THE CHANGING INTERPRETATION OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE,

1776-1863

Andrew Odell Honors Thesis 8 April 2011

Committee:

Dr. Richard Gamble Dr. David Raney Dr. R.J. Pestritto

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In a time when rancorous political debate rages over the proper interpretation of the

Constitution of the United States, very few argue over the meaning of the Declaration. To be

sure, conservatives and liberals disagree about the exact implications of its meaning, but all

generally agree that the Declaration holds a particular promise for particular groups of people—

or for mankind in general. After all, what else could these famous words of the so-called

Preamble of the Declaration mean?

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.1

Perhaps the most famous thirty-five words in the American canon, they are universally

understood as announcing the Founders’ belief in natural, unalienable rights for all men.

Abraham Lincoln provided perhaps the classic and definitive statement of the meaning of the

Declaration in his Gettysburg Address in 1863. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers

brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the

proposition that all men are created equal.”2

The interpretation of the Declaration after the Gettysburg Address is dominated by this

idea that the Declaration’s central principle was a promise of equality, both to America, and

eventually to the world. In a speech entitled “The Inspiration of the Declaration,” President

Calvin Coolidge provided an example of these two canons of interpretation. Clearly, the

Declaration was more than an announcement of political independence. “We are obliged to

For Lincoln, the nation was born at the issuance of

the Declaration, and it was committed to a particular idea, equality, from its founding.

1. Declaration of Independence. 2. Gary Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America (New York: Simon & Schuster,

1992), 263.

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conclude,” he acknowledged, “that the Declaration of Independence represented the movement

of a people.” But even more than that:

We can not escape the conclusion that [the Declaration] had a much broader and deeper significance than a mere secession of territory and the establishment of a new nation. Events of that nature have been taking place since the dawn of history . . . They have occurred too often to hold the attention of the world and command the admiration and reverence of humanity. There is something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that event would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused it to be regarded as one of the great charters . . . .

This led directly into the second: the idea that the Declaration held promise for more than just

America and its citizens. Indeed, as Coolidge continued, the Declaration was “not only…to

liberate America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity.”3

But was this the original intent of the Declaration, so to speak? Is this conception of the

document—an articulation of an abstract principle of equality applicable to all ages and holding

promise for all people—one that the drafters and signers of the document would recognize? Was

this the Declaration they had in mind? The answer seems to be no, although the history of the

shift in the interpretation of the document is no simple story. The small amount of existing

scholarship on the question identifies a clear shift in the understanding and interpretation of the

Declaration, and at least one author finds a clear culmination in Lincoln.

Few in the modern world have

dared to depart from these basic interpretive schemes.

4

3. Calvin Coolidge, “The Inspiration of the Declaration of Independence,” Calvin Coolidge Memorial

Foundation, http://www.calvin-coolidge.org/html/the_inspiration_of_the_declara.html (accessed March 1, 2011).

Surprisingly, however,

no systematic history of the shift in interpretation exists. This thesis brashly seeks to step into

the gap and attempt a cursory examination of the change in interpretation from the time of the

signing of the Declaration in 1776, until Lincoln’s famous explications, as summed up at

4. Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making of the Declaration of Independence, reprint, (New York:

Vintage Books, 1997).

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Gettysburg in 1863. Moreover, it seeks to answer the question by focusing on public, political

rhetoric, primarily Fourth of July orations. As public declarations, political speeches and even

some sermons are intended to appeal to an audience, requiring them to articulate a view of their

subject that is popular. In other words, orations, and particularly those delivered at Fourth of

July celebrations, generally seek to present material with which their audiences agree.

Comparing and contrasting these utterances finds that the change in interpretation generally

confirms the hypothesis set out by Philip Detweiler: that by the time of Lincoln the interpretation

of the Declaration had shifted decisively, moving from a mere statement of the reasons for

independence from the British monarch, to a document that declared abstract principles of

natural right and equality in such a way as to promise them to Americans, and even to the

world.5

The standard source for information on the reception of the Declaration of Independence

is Pauline Meyer’s American Scripture, which itself bases much of its argument upon the work

of Detweiler. Taken in combination, the two clearly argue that the people of 1776 understood

the Declaration to be no more than a defense of separation from Great Britain that did not

articulate anything particularly unique to its time. Indeed, after it was signed, “The Declaration

was at first forgotten almost entirely.”

The history of the interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, as presented

incompletely here, suggests a far more cautious approach to attempts to declare the true meaning

of the document, and should spur further research on this question.

6

5. Philip F. Detweiler, “The Changing Reputation of the Declaration of Independence: The First Fifty

Years,” William and Mary Quarterly Third Series 18, no. 4 (Oct. 1926).

Maier identified at least ninety documents that were, in

their own right, declarations of independence issued by local communities, and even states,

6. Maier, American Scripture, 154.

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between April and July 1776.7 Consequently, the Declaration of the Continental Congress in

July 1776 appeared unremarkable, as all these publications tended to articulate the same reasons

for separation. That separation, ultimately, was the subject of these documents, even the

Declaration of Congress. “Although they did not ignore the phrases of the preamble,” the

language regarding natural rights and equality, the American public “viewed the Declaration

principally as a proclamation of independence.”8 Indeed, regardless of the position of an

individual on the war—whether one was a patriot or Tory—all understood that “the Declaration

of Independence was the formal proclamation of this change.” They did not focus on the

preamble—that now-famous statement of equality and rights—but instead “attention centered

upon the conclusion—the announcement of independence.”9 The day itself was a cause for great

celebration—after all, the Declaration had finally announced the independence of the colonies

from the oppression of Great Britain, a moment for which many had long been waiting. And as

the instrument of that proclamation, the Declaration featured prominently in the subsequent

celebrations in 1776. Maier described the frequent public readings of the document as it spread

throughout all the land, and the accompanying “festivities,” including gun salutes, toasts,

bonfires to burn regal memorabilia or mementos, and other similar activities.10 All the

celebration, however, was for “the news, not the vehicle that brought it.”11

7. Maier, American Scripture, 48.

In other words, the

former colonists celebrated the act of independence, not specifically the document by which

independence came to be.

8. Detweiler, “Changing Reputation,” 557-558. 9. Ibid., 558. 10. Maier, American Scripture, 155-160. 11. Ibid., 160.

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This celebration of the event continued on into the war years, and even the period before

the ratification of the Constitution, beginning with the first anniversary celebrations conducted in

a few cities, including Charleston, South Carolina, and Boston, Massachusetts.12 The first few

anniversaries were marked with enthusiasm. In Boston in 1777, Fort Independence and ships in

the harbor fired a salute to open the day, a minister delivered a sermon, Governor John Hancock

“proposed thirteen toasts…punctuated by the crash of cannon fire in the street below,” and the

militia paraded, drilled and later launched fireworks.13 Celebrations in Philadelphia and

Charleston proceeded similarly, but in the latter, it “was something of an anticlimax after an

anniversary of more local import,” Palmetto Day—the commemoration of the South Carolinians’

repulsion of a British invasion on June 28, 1776. Published accounts of festivities in one town

would inspire other towns to hold similar celebrations the following year.14 Not all citizens,

however, participated in the celebrations. As “expressions of revolutionary ardor,” these

celebrations did not appeal to “loyalist or politically apathetic citizens,” who “simply stayed at

home while the revolutionaries celebrated their holiday.”15

12. Diana Karter Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth: An American Holiday, An American History (New

York: Facts On File, Inc., 1827), 19.

After the first couple of years, the

celebrations decreased in fervor. Len Travers documented the difficulties Congress had in

commemorating the day, particularly because it was frequently on the move during the war.

Moreover, Philadelphia was occupied by the British for much of the conflict, putting a damper

on the mood, and even in Boston and Charleston the celebrations never did reach the level of

excitement in 1777. Indeed, the celebrations in Boston seem not to have included orations, while

13. Len Travers, Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early

Republic (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 17-18. 14. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 18. 15. Ibid., 21.

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Palmetto Day continued to overshadow July 4.16 The picture painted is of an anniversary

commemorated by a small group of those intensely devoted to the Revolution, and what they

celebrated was the fact of their independence, with the Declaration involved only as the

instrument by which independence came. “Only with the successful conclusion of the war did

the Fourth of July cease to be the annual political rally of a revolutionary party and become the

national holiday of a sovereign people.”17

Maier noted one strange feature of all these celebrations: “Seldom if ever, to judge by

newspaper accounts and histories of the celebrations, was the Declaration of Independence read

publicly.”

18

16. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 25-27.

