Some excerpts from President Calvin Coolidge’s magnificent speech on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence:
…Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection…
The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them….
It was the fact that our Declaration of Independence containing these immortal truths was the political action of a duly authorized and constituted representative public body in its sovereign capacity, supported by the force of general opinion and by the armies of Washington already in the field, which makes it the most important civil document in the world. It was not only the principles declared, but the fact that therewith a new nation was born which was to be founded upon those principles and which from that time forth in its development has actually maintained those principles, that makes this pronouncement an incomparable event in the history of government. It was an assertion that a people had arisen determined to make every necessary sacrifice for the support of these truths and by their practical application bring the War of Independence to a successful conclusion and adopt the Constitution of the United States with all that it has meant to civilization.
The idea that the people have a right to choose their own rulers was not new in political history. It was the foundation of every popular attempt to depose an undesirable king. This right was set out with a good deal of detail by the Dutch when as early as July 26, 1581, they declared their independence of Philip of Spain. In their long struggle with the Stuarts the British people asserted the same principles, which finally culminated in the Bill of Rights deposing the last of that house and placing William and Mary on the throne. In each of these cases sovereignty through divine right was displaced by sovereignty through the consent of the people. Running through the same documents, though expressed in different terms, is the clear inference of inalienable rights. But we should search these charters in vain for an assertion of the doctrine of equality. This principle had not before appeared as an official political declaration of any nation. It was profoundly revolutionary. It is one of the corner stones of American institutions.
….A very positive echo of what the Dutch had done in 1581, and what the English were preparing to do, appears in the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before the General Court that–
“The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people”
“The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God’s own allowance.”
This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy who later made up the Congregational Church….
In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause….
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
As opposed to Woodrow Wilson, who says:
“The Declaration of Independence did not mention the questions of our day. It is of no consequence to us unless we can translate its general terms into examples of the present day and substitute them in some vital way for the examples it itself gives, so concrete, so intimately involved in the circumstances of the day in which it was conceived and written.”
July 4, 2010, 1:51 amLarryA says:
Read through the Declaration. Some of the reasons for revolution are sounding real pertinent.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
…
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:
Tomorrow (well later today actually) I get to read the Declaration at our local Fourth of July ceremony, as I have for the past dozen years. Every year there are those who have never heard it in its entirety.
July 4, 2010, 2:52 ammack says:
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. 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.
July 4, 2010, 3:27 amMark F. says:
I don’t favor violent revolution, but the defenders of King George sounded a lot like the defenders of Bush and Obama today.
July 4, 2010, 4:30 amOwen H. says:
Do tell, Mark. Explain that, if you please.
July 4, 2010, 7:43 amSarcastro says:
So true! Also defenders of Lance Armstrong…
July 4, 2010, 7:57 amCornellian says:
If all men are created equal, that is final.
It’s a good thing for women that it wasn’t final.
July 4, 2010, 9:49 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
No justice, no peace.
July 4, 2010, 10:01 amdearieme says:
“In their long struggle with the Stuarts the British people asserted the same principles, which finally culminated in the Bill of Rights deposing the last of that house and placing William and Mary on the throne.” I suppose that such inaccuracy is good enough for government work.
July 4, 2010, 10:45 amRobert Allen Leeper says:
The only ones who deny that “men” in this context means “human beings” are those who want to screw boys [not "men"] – or screw us all.
July 4, 2010, 11:22 amcecil kirksey says:
Hmmm. It would seem that the society of 1776 did not respect that “all men (humans) are created equally”. Black slaves were certainly men but not treated as equals. And women were certainly not given the same standing as men. The colonial society of 1776 was about economic power preservation for the white, rich landowners.
July 4, 2010, 11:40 amRobert Allen Leeper says:
It cannot be denied that practice fell far short of theory, and that this must be a great source of shame. It is arguable that the Founders failed to do the best they could to actualize their ideals. I object to and condemn any attempt to falsify the semantic reality of those ideals.
July 4, 2010, 11:55 amwm13 says:
Of course, if Prof. Somin had been there, he would have noted that the divine right of kings and the maintenance of social hierarchy are ideas just as “spiritual” and “religious” as the equality of all men and the possession of inalienable rights.
