FEATURED
While most Americans grew up hearing that the Declaration of Independence was a revolutionary document giving Americans “the right to blow things up,” a group of conservative scholars recently argued the Founding Fathers penned a thoughtful foundational statement that served as a rational basis for the emerging country.
The declaration is “the most monumental statement of human liberty written in the English language,” said Matthew Spalding, a constitutional government professor at Hillsdale College and one of three panelists who spoke at a recent event dissecting the document.
Hosted by the center-right National Association of Scholars, the mid-May webinar was one in the group’s new series “1776 in Mind” commemorating America’s 250th anniversary.
Spalding, who oversees the Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship at Hillsdale’s Washington, D.C. campus, emphasized the document has a “narrative of its own, so that the declaration would tell its own story,” and does not need to be read through the biased lenses of interpreters.
Spalding said the text reveals that the founders were not just frustrated revolutionaries but well versed in British history and government, citing the influences of classical politics and Christianity on the declaration.
Spalding pointed to phrases like “prudence will dictate” in the declaration that sound more rational than revolutionary, and added what the founders argue for is “not an abstract, revolutionary right, à la the French revolution,” but rather “what makes America revolutionary is a change in ideas, but it’s not actually a revolution, rather a founding.”
Fellow panelist Hans Eicholz, a historian and Liberty Fund senior fellow, built on Spalding’s remarks by emphasizing the necessity of situating America’s founding documents historically to fully understand how they interact and what the declaration means amid them.
Eicholz pointed to the fact that the colonies discussed the question of virtual representation as early as 1765, leading to a debate about the American position on representation in British parliament that “intensifies over the course of the 1760’s all the way up to the eve of the American Revolution.”
To view the declaration in its proper historical context, Eicholz looked at how political pamphlets of the time reiterated similar themes. He pointed out that using these pamphlets as historical sources “bring[s] all this rich complexity out,” including “critique of the abuses to which power, wielded by whichever institution, is subject.”
In the same way that Spalding called the declaration a document more of American founding than one of revolution, Eicholz emphasized its rational arguments for a new form of government over how the British responded to it.
The webinar’s final speaker was Paul Carrese, professor in the School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University and director of the ASU Center for American Civics.
Carrese called the declaration “a proto-constitutional document” and echoed Eicholz with a similar desire for its historical context to be remembered and re-emphasized.
Carrese pointed to the federal system of government born out of the Continental Congress where all 13 colonies attended and helped edit and amend the declaration, resulting in what he termed a “coherent, consistent, package of ideas being implemented by statesmen over a period of 15 years.”
Like Spalding and Eicholz, Carrese emphasized the founding nature of the declaration, and reiterated its “prudent” argument for human rights rather than merely “the right to blow things up” more characteristic of a revolutionary document.
Addressing what Americans are celebrating on the 250th anniversary of independence later this year, Carrese highlighted the “civic importance of the Declaration of Independence, still today.”
Carrese emphasized the American notion that “the pursuit of happiness would include risking your life for sacred honor to maintain human rights” beyond simply wanting to revolt.
Carrese called this “the civic mission of the document,” and a reminder to every American today that the country was founded prudently and thoughtfully, on more than just a revolutionary spirit.
To view the other panels in the series, visit NAS’ website.