Indeed, the addresses and sermons delivered on July 4 in this period before the

Constitution, and even orations offered outside the context of Fourth of July festivities, declined

to speak of the Declaration in any way other than as a document announcing independence—if

they mentioned it at all. In what Detweiler identified as the first address ever given on the

subject of the Declaration, Peter Whitney, a New England clergyman, preached a sermon on the

topic of “American Independence Vindicated” in September 1776. While comparing the cause

of America to the revolt of Israel from Rehoboam, he quoted from several colonial documents,

including the Declaration of Independence, but also the Declaration on Taking Arms of 1775,

and even Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. The Declaration by no means took center stage.

Moreover, when he did quote from it, Whitney dwelt on the charges against the King, the second

part of the document, and some of the conclusion, the part that actually declared that the colonies

were independent states. He only mentioned the preamble, the “political theory” of the

17. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 21. 18. Maier, American Scripture, 162.

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document, by way of paraphrase: “When rulers, by leaping the bounds of constitution, violate the

covenant or compact, between them, and the people; the people are discharged from their oath of

allegiance, and it then is their right, their duty to oppose and resist them.”19

Whitney’s oration was not abnormal. An Election Day sermon preached in Boston in

May 1778 by Phillips Payson chose to speak about the habits, principles, and qualities of mind

necessary to maintain liberty in America. Presumably the Declaration would have factored

prominently in such a commentary, but Payson merely alluded to it once. Anticipating the

“future glory” of the country, he imagined, “We behold our country, beyond the reach of all

oppressors, under the great charter of independence, enjoying the purest liberty; beautiful and

strong in its union; the envy of tyrants and devils, but the delight of God and all good men; a

refuge to the oppressed; the joy of the earth . . . .”

Orators frequently

appealed to this articulation of the “right of revolution” in the Declaration, but rarely did any of

the other “rights” mentioned in the Declaration enter the conversation.

20

19. Peter Whitney, American Independence Vindicated: A Sermon Delivered . . . September 12, 1776 . . .

(Boston, 1777), 10, 39-40, 47, 50, quoted in Detweiler, “Changing Reputation,” 559.

Payson here openly celebrated the liberty

America had from Britain, resulting from the Declaration, “the great charter of independence.”

He hinted that America’s liberty would enable it to aid the world in some form, but this seemed

mainly a promise of general liberty, coming about in part because the knowledge that would

spread from America would enlighten the world. But he did not appeal to specific promises of

the Declaration, or to any abstract principles in the document. Rather, he understood it merely as

a declaration of freedom from a particular regime, along with the justifications for that

separation.

20. Phillips Payson, “A Sermon Preached Before the Honorable Council, and the Honorable House of

Representatives, of the State of Massachusetts-Bay, in New-England, at Boston, May 27, 1778 . . . ,” in John Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution: Political Sermons of the Period of 1776 (1860; repr., New York: Da Capo Press, 1970), 348.

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At the celebration of the second year of independence in Charleston, South Carolina,

David Ramsay, a member of the South Carolina legislature, offered a commentary on, “The

Advantages of American Independence.” He reminded his audience of the sufferings of the

colonies under British oppression, then marveled, “How widely different is our present situation?

The glorious fourth of July, MDCCLXXVI, repealed all these cruel restrictions . . . .” He

continued to sing the praises of the document, focusing on the fact that, by it, “the bands of

British government were dissolved . . . .”21 Independence certainly had its fruits, which he

enumerated, and they came as a direct consequence of the Declaration, but only because it was

the instrument which effected the separation. Admittedly, he ended his oration with a vision of

the promise of America to the world, but it was not a promise of equality based in the

Declaration, but rather one of independence. “Our sun of political happiness” had risen, he

explained, “illuminating our hemisphere with liberty, light, and polished life.” Moreover, “Our

independence will redeem one quarter of the globe from tyranny and oppression . . . We are

laying the foundation of happiness for countless millions.”22

21. David Ramsay, “The Advantages of American Independence,” in Frank Moore, American Eloquence:

A Collection of Speeches and Addresses, vol. 1 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1857), 314.

Ramsay anticipated America’s

independence providing an example for the world, but he did not embrace that fulfillment of this

promise required of America action abroad beyond the example of her conduct at home.

Incredibly, these two public addresses are some of the only ones given before 1783 that are

readily accessible. As such, the patterns noted should be taken as potentially indicative of a

trend, not as definitive proof. The patterns observed after the conclusion of the war in the

celebration of the Fourth of July, and the orations at these festivities, however, suggest these two

present an accurate picture of the rhetoric from 1776-1782.

22. Ramsay, “The Advantages of American Independence,” 317.

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Diana Applebaum noted the effect of successfully establishing the independence of the

American states, which “transformed” all Americans “into . . . patriot[s] ready to celebrate the

glorious cause.” Celebrations of the Fourth of July meant more now that independence had been

secured. Surprisingly, though, “As the war receded into memory, the Fourth of July lost

popularity. A holiday that been celebrated to promote the cause of independence and then, in

1783, with special enthusiasm as a victory celebration, seemed less important now that

independence was secure. Celebrations were fewer and smaller in the years after the war . . . .”23

Indeed, Travers observed that, “The survival of Independence Day was an open question in the

early 1780s.”24 He argued that, “The Fourth of July had outlived its original function as a rite of

passage in the immediate sense. If it was to continue . . . it would have to acquire new

significance.”25 Maier chimed in: “It was as if that document had done its work in carrying news

of Independence to the people, and neither needed nor deserved further commemoration.”26 In

Boston, Independence Day celebrations replaced a tradition of commemoration of the date of the

Boston Massacre of 1775, as decreed by town ordinance in 1783. The fact that independence

had been won suggested to the town selectmen that it would be more suitable to remember this

date, as opposed to one that aroused hatred for the British. They also saw in the celebration, and

particularly the prescribed oration, which was to “consider the feelings, manners, and principles”

of the Revolution, a chance to provide education in republicanism for a new generation. “The

new holiday would be a constructive exercise in citizenship as well as patriotism.”27

23. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 26.

24. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 31. 25. Ibid., 30. 26. Maier, American Scripture, 162. 27. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 33-35, 49.

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Philadelphia soon demonstrated a similar desire to commemorate the Fourth—many citizens

were concerned with the “lackluster observances” after the British occupation ended—but in

Charleston, citizens did not immediately continue the celebration with any kind of patriotic

festivities. For the first few years, attempts at any kind of festivities ended in severe anti-

Loyalist riots.28 A desire to avoid this type of violence led the more important members of cities

throughout the states to seek to carefully organize and control the elements of the celebrations to

keep them from degenerating into popular outpourings of emotion, which often ended poorly.

Travers described the difficulty as a “delicate balancing act between [patriotic] ‘intoxication,’”

an emotion generally agreed upon as needed for the maintenance of the republic, and “civil

reinforcement.”29 Because the Revolution had been the “product of a rational process in an age

of reason . . . it ought to be celebrated in a rational, decorous manner.”30 The near-scripting of

celebrations also demonstrated the desire to “make the Revolution meaningful not only for

themselves, but for all time.”31

In this period, just as during the war, orations generally took no notice of the language of

equality in the Declaration. In 1783, John Warren offered an address in Boston that featured a

motif that came to dominate interpretations of the Founding, one that inquired into the principles

of the nation. For Warren, virtue was “the true principle of republican governments,” and its

The difficulty, of course, was determining just what the

Revolution meant.

28. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 38-41. 29. Ibid., 65-66. 30. Ibid., 68. 31. Ibid., 67.

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object was “to secure the liberties of the community.”32 He explored manifestations of these

principles throughout history, and then expounded on the American experience. Praising

American resistance in the face of British policies, he described the Declaration as the American

audacity “to pass the irrevocable decree that forever cut asunder the ties that bound you to a cruel

parent, assumed your rank among the nations of the world, and instituted a new epoch in the

annals of your country.”33 “Generations yet unborn,” he waxed eloquent, “shall read with

rapture that distinguished page . . . and celebrate to the latest ages of this republic the anniversary

of that resolution of the American Congress, which gave the rights of sovereignty and

independence to these United States.”34 Warren’s speech continued the pattern of focusing on

the Declaration as simply that: a declaration of separation from Great Britain, not a document

that established a new nation upon certain principles. The following year in Boston, Benjamin

Hichborn commemorated July 4, “the event which has made a new era in the annals of the world

. . . the day which gave existence to thirteen states, and freed their numerous inhabitants from

disgrace and wretchedness . . . .”35

32. John Warren, “An Oration Delivered July 4, 1783,” in Edward Warren, The Life of John Warren, M.D.,

(Boston: Noyes, Holmes, and Company, 1874), 534-535.

But his address took a different tact than Warren’s.

Hichborn sought to warn the young nation of the dangers of departing from her republican

principles, the chief of which, “the main pillar in the great temple of liberty,” was having “every

power in government which could possibly be fraught with danger annually returning to the

33. Warren, “An Oration Delivered July 4, 1783,” 546. 34. Ibid. 35. Benjamin Hichborn, “An Oration Delivered July 5th, 1784 at the Request of the Inhabitants of the

Town of Boston; in Celebration of the Anniversary of American Independence,” in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 18527 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 6-7.