He’d be wrong, but for reasons to subtle and complex to elucidate in a blog comment.
July 4, 2010, 12:11 pmAngus says:
Apart from government employees per capita being near historical lows, and the British Parliament no longer passing laws for us, yes, the situations are exactly the same!!!1!
July 4, 2010, 1:57 pmStrict says:
“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.”
Indians – savages, merciless, they all want to kill us all. [Hint hint we should kill them all first].
July 4, 2010, 2:14 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Uh, no. You’re off by at least an order of magnitude. Federal civilian employment alone is about 1% of the population; in 1789 it was about 1/10th of that.
And that doesn’t even address state or local government. (Or the jobs contracted out; it doesn’t matter who signs the paychecks, but what job they’re doing.)
July 4, 2010, 2:32 pmSammy Finkelman says:
Let me interpret this:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident….”
There is no need to argue or prove this.
“that all men are created equal….”
Not all whites and not all blacks, but all men. Not all Americans and not all citizens. And not some people are more equal than others. Not Americans are equal to Americans and Mexicans to Mexicans but all men have the same rights regardless of geographical lines..
“And that they endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights..”
There are certain rights that cannot be taken away, and belong also to aliens.
“and that amomng these are life…”
You can’t pass a law certain people have a right to live and not others or that would inevuitably result in people’s deaths.
“liberty”
You cannot pass law that would make some people slaves.
“and the pursuit of happiness”
Pursuit implies movement. You cannot pass laws that interfere with the opursuit of happiness .
“And that to secure these rights governments”
Plural.
Are instututed among men…
And that what you say every country does this or every country has a right – that’s foreign law. And we are not talking about dangers to the constitution in mos cases.
July 4, 2010, 2:41 pmSammy Finkelman says:
No, like the tea party people, at least those of them who want to enforce the immigration laws, without debating or changing anything about them.
July 4, 2010, 2:51 pmRobert Allen Leeper says:
I apologize to all for the tone and illogicality of my post, but stand by the substance.
Your garbage is not worth a response.
July 4, 2010, 2:54 pmManju says:
Puh-leeze, you’re just a shill for Sheryl Crow.
July 4, 2010, 3:09 pmMoneyrunner says:
Reading Cecil Kirksey reminded me of this rant by Jeremiah Wright, (all about rich white men throughout history) Barack Hussein Obama’s spiritual mentor; the one who inspired the name of one of his books … but whose sermons he never heard during the 20 years he faithfully attended his church.
July 4, 2010, 4:01 pmLarryA says:
1) The government workforce is expanding, and the armed government workforce is exploding. SWAT teams/capita?
July 4, 2010, 5:58 pm2) Britain may not be regulating us, but there’s the U.N. and the folks who think it and European law should guide our legislation. You may have noticed a few posts about that here.
John David Galt says:
The way I learned it, the so-called English Bill of Rights was a sham, written to nullify James II’s proclamation of toleration for Catholics and force future rulers to treat them as second-class subjects (or worse) forever. It and the Penal Laws that came with it were the original cause of all the centuries of “troubles” in Ireland.
(Which is not to say the IRA are right today; by attacking innocent people, both sides have long since forfeited the moral high ground.)
July 4, 2010, 8:18 pmJeff says:
I just wanted to make a quick comment. I mainly wanted to address the terms “inalienable” vs “unalienable”.
On the Jefferson Memorial, they use the term “inalienable”. And in Jefferson’s original draft, he used the word “inalienable”. However, in the FINAL published Declaration of Independence, the word “unalienable” was used.
What’s the difference? A LOT, actually. “Unalienable” (per Black’s Law Dictionary) means that these rights “are INCAPABLE of being alienated, that is sold and transferred”. “Inalienable”, on the other hand are “rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the CONSENT of those possessing such rights”. Which means, as one person puts it, “You can surrender, sell or transfer inalienable rights if you consent either actually or constructively. Inalienable rights are not inherent in man and can be alienated by government.”
These articles below go into it in a little bit more detail:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12432006/Unalienable-vs-Inalienable-Rights-Know-the-difference
http://www.freedomforallseasons.org/UnalienableRightsNew.dwt.asp
July 4, 2010, 9:04 pmDenver says:
This is quite a fun read, considering it is 89 years old.
