights that had been abridged, he only mentioned constitutional,
common law, and charter rights. (McClellan p. 146) Social and economic equality had no place
in the Constitution as well. One single class of people would have to have been invented in
order for American society to lower population. This would have required us losing individual
liberty and would have taken massive coercion. (McClellan p. 136) The Declaration of
Independence gives very little help in the ways our government should be put together and very
little help with knowledge of how our constitution works.
1. Christianity and the Constitution / John Edsmoe
2. Liberty, Order, and Justice / James McClellan