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people, the great source from which it flowed.”36

A 1785 oration by John Gardiner, also delivered in Boston, was devoted to “The First

Citizen in the World, the Most Illustrious George Washington.” In it, he gave some

consideration to the “feelings, manners, and principles which led to that great national event,

which we now commemorate.”

Notably, he did not chose to express this

principle, or the others he identified, in language that even remotely reflected that of the

preamble of the Declaration. Admittedly, he did recognize what a modern reader would term the

“right of self government,” which received recognition in the Declaration in the clause

explaining that government derived its “just powers from the consent of the governed,” but

Hichborn did not choose to use language that paralleled the Declaration, suggesting that there

was nothing particularly authoritative about the Declaration.

37 He also traced throughout history an argument that, “The

introduction and progress of freedom,” illustrated in America, “have generally attended the

introduction and progress of letters and science.”38 Tracing this pattern through the American

story, he mentioned the Declaration, but only in one short paragraph. “The great, the important

day is come; let the world of man rejoice! Congress declare, and their illustrious President, the

late proscribed Hancock, our beloved townsman, proclaims, that ‘we abjure the British tyrant,

and that America is sovereign, free, and independent!’”39

36. Hichborn, “An Oration Delivered July 5th, 1784,” 13.

His description lacked any notion of

the Declaration as a statement or promise of natural rights or equality, seeing instead a day that

marked independence, in which the document itself did not seem the most important part. At

37. John Gardiner, “An Oration Delivered July 4, 1785, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of

Boston, in Celebration of the Anniversary of American Independence,” in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 19017 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 7-8.

38. Gardiner, “An Oration Delivered July 4, 1785,” 10. 39. Ibid., 31.

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one point, his address mentioned both equality and natural rights—he offered the pursuit of both

as a reason some colonists sought to leave England—but in no way did he connect them to the

Declaration. And even though he suggested that the world should rejoice at American

independence, he did not see America as an example to be exported. Rather, she should

“cheerfully open . . . [her] arms to the industrious, and to the oppressed, of every nation, tongue,

and kindred.” She had to “extend . . . to all” the “peace, liberty, and safety” given to her by

God.40

As the fledgling nation began to experience crises, orations appealed to the past as a kind

of guide for conduct in the present. Jonathan Austin’s 1786 oration, also delivered in Boston,

provided a fine example. Given just weeks before tensions flared up in Massachusetts in what is

now called Shay’s Rebellion, the oration mingled rejoicing with a sense of the imminent crisis.

He lacked any notion, though, that America was an example to the world of adherence to

a principle of universal equality.

41

He praised the “auspicious day,” the “natal day of their political existence,” forever “to be . . .

remembered with joy,” so long as “these United States can maintain with honour and applause

the character they have so gloriously acquired.”42 He reminded them of the spirit of their

ancestors, who dared “boldly to renounce the arbitrary mandates of a British Parliament,” to

“appeal to God, who first planted the principles of natural freedom in the human breath—

principles, repeatedly impressed on our infant minds by our great and glorious ancestors.”43

40. Gardiner, “An Oration Delivered July 4, 1785,” 36.

As

41. Gerd Hurm, “The Rhetoric of Continuity in Early Boston Orations,” in The Fourth of July: Political

Oratory and Literary Reactions, 1776-1876, Paul Goetsch and Gerd Hurm, eds. (Tubingen, Germany: Muller + Bass, 1992), 66.

42. Jonathan L. Austin, “An Oration Delivered July 4, 1786, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town

of Boston, in Celebration of the Anniversary of American Independence,” in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 19482 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), 5.

43. Austin, “An Oration Delivered July 4, 1786,” 7.

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Gerd Hurm observed, “This triad of providential religion, public virtue, and ancestral tradition is

developed further in the oration,” and is a pattern repeated in many other Fourth of July

orations.44 Describing the contest between Britain and America as the assertion by one party of

its right to impose its will on the other, and the other party denying any assertion of this right, he

spoke with high praise of “this glorious birth-day of our independence,—a day, which cut the

cords that bound us to an unnatural parent.” He continued his description of American

“emancipation,” the day on which America was “arrayed in the glorious garb of independence . .

. [and] seated among the nations of the world,” driving home his understanding of the Fourth of

July as marking the independence of America from Britain.45 Hurm contended that this oration

actually provided a counter to the expression of equality and natural rights in the Declaration,

noting the appearance of the “Lockean-Federalist” triad of “life, liberty, and property,” as

opposed to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” “The principle of equality,” he wrote,

continued to be “absent from the communal traditions of the forefathers,” helping in his mind to

explain the commercial elitism expressed in the speech.46

44. Hurm, “Rhetoric of Continuity,” 66.

Perhaps Hurm observed a pattern in

other speeches, of which Austin’s was an example, but he provided no other documentation for

this claim. Moreover, this observation of elitism in the speech strikes the reader as strange,

particularly as there are no explicit expressions of hostility for the principle of equality. To be

sure, Austin warned of the dangers of the unrest in the land—he specifically targeted the

tendency of the states to ignore requests for money from the Continental Congress—but he

nowhere chastised those who were not “elites.” He did praise the virtue of encouraging

manufactures, but he reciprocated the sentiments for agriculture. He seemed not to have a

45. Austin, “An Oration Delivered July 4, 1786,” 10. 46. Hurm, “Rhetoric of Continuity,” 70.

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pronounced disdain for equality, merely to have taken no notice of it, or given it little importance

in connection with the Fourth of July and the Declaration of Independence. The alternate

formulation of “life, liberty, and property,” found in other speeches, including Gardiner’s,

reflected a common, Lockean conception of natural rights, not necessarily a reaction against the

Declaration.47

That cautionary tone reached its height in an oration given by David Daggett in New-

Haven, Connecticut, on July 4, 1787. Surprising in its candid assessment of America, the speech

recalled the lofty expectations for the nation offered by earlier writers and orators and bemoaned

that “those brilliant scenes are not yet realized, but are intercepted by an almost impenetrable

gloom.” He found it difficult to maintain his belief that “God has designed this empire to be the

most illustrious on earth,” a “rather romantic” thought given “present appearances.”

In the final examination, then, Austin seems ambivalent to the Declaration, not

hostile.

48 Recalling

the revolution, he reminded his audience that their ancestors were then “wise enough to

distinguish between liberty and licentiousness,” a distinction forgot by the “ignoble contemptible

Shays,” the Massachusetts farmer who led the popular uprising that now bears his name.49

Continuing his denunciation, Daggert compared Shays to Cromwell and Caesar, articulated the

need for a change in government, and then praised the constitutional convention then in

session.50

47. Hurm, “Rhetoric of Continuity,” 70; Austin, “An Oration Delivered July 4, 1786,” 15.

He closed with the observation that the American Revolution, precipitated by the

Declaration, had “disseminated much useful knowledge thro’ the world.” This knowledge often

48. David Daggett, “An Oration, Pronounced in the Brick Meeting-House, in the City of New-Haven, on

the Fourth of July, A.D. 1787—It Being the Eleventh Anniversary of the Independence of the United States of America,” in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 23014 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 4.

49. Daggett, “An Oration, Pronounced . . . on the Fourth of July, A.D. 1787,” 15.

50. Ibid., 15-24.

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sprouted “just ideas respecting the rights of human nature,” but he did not further elaborate what

these rights might be.51 Thus, Daggert provided yet another example of a Fourth of July oration

that placed great importance on the actual proclamation of independence, but did not emphasize

the Declaration or mention it by name—let alone appeal to the preamble and its statements of

natural rights and equality. One cannot help but concur with Maier’s statement: “Considering

how revered a position the Declaration of Independence later won in the hearts and minds of the

American people, their disregard for it in the earliest years of the new nation verges on the

incredible.”52

Both Maier and Detweiler observed that other writings of the time supported the

proposition that the Declaration was “viewed primarily as the act of independence.”

53 Detweiler

illustrated his contention by appealing to the first histories of the Revolution, published in the

late 1780’s. One such history, by David Ramsay, accurately represented other histories, which

“reflected the stunted image of the Declaration,” presenting it as the act that separated the

colonies from Great Britain. Ramsay’s particular account omitted any mention of the committee

that drafted it, the authorship of Jefferson, or any language from the preamble.54 And yet, from

the time of the ratification of the Constitution through the War of 1812, political disputes

enveloped the celebration of independence. As a result of the bitter Federalist-Republican

controversies that dominated the time, the Declaration began to acquire the interpretation that

would eventually come to prevail.55

51. Daggett, “An Oration, Pronounced . . . on the Fourth of July, A.D. 1787,” 24.

With the Revolution fading into memory, “Americans

52. Maier, American Scripture, 160. 53. Detweiler, “Changing Reputation,” 564. 54. Ibid., 564-565. 55. Ibid., 565.

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discovered that, far from sharing a monolithic political outlook, they had decidedly differing

views of what the Revolution was supposed to have accomplished, or even whether the

Revolution was truly over.”56 The hostilities began as early as the time of ratification. So

divided over the Constitution, Federalist and Anti-Federalist mobs warred in Albany during

Fourth of July festivities in 1788, leaving one dead.57 The fight over the Constitution carried

over into the politics of the 1790’s and 1800’s, affecting the celebration of the Fourth of July.