The Declaration of Independence in American
by H. L. Mencken
“But when things get so bad that a man ain’t hardly got no rights at all no more, but you might almost call him a slave, then everybody ought to get together and throw the grafters out, and put in new ones who won’t carry on so high and steal so much, and then watch them.”
Which, I think, is quite pertinent in today’s world.
http://www.io.com/gibbonsb/mencken/declaration.html
July 4, 2010, 9:54 pmIf they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. « poplicola says:
[...] If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. Posted on July 5, 2010 by poplicola http://volokh.com/2010/07/04/if-they-are-endowed-with-inalienable-rights-that-is-final/ [...]
July 5, 2010, 2:22 amCornellian says:
Cornellian: If all men are created equal, that is final.It’s a good thing for women that it wasn’t final.
The only ones who deny that “men” in this context means “human beings” are those who want to screw boys [not “men”] — or screw us all.
That’s your argument? Anyone who doesn’t agree with you must be a pedophile?
Let’s consider some more of the text:
“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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Considering they went on to set up a government which didn’t require the consent of women, either they themselves set up a government which did not justly possess its powers, at least as far as women were concerned, or “Men” means what it says.
July 5, 2010, 3:47 amwm13 says:
Most of the comments here on the use of the word “men” are pretty ahistorical. If you want to understand the past (or any culture other than your own), you have to enter into the mental universe of its inhabitants. On this particular issue, ask yourself, are children created equal and do children have the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? If so, why can’t they vote or drink or make contracts? If not, does that mean that they can be killed and imprisoned with impunity?
Of course, most people today would say that the foregoing are silly, tendentious questions, which have perfectly good answers, but not yes/no answers. And most people in 1776 would have said the same about similar questions involving women.
July 5, 2010, 11:51 amPubliusFL says:
They also set up a government that, in most cases, didn’t require the consent of those who did not own property. Do you think their definition of “men” was “sane adult male human non-felon property owners,” or do you think their concept of “consent of the governed” was a little more nuanced than you allow?
July 5, 2010, 11:52 amRandy says:
Robert Leeper: “I apologize to all for the tone and illogicality of my post, but stand by the substance.”
I have a hard time separating the logic from the substance of your post. It would be helpful if you clarified. Thanks.
As for “men,” I think there are two traditional use of the word. It can refer to everyone, as in ‘mankind’, or it can refer specifically to adult males, but not females or children. Devining which the author means can be troublesome, and it’s the inexactitude of the English language which is at fault.
My belief is that in the reference to “all men are created equal”, Jefferson meant all people, including women. Why? Because there is no reason to think that he would say that men are all equal among themselves, but women are so different that there are differences among women. He might think that women are inferior in some fashion to men, but we don’t know even that.
On the other hand, he was a product of his times, and I don’t think that when he said government derives it legitimacy from the consent of men, that he was using it in terms of everyone, including women. Clearly, women had no role in government or their representation, various English queens notwithstanding.
However, Jefferson also realized that times change and left open the possibility that the Constitution and our laws might adapt and change depending upon prevailing mores and thoughts of equality. Indeed, one would hope that he looked forward to a future whereby blacks were no longer considered slave material.
July 5, 2010, 12:58 pmLitigator London says:
The recent research on the substitution of “citizen” for “subject” in Jefferson’s draft is revealing. The two words have a very different meaning. For example, when I was born in 1944, I was a British Subject and a Citizen of the UK and Colonies, a Canadian was a British Subject and a Citizen of Canada, and so on, i.e., the status of “subject” denoted allegiance to the Crown, while the status of “citizen” was territorial in nature. Obviously, if one is renouncing one’s allegiance to the Crown, logically one is no longer a “subject” and “citizen” is the logical alternative.
What I have always found interesting about the Declaration of Independence is that it very much reads like a bill of particulars claiming rescission of the social contract between monarch and subjects.
I assume that every legislator in a colonial legislature, every member of a Governor’s Council, every Governor and Officeholder and every Judge or Magistrate would have taken the Oath of Allegiance. I suppose that many of them, although disposed to a new constitutional settlement, would have been troubled by the binding nature of their Oaths of Allegiance to the Crown.