Most celebrations took on a “distinctly Federalist flavor,” because Federalist ideas had basically

prevailed with the ratification of the Constitution. Clergymen, who often delivered orations at

the festivities, and members of the Society of Cincinnati, which played a prominent part in

organizing the celebrations, were generally Federalists. The festivities, therefore, often became a

celebration of the Constitution. Refusing to passively sit by, the Anti-Federalists, who soon

became the Democratic-Republicans, then just Republicans, responded by organizing their own

celebrations that emphasized the Declaration’s recognition of the equality principle.58

Hamilton’s successful economic program, followed by a boom-and-bust in 1791, soured

public opinion towards the Federalists, as did feelings towards the French Revolution. At first

seemingly American in character, the French Revolution grew increasingly bloody and radical,

causing the Federalists to denounce the French.

59

56. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 70.

The Federalists became doubly wary of the

Declaration at the onset of the Reign of Terror, because “the assertions of equality and

unalienable rights in the second paragraph of the Declaration…although different in formulation

from the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, still seemed too ‘French’ for the Federalists’

57. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 31.

58. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 38; Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 69.

59. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 88-89.

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comfort.” As Detweiler explained, the example of the French confirmed the Federalist fears of

rule by the people at large, seeming to justify them in their search for government by the

“‘better’ part of the people.”60 Moreover, the Federalists argued that the French had perverted

the concept of true liberty, which “could exist only under firm laws, only under a strong,

energetic (Federalist style) regime.”61 As hostilities between Britain and France grew and war

seemed inevitable, “The Declaration’s anti-British character was an embarrassment to a party

that sought economic and diplomatic rapprochement with the onetime Mother Country.”62 The

Republicans, however, continued to appeal to the Declaration to argue for supporting the

revolution in France. They saw the goals of this revolution as practically the same thing for

which America had fought in her struggles against Britain.63 Furthermore, Republicans

constantly suspected the elitist Federalists of attempting to return the country to a tyranny similar

to the one they overthrew in the Revolution. They began touting the “doctrines asserted in the

Declaration of Independence,” “natural Liberty and Equality, and Rights of Men,” in a large part

in support for the French, and this explanation of the Declaration grew in popularity when

Jefferson was elected President in 1801.64

60. Detweiler, “Changing Interpretation,” 567.

Detweiler identified perhaps the first history that

popularized this interpretation, Mercy Warren’s famous account of the Revolution, which

61. Ibid., 568. 62. Maier, American Scripture, 170. 63. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 89. 64. Barnabas Bidwell, A Summary Historical and Political Review of the Revolution, the Constitution, and

Government of the United States . . . , quoted in Detweiler, “Changing Reputation,” 570.

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celebrated the Declaration in glowing language. She “extolled ‘the principles that produced the

revolution,’ principles ‘grounded on the natural equality of man,’” among others.65

Fourth of July celebrations changed accordingly.

66 Both Republicans and Federalists

could agree on what became a time-honored tradition—paying homage to Washington as the

“first citizen” of his country—but they then quickly diverged. Republican orators would sing the

praises of the Declaration and the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, while Federalist speakers

would glory in the Constitution. Moreover, in pursuit of their generally pro-French agenda, the

Republicans “labored to make American response to the French Revolution a touchstone of

American patriotism.”67 Additionally, they tended to emphasize the American Revolution as

firing “the opening shots in a worldwide republican movement…They wanted their fellow

citizens to understand the Revolution as American in origin, but international in scope.”68

Fourth of July orations delivered around the time of ratification and in the years

immediately following the adoption of the Constitution betray the same striking lack of emphasis

on the Declaration’s pronouncement of natural rights and equality, but gradually they begin to

Republicans, therefore, appealed to American patriotism and love for the founding, as expressed

by the Declaration, in order to raise support for the cause of France. By contrast, Federalists

tended to praise the Constitution as the culmination of the American Revolution, referred very

little to the Declaration of Independence and even less to its articulation of equality and natural

rights, and cautioned against—even warned—citizens of the dangers of the French Revolution.

65. Mercy Warren, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution . . . , quoted

in Detweiler, “Changing Reputation,” 570-571.

66. Paul Goetsch, “The Declaration of Independence,” in The Fourth of July: Political Oratory and Literary Reactions, 1776-1876, Paul Goetsch and Gerd Hurm, eds. (Tubingen, Germany: Muller + Bass, 1992), 28.

67. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 91.

68. Ibid., 94-95.

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reflect the expected partisan bias. In 1788, Enos Hitchcock delivered an address at Providence,

Rhode Island, intended both to commemorate the “anniversary of American Independence,” but

also to celebrate the “accession of nine states to the Federal Constitution.”69 He described July

4, 1776, in familiar language: “Upon this day, which history will ever commemorate, America,

compelled by reiterated and atrocious acts of tyranny and oppression, declared her independency,

and determined, at all hazards to maintain it.”70 Noting America’s struggle to maintain her

existence in liberty since the winning of the war, he explained that, “We came into national

existence without national ideas, and therefore, could not have those arrangements which more

experience is suited to give.”71

Hitchcock announced his pride that, “The happy effects of the American revolution are

felt far beyond the bounds of America,” citing the supposed liberation of the “oppressed

Irelander” and the subsiding “bigotry of the Catholic, and the resentment of the Protestant.”

He nowhere makes any reference to the political theory of the

Declaration, at least not specifically, but his address does present an interpretive challenge.

72

69. Enos Hitchcock, “Oration: Delivered July 4, 1788, at the Town of Providence, in Celebration of the

Anniversary of American Independence, and of the Accession of Nine States to the Federal Constitution,” in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 21145 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 2.

Furthermore, he expressed the hope that, “The spark of liberty, which has been kindled on the

American altar, be blown into one pure universal flame, and irradiate the whole world of

intelligent beings.—No longer let the lovers of freedom impiously dare trample under foot the

natural rights of others—nor wrest, by violence or fraud, from their own domain, Africa’s

unoffending sons.—May the happy time be hastened when the reign of tyranny and oppression,

of every description, shall forever cease,—when the majesty of laws shall be superior to that of

70. Hitchcock, “Oration,” 8.

71. Ibid., 9. 72. Ibid., 21.

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Kings,—when the happy influences of a mild and benevolent religion shall be universally felt,

putting a final period to the baleful effects of bigotry, superstition and persecution for conscience

sake,—when the nations of the earth shall learn war no more!”73

In Savannah in 1788, Major William Pierce commemorated independence by quoting

from the Declaration the language in which the Americans “dissolved the political band which

had connected us with Great Britain, and assumed among the nations of the earth that separate

and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitled us.”

Hitchcock was not afraid to

apply the principle of American liberty to the situation of the slave. His approach differed from

later abolitionists, however, as these saw in the Declaration a promise of equality that the slaves

had not yet been granted. Hitchcock nowhere appeals to the specific language of the

Declaration, instead describing the “spark of liberty” in America and protesting the violations of

the “natural rights” of others. To be sure, this is the closest any of the orations examined to this

point have come to explicitly referring to the Declaration, but he still did not apply any particular

phrase of the Declaration to the situation at hand.

74 Unlike many of

the other addresses examined, this one did explicitly refer to the “rights of nature.” Pierce

claimed that the revolution taught men how to “define” these rights, which included the

“principles of physical, moral, religious, and civil liberty.”75

73. Hitchcock, “Oration,” 22.

He later praised America because,

“The rights of human nature, and the benefits of civil liberty, we contended for; the cause of all

mankind we engaged in.” None of this language, however, closely paralleled that of the

Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are

74. Major William Pierce, “An Oration Delivered at Christ Church, Savannah, on the 4th July, 1788, in

Commemoration of the Anniversary of American Independence,” in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 21393 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 4.

75. Pierce, “An Oration Delivered at Christ Church, Savannah . . . ,” 6.

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endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and

the pursuit of Happiness.” One might argue that these ideas were embedded within Pierce’s

conception of “the rights of human nature.” The end of his speech, however, calls this into

question. Continuing a motif common in Fourth of July orations, he urged his audience to “look

back and take a view of the principles on which our Revolution was founded; seriously observe

the objects for which we contended.” But what were these principles? “Harmony and good

order in society . . . a spirit of industry,” the abandoning of “all idle extravagance” and “ill-

founded animosities,” and the nurturing of “economy” and love of country, among others.76 And

a 1789 oration delivered by Samuel Stillman in Boston made almost no reference to the events of

July 4, 1776, other than to observe that, “The declaration of Independence at once annihilated the

diminutive term Colonies as applied to us, raised us to our equal station among the nations of the

world, and opened to us a source of great advantages.”77 He expressed excitement at America’s

“almost boundless” prospects for the future, one of which was “universal liberty as to religion,”

but he did not express a hope in America’s promise of equality, or even natural rights.78

A 1791 Fourth of July oration delivered at Worcester, Massachusetts, by Edward Bangs

lacked any explicit reference to the Declaration of Independence. He commemorated July 4 as

“an anniversary designed to bring to our remembrance those united and virtuous efforts which

made us all brethren,” but his speech is conspicuously subdued in its language. He favorably

contrasted the American quest to secure liberty with historical attempts, but his oration seemed

76. Pierce, “An Oration Delivered at Christ Church, Savannah . . . ,” 17.

77. Samuel Stillman, “An Oration, Delivered July 4th, 1789, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town

of Boston, in Celebration of the Anniversary of American Independence,” in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 22165 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 11.

78. Stillman, “An Oration, Delivered July 4th, 1789,” 28.

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designed more to urge obedience to the constitutional system and the duly-elected rulers.79 A

1792 Boston oration, however, by Joseph Blake, was far less subdued. When Congress

“pronounced the Declaration of Independence” in 1776, “Our pen, like the thunderbolt, in an

instant shook . . . [Britain’s] court. From its language was she convinced that within the

American vein thrilled a spirit too ardent for her controul.”80

In a change of medium, Nathan Williams preached a sermon as part of the celebration of

July 4, 1793, in Stafford, Connecticut, choosing a text from Psalms that allowed him to preach

on God’s loving kindness as displayed in the affairs of men, and particularly the American

experience. He never named the Declaration, merely remarking that, “It was evidently the will

of Heaven that the connection between Great-Britain and these American Colonies should be

If anything, though, the rest of the

oration was concerned with predicting a bright future for America, but not because of any

promise of the Declaration. Blake betrayed his political sympathies, undoubtedly already known

to his audience because of the partisan nature of the celebrations at this time, when he offered

high praise to Alexander Hamilton, whom he credited with opening the “springs of wealth” by

securing the American credit abroad. If Detweiler and Travers are correct, then this

identification of Blake as a Federalist, the party that generally supported Hamilton’s economic

program, explains the distinct lack of the Declaration from this speech given on Independence

Day.

79. Edward Bangs, “An Oration Delivered at Worcester, on the Fourth of July, 1791. Being the

Anniversary of the Independence of the United States,” in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 23145 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 5.

80. Joseph Blake, “An Oration, Pronounced July 4th, 1792, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of

Boston in Commemoration of the Anniversary of American Independence,” in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 24123 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 5.

Odell 25

dissolved.”81 The colonies “renounced allegiance to the King of Great-Britain, and declared

these colonies free and Independent states.” Complicating the picture, he did remark that “some

views of the rights of man, have been disseminated amongst the nations of Europe,” and

particularly in France. He also praised France’s “general aim” in seeking independence, but

simultaneously denounced its recent excesses.82 Williams’ oration reminds the historian that

there are no straight-forward answers to the question pursued, as this seemingly Republican

minister did not mention the Declaration once. On that same date, Elihu Palmer delivered an

oration at Philadelphia. Although this historian possesses what has been labeled an “Extract”

from this oration, it provides an excellent example of a Republican oration. From the outset, he

celebrated “the age of reason and philosophy” that had arrived to liberate the world from the

“pious alliance of church and state,” which had made men miserable.83 But, “King-craft and

priest-craft, those mighty enemies to reason and liberty, were struck with death by the genius of

1776.”84 He then lamented, in a confusing expression, that those who had demonstrated such

“manly firmness” in proclaiming independence should now “afford good ground of suspicion,

that their political principles are directed to the total destruction of LIBERTY and EQUALITY.”

“Beware, ye American aristocrats!” he continued, warning that the “genious of liberty” was

rousing to “emancipate the world.”85

81. Nathan Williams, “Carefully to Observe the Signatures of Divine Providence, a Mark of Wisdom.

Illustrated in a Sermon, Delivered in Stafford, on the Anniversary of American Independence, July 4th, A.D. 1793,” in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 26847 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 16.

Excited at the prospect of “the empire of reason . . .

sweep[ing] from off the earth this bundle of nonsense and oppression,” he praised the two

82. Williams, “Carefully to Observe the Signatures of Divine Providence,” 20. 83. Elihu Palmer, “Extracts from an Oration, Delivered by Elihu Palmer, the 4th of July, 1793,” in Early

American Imprints, First Series, no. 26015 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 22. 84. Palmer, “Extracts from an Oration,” 22.

85. Ibid., 23.

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revolutions in America and France for turning “the pursuit of man upon scientific principle into

the path of liberal discussion.”86

Moving west in the same state, Citizen Hugh Brackenridge gave an oration on the same

date in Pittsburgh. It did not refer to the Declaration, but he did indicate that the celebration of

July 4 meant that the events commemorated had had an effect “beyond the sphere of the states.”

It had spurred on France, and he urged excusing whatever “intemperance” had arisen in their

exertions for liberty, for “was there ever enthusiasm without intemperance?”

This oration provides the basic elements one would expect

from a Republican speech of the time: it clearly appealed to the preamble of the Declaration,

presenting liberty and equality as goals to be achieved, expressed support for the events in

France, and railed against the American aristocracy—a thinly-veiled shot at the Federalists.

87 He argued,

moreover, that America had to come to the aid of France should she desire or need it. Republics

had to unite in the face of tyranny, and “the heart of America feels the cause of France…Why

not? Can we be indifferent? Is not our fate interlaced with hers?”88 He imagined France calling

out to her “daughter America,” saying: “I know the dutifulness of they heart towards me; and

that thou art disposed to shew it, by taking part in this war.”89 Convinced that France would, in

the end, prevail, Brackenridge closed by remarking that, “The anniversary of the independence

of America will be a great epoch of Liberty throughout the world.”90

86. Palmer, “Extracts from an Oration,” 25.

These two orations

provided quintessential Republican pieces of rhetoric that both appealed strongly to a notion of

87. Citizen Brackenridge, “Oration by Citizen Brackenridge, on the Celebration of the Anniversary of

Independence,” in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 26015 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 28.

88. Brackenridge, “Oration by Citizen Brackenridge,” 29.

89. Ibid., 30.

90. Ibid., 31.

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the American Revolution, and even the Declaration, as promising equality and liberty to the

world.

In 1793, a young John Quincy Adams delivered the Fourth of July oration for Boston. In

accordance with the town ordinance, he examined the “feelings, manners and principles” which

led to independence.91 Adams was a Federalist at this time, but his speech proved somewhat

atypical. He generally recognized that July 4 marked the day on which the “representatives of

America . . . declared the United Colonies free, sovereign and independent states,” the day on

which “our national existence commenced.”92 But he also used high language to describe

independence. For example, he claimed that the act of independence “finally erected the holy

temple of American liberty, over the tomb of departed tyranny,” and he called the signers the

“venerable asserters of the rights of mankind.”93 Later, however, he described the contest as one

“involving the elementary principles of government—a question of right between the sovereign

and the subject,” not necessarily one over equality or natural rights.94 He ended with a

lamentation of the state of events in France, then a wish that “all the nations of Europe” should

“partake of the blessings of equal liberty and universal peace.”95 Indeed, the death of arbitrary

power in the world would mean the rise of the “fair fabric of universal liberty . . . upon the

durable foundation of social equality.”96

91. John Quincy Adams, “An Oration Pronounced July 4th, 1793, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the

Town of Boston, in Commemoration of the Anniversary of American Independence,” in E.B. Williston, ed. Eloquence of the United States. (Middletown, CT: E. & H. Clark, 1827), V:100.