Were all these particulars of breach designed to convince the doubters that they were absolved of their Oaths by the wrongful acts of the monarch and could with good conscience regard themselves as being dispensed from their allegiance? Still, it is surprising that so many of the “great and good” were prepared to treat their Oaths as if they mattered not, since it is not something a gentleman did in those days. That is why I find the whole concept of the Daughters of the American Revolution somewhat absurd, why be interested in your lineage if it only proves that you are descended from a traitor?
There were, of course, some loyalists who did honour their Oaths. I think about 20% of the populations of the rebellious colonies upped sticks and went elsewhere, notably to Canada (I suppose to Canada’s gain), and I am pleased that the Jacobite heroine Flora MacDonald returned home to the Isle of Skye and is buried in Kilmuir Cemetery there.
July 5, 2010, 1:43 pmMark Field says:
Should we assume, L-L, that you’re descended from a long line of non-jurors?
July 5, 2010, 2:27 pmleo marvin says:
L-L,
While you’ve been lamenting your treasonous American subjects, there’s been some bad news about your other colonies.
July 5, 2010, 4:53 pmOwen H. says:
LL, it may interest you to know that at first the majority of the colonists, including such notables as John Adams, considered themselves to be loyal Englishmen and subjects of the Crown, and only turned to Independence when the Crown and Parliament persisted in denying them the rights and privileges of British citizenship, instead treating them as second class citizens and worse. They kept their oaths until the Crown failed to hold up Its end of the bargain.
July 5, 2010, 5:01 pmLitigator London says:
Indeed. If one reads Jefferson’s “A Summary View of the Rights of British America”, what was being sought seems very much akin to the solution adopted by the Statute of Westminster whereby the different dominions of the Crown each acquired their own executive upon whose advice the Crown would act in relation to that dominion such that the Crown in right of Canada is separate and co-equal with the Crown in right of the UK.
And of course, the situation constitutional settlements may evolve yet further – for example, the Canadian Parliament could one day decide to abolish the monarchy and the Act would undoubtedly receive the Royal Assent.
Perhaps evolution is better than revolution.
July 5, 2010, 6:38 pmOwen H. says:
Only if the Crown had been willing to go that route 235 years ago. And without our example, would they have ever changed?
July 5, 2010, 9:25 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Thanks for acknowleding that. I hesitate to bring it up anymore because people (men) seem to get so irritated when I do. I have to think that if the generic term for people was “women” so you guys had to guess whether you’re meant or not, you’d see the issue differently.
I suspect he never thought it through. Women had their place and presumably liked it, or if they didn’t they kept it to themselves because the blowback was too harsh if they didn’t. He probably would have been shocked if women even expressed the desire to vote or to hold office, let alone thinking they should have the option.
If he did, he didn’t look forward to it to the extent that he would free his own, which it was certainly in his power to do. Neither did Patrick “give me liberty or give me death” Henry.
July 5, 2010, 9:46 pmLitigator London says:
It’s worth pointing out that “the Crown” was not at fault so much as the ministers advising the Crown.
But you are right to say that the loss of some of the American colonies came as a rude awakening and sowed the seeds of the thinking which led to the Statute of Westminster and the gradual evolution of the Empire into the Commonwealth. Still, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, etc, Head of the Commonwealth, visits the United Nations today in the year before we celebrate her Diamond Jubilee.
The virtue of our pragmatic and flexible constitutional arrangements are that the they do permit evolution rather than revolution and I do wonder whether the relative inflexibility of the US constitutional settlement was such a good idea after all. Time alone will tell.
July 6, 2010, 2:47 amLitigator London says:
The BBC’s Royal correspondent did an on-line piece on HM’s coming address to the UN:
“For nearly 60 years she has performed the role of a constitutional monarch and put scarcely a foot wrong. She has witnessed much – more, in fact, than any previous sovereign when you consider her worldwide travel. But she has revealed little or nothing of her own conclusions about the state of the world.
That is the way she and the governments of the 16 countries of which she is head of state prefer it, to say nothing of the Commonwealth of 52 countries of which she is head, countries which, incidentally, between them represent nearly one third of the world’s population.