92. Adams, “An Oration Pronounced July 4th, 1793,” V:103. 93. Ibid., V:104. 94. Ibid., V:107.

95. Ibid., V:108. 96. Ibid., V:109.

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The same year, in New Jersey, Elias Boudinot delivered an oration before the Society of

the Cincinnati in New Jersey. For him, the revolution established several principles, the first

being “the rational equality and rights of men as men and citizens.” He did offer a qualification,

though: “I do not mean to hold up the absurd idea charged upon us by the enemies of this

valuable principle . . . ‘that all men are equal as to acquired or adventitious rights.’ Men must

and do continually differ in their genius, knowledge, industry, integrity, and activity.”97 The

equality of rights he recognized were “natural, essential, and inalienable, such as the security of

life, liberty, and property.” He believed that “every man is born with the same right to improve

the talent committed to him, for the use and benefit of society.”98 Another important principle

was the “right that every people have to govern themselves,” a principle he claimed was

“interwoven with our constitution, and not one of the least blessings purchased by that glorious

struggle, to the commemoration of which this day is specially devoted, that every man has a

natural right to be governed by laws of his own making, either in person or by his

representative.”99

97. Elias Boudinot, “Oration Before the Cincinnati,” in Orations from Homer to William McKinley, Mayo Williamson Hazeltine, ed. (New York: P.F. Collier and Son, 1902), 8:2662.

Already providing one of the strongest expressions of the belief that the

Declaration stood for abstract principles, this oration is the first found by this historian that

attempted to apply the principles of equality and natural rights to women. He reminded them

that they had already been “raised from the humiliating state of your sex in most other

countries,” rejoicing in the fact that, “The rights of women are no longer strange sounds to an

American ear.” He hoped for the day when they should find these rights “dignifying, in a

98. Boudinot, “Oration Before the Cincinnati,” 8:2662. 99. Ibid., 8:2664.

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distinguishing code, the jurisprudence of the several States in the Union.”100

With the conclusion of the War of 1812, the Federalist Party basically disappeared from

politics, leaving the Jeffersonian Republican vision of the Declaration without any real

challenge, as both the Whigs and the Jacksonians claimed descent from the Jefferson

Republicans.

Tens of other

orations express similar sentiments but cannot be covered here because of space constraints.

They amply demonstrate, however, the conflict in interpretation between the Republicans and the

Federalists

101 Moreover, relatively peaceful relations with Great Britain meant that the

Declaration became less of an anti-British document. “The Declaration now emerged as a

charter to which the nation as a whole might subscribe.”102 The occasional Federalist orator still

aired his personal disagreements with Jefferson, minimizing the Declaration in the process. For

example, in an 1823 Fourth of July oration, Timothy Pickering “described the Declaration of

Independence as ‘a compilation of facts and sentiments’ previously stated by other defenders of

colonial rights,” and claimed that Congress “manifestly improved” the draft of the Declaration

with its edits, a back-handed swipe at Jefferson.103 Moreover, it appears that not all partisan

sympathies had disappeared—some politically neutral Fourth of July celebrations were

conducted in the morning so that the various parties could then hold their own dinners and toast

their own political candidates and “party heroes.”104

100. Boudinot, 2672.

Generally, however, Americans were

101. Maier, American Scripture, 171. 102. Detweiler, “Changing Interpretation,” 571. 103. Timothy Pickering, Col. Pickering’s Observations Introductory to Reading the Declaration of

Independence, at Salem, July 4, 1823 (Salem, Mass., 1823), quoted in Maier, American Scripture, 172. 104. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 53.

Odell 30

infected with a new spirit of nationalism, a sense of a distinct national character that

“transcended political and sectional identities.”105 Often referred to as the “Second War for

Independence,” victory in the War of 1812 encouraged widespread inquiry into the history of the

Revolution, and this generation made preservation of this history their “peculiar mission.”106

Moreover, this new spirit revived the Declaration of Independence, the interpretation of which

was now rarely contested along political lines. Travers quoted a South Carolinian who observed

two different Boston orations in 1822, “the Democratic and the Federal.” In a city that had been

predominantly Federalist before the war, the observer now identified both orations as

“Republican.”107 A new generation, “sensible of having survived a conflict with the same

enemies their parents had faced,” found that the “document’s defiant rhetoric spoke with new

meaning and vigor.”108

In 1821, a young Secretary of State John Quincy Adams expressed in soaring language

the idea that the Declaration articulated abstract principles of governance, as opposed to merely

severing political ties with Great Britain. In an address to the U.S. House of Representatives on

the Fourth of July, Adams declared that America had benefited mankind because, “With the

same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, [she] proclaimed to mankind the

extinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.” She had

proclaimed to all, even those who did not heed her call, “the language of equal liberty, of equal

justice, and of equal rights.” But, Adams was quite clear that America did not go “abroad, in

And it was during this time that the document acquired almost

universally the interpretation that would dominate.

105. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 205-206. 106. Maier, American Scripture, 177. 107. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 204. 108. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 206-207.

Odell 31

search of monsters to destroy.” She was the “well-wisher to the freedom and independence of

all,” but she would be the “champion and vindicator only of her own.”109

Not all rhetoric of the time embraced this new interpretation. For example, in an 1812

Fourth of July oration delivered before the Washington Benevolent Society in Pittsfield,

Massachusetts, William C. Jarvis offered a Federalist outlook on the country. For him, the

“gloomy hours of our revolutionary war,” which Independence Day commemorated, served to

teach the “value of a Constitution free in its principles, and calculated to be equal in its

operations.”

This continued the

tone set by earlier orations, which understood America as an example to the world, although

these early speeches emphasized America’s example of republican principles, while Adams

emphasized her example in the pronouncement of the principle of equality.

110 At two points, he referenced the independence gained on this day, but that was

the extent of the references to July 4. The Declaration of Independence was, at least to modern

ears, conspicuously absent. Jarvis devoted much of the address to praising the promotion of

commerce—a particularly New England Federalist concern—which the Constitution made

possible, and to honoring the memory of Washington.111

But these types of speeches were few and far between. Most were similar in thought to

Adams’s, or even to Daniel Webster’s magnificent orations. Interestingly enough, not all of his

speeches talked about the Declaration in the same terms. For example, in 1825, Webster

delivered an oration at the ceremonial laying of the corner stone of a monument to be built at

109. John Quincy Adams, “Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on Foreign Policy,” in American

Presidency: An Online Reference Resource (Charlottesville: Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 2011), http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3484 (accessed March 10, 2011).

110. William C. Jarvis, An Oration, Delivered at Pittsfield, Before the Washington Benevolent Society of

the County of Berkshire, on the 4th July, 1812 (Pittsfield: Milo Smith & Co., 1812), http://books.google.com/books?id=CPg-AAAAYAAJ (accessed April 1, 2011), 3.

111. Jarvis, An Oration, Delivered at Pittsfield, 17.

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Bunker Hill. He recreated this “first great battle of the Revolution” in his audience’s mind,

reminded them of the benefits of the Revolution, and then celebrated the rise of other liberty-

loving peoples throughout the world.112 Admittedly, this was not delivered at a celebration of

Independence Day, and yet assuredly the commemoration of Bunker Hill would have given

Webster, a fantastic orator, the opportunity to speak about the meaning of the Union in terms of

equality and the rights of man. And yet, the speech contained none of this language. The

Revolution, the origin of the Union, could still be talked about without reference to the

Declaration of Independence. Even when he talked about the “electric spark of Liberty,” ignited

in America, spreading to Europe, and the change in the world “greatly beneficial, on the whole,

to human liberty and human happiness,” he nowhere described the spread this spread by

appealing to language in the Declaration.113 He hoped that the country would become a

“splendid Monument . . . of Wisdom, of Peace, and of Liberty,” upon which the world might

gaze and marvel, but he did not see America as promising equality and natural rights to the

world.114

Just a year later, in August, Webster delivered the eulogy in Boston for both Thomas

Jefferson and John Adams, who had remarkably both died on the fiftieth anniversary of the

Fourth of July 1776, within hours of each other. Webster offered both the highest praise,

particularly for their role in the Declaration of Independence, “the most prominent act of their

lives.”

115

112. Daniel Webster, “An Address Delivered at the Laying of the Corner Stone of the Bunker Hill

Monument,” in E.B. Williston, ed. Eloquence of the United States (Middletown, CT: E. & H. Clark, 1827), V:302.

Clearly, Jefferson’s role as the drafter of the document, which in the era of rancorous

113. Webster, “An Address Delivered at the Laying of the Corner Stone,” V:311, 314. 114. Ibid., 321.

Odell 33

partisan dispute had been severely undercut and minimized, was now heralded.116 He then

progressed into the meaning of the Declaration, which still retained its role as the instrument by

which Congress stated its reasons for independence. Webster was clear that Jefferson did not

invent them, a point on which Jefferson himself agreed.117 But Webster failed to describe the

central purpose of the Declaration as laying out principles of equality and natural rights. Indeed,

his approach proved much more similar to addresses given decades before. Encouraging his

fellow citizens not to squander the “glorious liberty . . . the dear purchase of our fathers,” he

reminded them that it was “ours to preserve, ours to transmit.”118 This required faithfulness to

the principles their fathers, which were not laid out in a list, but seemed to include virtue,

religion, and morality, a formulation undoubtedly reflecting Washington’s Farewell Address.119

William Wirt pronounced a similar eulogy for both in October in Washington, D.C., in

the hall of the House of Representatives. Drawing his audience’s attention to the Revolution,

which “restored man to his ‘long lost liberty,’” he praised Adams and Jefferson as “heaven-

called avengers of degraded man . . . [who] came to lift him to the station for which God had

formed him, and to put to flight those idiot superstitions with which tyrants had contrived to

inthral his reason and his liberty.”

Notably absent? Any mention of the rights of man or of the doctrine of equality.

120

115. Daniel Webster, “A Discourse, in Commemoration of the Lives and Services of John Adams and

Thomas Jefferson, Delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, August 2, 1826,” in E.B. Williston, ed., Eloquence of the United States (Middletown, CT: E. & H. Clark, 1827), V:388.

He even claimed for them status as the “Apostles of human

116. Maier, American Scripture, 170-174.

117. Webster, “A Discourse in Commemoration of the Lives and Services,” V:389. 118. Ibid., 412. 119. Webster, “A Discourse in Commemoration of the Lives and Services,” V:412. 120. William Wirt, “A Discourse, of the Lives and Characters of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who

Both Died on the Fourth of July, 1826 . . . ,” in E.B. Williston, ed., Eloquence of the United States (Middletown,

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liberty.”121 But the Declaration factored into this very little. It received attention as the

instrument by which Congress announced separation from Britain, but Wirt praised Jefferson for

fighting for equality only in connection with repealing the Virginia law of primogeniture, which

kept up an “artificial inequality among men whom their Creator had made equal.”122 Here

finally appears an acknowledgment of a belief in equality, but not in connection with the

Declaration. He did close, however, with a renewed emphasis on liberty, acknowledging the

changing nature of the celebration of the Fourth of July. “Hitherto, fellow-citizens, the Fourth of

July had been celebrated among us, only as the anniversary of our independence, and its votaries

had been merely human beings. But at its last recurrence—the great Jubilee of the nation,” it

was hailed as “the anniversary, it may well be termed, of the liberty of man,” and Adams and

Jefferson had devoted their life to this “cause of liberty.”123

Edward Everett, the famous New England orator from Boston, gave the July Fourth

oration for 1826 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and it provides a textbook example of the new

interpretation of the Declaration. To be sure, part of the struggle in which the Revolutionary

fathers engaged was for independence, and they had a duty “to discharge a high and perilous

Curiously enough, neither Webster

nor Wirt’s speeches display the expected interpretation of the Declaration, and there does not

seem to be an explanation readily available, particularly since some of Webster’s later orations

are rife with the language of equality.

CT: E. & H. Clark, 1827), http://books.google.com/books?id=uI8BAAAAMAAJ&lr= (accessed March 10, 2011), V:455, 457.

121. Wirt, “A Discourse in Commemoration of the Lives and Services,” V:457.

122. Ibid., V:484. 123. Wirt, “A Discourse in Commemoration of the Lives and Services,” V:502.

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office to the cause of Freedom.”124 But the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of

Independence, provided him the opportunity to examine its principles, a goal that no other orator

had expressed in any of the orations examined thus far. Indeed, he denied what past orators had

held to be the central purpose of the celebration of Independence Day. “Do we celebrate the

anniversary of our independence, merely because a vast region was severed form an European

empire, and established a government for itself? Scarcely even this . . . .” Everett argued that

this couldn’t be the case—the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, an analogous situation

according to Everett’s description, hadn’t occasioned such celebrations, nor did it deserve it.

“We mistake the principle of our celebration when we speak of its object, either as a trite theme,

or as one among other important and astonishing incidents, of the same kind in the world.”125

The real reason for celebration of the Declaration was that it marked the “forming of an era, from

which the establishment of government on a rightful foundation is destined universally to

date.”126 Rather than other revolutions, which were merely “palliatives and alleviations of

systems essentially and irremediably vicious,” the Declaration “alone is the great discovery in

political science; the practical fulfillment of all the theories of political perfection; which

had…eluded the grasp of every former period and people.”127 He described the two doctrines of

the foundation of government, the “tory doctrine of the divine right” and the “whig doctrine of

the original compact.”128

124. Edward Everett, Orations and Speeches, on Various Occasions (Boston: American Stationers’

Company, 1836), http://books.google.com/books?id=WvcoAAAAYAAJ&lr= (accessed February 24, 2011), 97.

Before the American Revolution, governments were generally

125. Everett, Orations and Speeches, 102. 126. Ibid., 102. 127. Ibid., 103. 128. Ibid., 105.

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structured on the principle of divine right, and popular uprisings, kept in the dark about their

rights and duties, took the unfortunate form of mob violence. But with the Revolution came the

recognition, for the first time, “that the only just foundation of all government is the will of the

people.”129 More than the right of the people to govern, though, Webster identified as the

“principle…of the form of government bequeathed to us by our fathers” as that of equality: “the

equal enjoyment by every citizen of the rights and privileges of the social union.” From this

principle was “inferred, as a necessary consequence, that the will of a majority of the people is

the rule of government.”130 The drafters and signers of the Declaration “taught that all men are

born free and equal,” and the “constitutions” of America were based on that principle.131

This oration is entirely different than those delivered in the first few decades following

independence. On the fiftieth anniversary, Everett extolled the pronouncement of the principle

of equality as the primary contribution of the Declaration to American political society.

Downplaying the document’s severance of political ties from England, he emphasized the

political theory of the preamble, making the declaration of that the central purpose of the

proclamation. Moreover, because of the centrality of the equality principle, the Declaration

provided an “unimagined extension of social privileges.” Everett offered the example of the

right of suffrage, which under republican government belonged to all.

132

129. Ibid., 108.

But another

“extension” of the Declaration was the example that it provided the world. Everett did not have

the sense that the Declaration has recently acquired, that it holds promise for the world that

required American action, but he is quite conscious of the example of the American republic.

130. Ibid., 111. 131. Ibid., 113. 132. Everett, Orations and Speeches, 114.

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“An organized, prosperous state” that had a “wise organization of its own institutions” and

administered its territories well would bless “generations with its sweet influence.” It would

teach man that he is to be a part of a “well-ordered family,” a lesson taught in “the charter of our

independence…the lesson which our example is to teach the world.”133

Illustrating its new place and meaning in American society, the Declaration became the

favorite foundation for numerous social causes. For example, the temperance movement co-

opted the Declaration, often holding celebrations that closely mirrored those of the Fourth of

July. And as the movement progressed from advocating moderation to abstinence, a common

theme for orations “was the need for a second Declaration of Independence—the first proclaimed

liberty from King George, the second freedom from King Alcohol.”

134 The movement for

women’s rights also took inspiration—even moral authority—from the Declaration for their

search for equality for women. One early reformer, Frances Wright, asked how one could make

sense of the political condition of women, when the “nation’s democratic government, based on

the Declaration of Independence, derived its power form the consent of the governed.”135

Perhaps the most famous early American women’s advocate, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, expressed

a new interpretation, or perhaps just a reinterpretation, of the Declaration at the Seneca Falls

Convention: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men and women are created

equal.” As McMillen explained, she intended “to give new meaning to Jefferson’s often-quoted

phrase from the Declaration of Independence.”136

133. Ibid., 119-121.

In drafting her Declaration of Sentiments,

134. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 162. 135. Sally G. McMillen, Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement (New York:

Oxford University Press, 2008), 15. 136. McMillen, Seneca Falls, 71.

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Stanton merely adapted the Declaration to suit her purposes: the new document had a modified

preamble, clarifying that the Creator had given inalienable rights to both men and women, and

then it provided a list of “injustices imposed on women by men” in place of the colonial

grievances against King George.137 The movement for women’s rights did not make significant

gains until the twentieth century, but both this movement, the drive for temperance, and many

other social causes constantly appealed to the Declaration, because its “newfound status as a

sacred document” gave those who could claim it for their use the “moral high ground in public

debate.”138

The debate over slavery demonstrated these new dynamics of argumentation and

interpretation. From even before the time of the adoption of the Declaration, many in the

colonies had recognized the inherent contradiction between a belief that men were born equal

and the institution of slavery.

That did not mean that resistance would evaporate in the face of such a claim, but it

certainly made it difficult for opponents to argue against the position, particularly because it

forced them to directly counteract the popular understanding of the Declaration, or at least argue

for a different understanding.

139

137. Ibid., 89.

Thus, an element of abolition had always been present in

American society. What remains unclear is the extent to which these advocates actually referred

to the equality language of the Declaration. One history of abolition movements indicated that

many Founding Fathers opposed slavery, including Alexander Hamilton, who “wrote powerful

138. Maier, American Scripture, 197. 139. Maier, American Scripture, 192; Maier noted that the Virginia Convention, in June 1776, had several

days of debate over its Bill of Rights, but ultimately it ended by adopting language that excluded blacks from the protections expressed.