In short, Queen Elizabeth is the most experienced head of state in the world, outlasting dozens of presidents and prime ministers. From Eisenhower to Obama in the United States: Churchill to Cameron in the United Kingdom, she has known them all as they have come and gone. She, though, has remained.
That does not automatically mean that she is the possessor of any particular wisdom or special insights but, given that it is almost unprecedented for her to draw on the experience of her reign in a speech about world affairs, it does make her address to the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) more than usually interesting.
But the very fact that she has been a constant presence on the world stage for nearly 60 years, and that she has such a broad mandate (if indeed that is the right term for someone who gained her position by succession rather than election) means that her views carry a particular resonance.
Buckingham Palace regards it as one of the most important speeches she has made in recent years. The governments of all 16 “realms” of which she is Queen, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, have all been consulted about what she should say, as indeed has the Commonwealth. And I understand that the Queen herself has taken a more than usual hands-on interest in the speech. She, after all, is the person who will have to stand in front of the diplomatic missions of the UN’s 192 member nations.
She, more than anyone, knows that you cannot accept an invitation from the UN’s secretary general to address the General Assembly (in her case for the first time since 1957) and not have something worthwhile to say. No-one should suppose that the Queen is going to break the habits of her reign and deliver a political speech. She is not. But she is expected to talk about leadership in the modern world and to offer a perspective on the role of the UN. It will be a subtle speech.
In some areas the underlying thrust of what she is trying to say may not be readily apparent, which perhaps will make it all the more intriguing for the diplomats – some of whom probably were not even born when she stepped on to the world stage as Queen in 1952. But listen carefully perhaps they should. There will not be many occasions when this world body will be addressed by someone with anything like the experience of the small woman with the silver hair and large hat, who will step up to the podium of the General Assembly later today.”
July 6, 2010, 6:03 amcboldt says:
– Unalienable” (per Black’s Law Dictionary) means that these rights “are INCAPABLE of being alienated, that is sold and transferred”. “Inalienable”, on the other hand are “rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the CONSENT of those possessing such rights”. –
July 6, 2010, 10:23 amMy take on the phrase that uses “inalienable rights” is more in line with the CANNOT be taken from one and given to another. Not that they can’t be taken; my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness can all be taken away by an entity in possession of superior force.
Restating the complete premise: “People are individuals with personal wants, and band together for the mutual protection of their lives and the freedom to go where they want and do what they want.”
Lunch Links | The Agitator says:
[...] other day we praised Harding. Today, some love for Calvin Coolidge. Digg it | reddit | del.icio.us | [...]
July 6, 2010, 1:15 pmleo marvin says:
Betty White (U.S.) vs. the Queen (U.K.), one game of beer pong for all the marbles (i.e., global domination). Both are spry, admirable, likable octogenarians. And in world affairs they’re about equally relevant.
July 6, 2010, 5:57 pmChrisTS says:
London Litigator:
I believe it is well-established among historians and political theorists that the DoI was, indeed, a public argument for dissolving the relationship of the people of the colonies with the British government. Grounded in a Lockean theory of natural law and natural rights, the DoI lists the shocking violations of natural justice by the King.
While it might have been more pleasing to the British government had the colnoists waited for evolution, you will not be surprised [I hope] that we citizens of the U.S. are rather fond of our nation and approve of the results of the revolution.
Meanwhile, we like your queen and all look forward to seeing her outfits.
July 7, 2010, 3:18 pmChrisTS says:
On ‘inalienable’ and ‘unalienable’: It’s worth noting that spelling was an imprecise art even in the 1700′s – and that Jefferson picked up the concept from Locke, whose spelling was erratic.
As far as I know, most scholars believe the concept outlined in the DoI is that of rights that a person cannot, even if he wishes, ‘alienate’ in the sense of giving away. We can consent to have another protect or enforce our rights on our behalf, as a fiduciary power, but we cannot give any person or party the full ownership of rights that are ours by virtue of our humanity.
I tell my students to imagine invisible rubber bands connecting their personhood with their natural rights. We can let others run with those rights, to an extent, but we cannot sever them from ourselves.
July 7, 2010, 3:24 pm