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statements asserting the natural equality of Blacks and their right to freedom.”140

What is clear, however, is that the debate over the Declaration continued straight up until

the Civil War, which seemingly decided the question, but after the War of 1812, those seeking to

advocate any historical understanding of the document were automatically in the minority.

Maier documented a small sampling of the language on the issue from in the last decade of the

eighteenth century, and first few of the nineteenth century, the same general time of the bitter

Federalist-Republican controversy over the interpretation of the Declaration, and defenders of

slavery denied the truth of the belief in equality as articulated by the document. Defenders of

slavery even came from the political party most prone to exalt the Declaration. For example,

Joseph Clay, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, pronounced in 1806 that the

assertion of unalienable rights in the Declaration was not true.

The author did

not provide the wording of these writings, however, leaving one to wonder just how much they

echoed the language of the Declaration. Such an examination is beyond the scope of this

research, but given the current wide misconception about the interpretation of the Declaration in

the 1770’s and 1780’s, further study is warranted before drawing a conclusion.

141

140. Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists: The Growth of a Dissenting Minority (New York: W. W. Norton

& Company, 1974), 5.

Even though he was a

Republican, Clay’s statement probably did not seem out of place at the time, as a significant

political party in America was making a similar argument for the irrelevance—indeed, even

danger—of the language of equality in the Declaration. But by the time John Randolph in 1826

labeled the equality language as “a falsehood, and a most pernicious falsehood,” his argument

would automatically have been in the minority, a fact he seemed to acknowledge with the

clarification that he took this position “even though . . . [he found] it in the Declaration of

141. Joseph Clay, quoted in Maier, American Scripture, 199.

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Independence.”142

These opposing positions on the Declaration transformed the celebration of the Fourth of

July in the south. The case of Charleston, South Carolina, provides an instructive example, as

laid out by Huff. He described the importance of the commemoration of the Fourth of July to

this town. Interestingly, there is very little indication of a division over the celebration of

hostilities during the Federalist-Republican controversy, but Huff noted a change during the

Nullification Crisis. In 1831, the city began to have rival celebrations based upon one’s

particular position on nullification.

The majority position was that the Declaration’s expression of equality was a

principle binding on the conduct of the nation—that is, it was an unfulfilled promise that future

generations were to hold as a goal to seek to fulfill.

143 But orations delivered at the festivities manifested a

change in interpretive scheme as early as the 1820s, when some in the South began to see the rise

of the importance of the statement of equality in the Declaration as a serious threat to the

institution of slavery. Surprisingly, in the 1790’s and 1800’s, orations given in Charleston

expressed shock at the Federalist discussions in New England of disunion. Indeed, these orators

emphasized the importance of unity as opposed to any particular political preference in the

controversy.144 In the 1820’s, however, with the expansion of slavery threatened by the debate

over the admission of Missouri, “an undertone of suspicion crept into the annual addresses.”145

142. John Randolph, quoted in Maier, American Scripture, 199.

In the 1830’s, citizens and orators of Charleston divided over the issue of nullification. Almost

all agreed that the Tariff of 1828 had to go, but not all agreed on nullification as the proper

143. Huff, “The Eagle and the Vulture: Changing Attitudes Towards Nationalism in Fourth of July

Orations Delivered in Charleston, 1778-1860,” The South Atlantic Quarterly 73 (1974), 13. 144. Huff, “The Eagle and the Vulture,” 15. 145. Ibid., 15.

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solution. For Senator Robert Hayne, who gave the Fourth of July oration in Charleston in 1831,

nullification was a means of preserving the Union. As a supporter the “free principles” that

manifested themselves on July 4, 1776, Hayne proclaimed that the most important of these was

“the sacred duty, of resistance to the exercise of unauthorized power.”146 He inveighed against

the tariff of 1828, classifying it as an abuse of power similar to those of the British monarch in

1776. Even while reviewing its deleterious effects against South Carolina, however, Hayne

exclaimed, “God forbid!” that the Union ever be destroyed.147 He hoped that he would soon see

South Carolina marching under the “Palmetto banner to assured victory in the great and just

cause of Free Trade and State Rights,” but he envisioned maintaining the Union, as long as

adequate protection was given to state sovereignty.148

In the late 1830’s on, however, orations in Charleston became consumed with the issue of

slavery. Henry Pinckney warned of the danger of the abolitionist movement in an 1833 oration,

claiming that an attempted revival of the debate on the Missouri question—whether slavery

would expand into that territory—would subject “our rights and liberties . . . to a more fiery trial

than any they have yet sustained.”

149

146. Robert Hayne, An Oration, Delivered in the Independent or Congregational Church, Charleston…on

the 4th of July, 1831, Being the 55th Anniversary of American Independence (Charleston: A.E. Miller, 1831), 1, 3. http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.library.hillsdale.edu/servlet/MOME?af=RN&ae=U105194746&srchtp=a&ste=14 (accessed April 7, 2011).

As the tension between North and South increased, orators

in Charleston used Fourth of July orations to defend slavery. For all of them, the North had

“violated every principle of the Spirit of 1776,” and the South was remaining true to the memory

147. Hayne, An Oration Delivered in the Independent or Congregational Church, Charleston, 15.

148. Ibid., 2. 149. Henry L. Pickney, An Oration, Delivered . . . on the 4th of July, 1833 (Charleston, 1833), quoted in

Huff, “The Eagle and the Vulture,” 19.

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of the Founders.150 Thus, for the South more generally, “The Declaration of Independence came

to represent less a mission statement than an insurance policy against the encroachments of

centralized power.” The right of revolution contained in the Declaration—the second part of the

preamble, and the right within the Declaration most often emphasized throughout history—

became far more important to them than the statements of equality and natural rights.151 An

excellent illustration was presented by the fact that many of the Southern states patterned their

declarations of secession after the Declaration of Independence, and that the Confederate

Constitution closely imitated the U.S. Constitution. This seems to point to two simultaneous

truths: that the South was “of two minds about its actions,” unable to entirely leave the American

tradition, and that it saw itself as the “authentic heirs of the Founding Fathers.”152 For these

orators in Charleston, then, they believed they were offering the legitimate interpretation of the

Declaration. As even more evidence, there is the remarkable fact that, right up to the Civil War,

neither the North nor the South stopped celebrating the Fourth of July. They disagreed

vehemently on the meaning of the Declaration and the Fourth of July, but both held that their

interpretations of the Founding tradition were correct.153

Even though he did not give many public speeches, and seems never to have delivered a

Fourth of July oration, John C. Calhoun’s progression from a nationalist to a Southern supporter

generally mirrored that wider progression observed in Charleston and the South. Early in his

career, Calhoun was an ardent nationalist. At a dinner given in his honor in 1825, his former

150. Huff, “The Eagle and the Vulture,” 21-22. 151. Susan-Mary Grant, North over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum

Era (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 200), 32. 152. Grant, North over South, 162. 153. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 87.

Odell 43

U.S. House constituency offered a toast to him, honoring his constant pursuit of America’s

honor. In response, Calhoun offered a speech on the importance of understanding and devoting

oneself to the preservation and application of the principles of the system of government of the

United States, because he was convinced that if the system “was preserved in purity and

administered with wisdom, ” it would diffuse the “blessings of liberty over the civilized

world.”154

Not fifty years have yet passed since the Declaration of Independence, and behold the mighty change! Already, from the St. Lawrence, to Cape Horn, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, not a European flag waves over the continent. The whole is filled by natives free and independent, with governments instructed after our model and governed, I trust, with similar views of policy. But the effect of our example is not confined to our continent. It has passed the Atlantic, and has been deeply felt in Europe. To our revolution that of France may be traced, and, although unfortunate in its termination, it will in its consequences deeply and beneficially affect the condition of the human race. It was a great political phenomenon, occurring at an enlightened and philosophical period of the world, to which thousands of inquiring eyes were directed, watching its rise, progress and results. By it the intelligence of the age was turned to politics, and the science of government was more thoroughly investigated, and is now better understood, than at any other period. These are, however, but the commencement of the consequences of our revolution and system of government! If we but preserve these principles in purity, a new era will arrive in human affairs, far more auspicious than any which has ever preceded; and I trust, gentlemen, [26] that we will all be animated with zeal to contribute to so glorious a result. Our reward will be the consciousness of doing our duty; and an honorable and lasting fame.”

155

Remembering the fathers of the country who “laid the foundations of our system of

government,” he offered a toast to the “The Congress of [17]76—The immortal political

architects who first constructed the temple of liberty from the imperishable materials of

the Rights of Man.”156

154. Robert L. Meriwether, ed., Papers of John C. Calhoun (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,

1959), X:25.

155. Meriwether, Papers of Calhoun, X:25-26.

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This language rose almost to the height of John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster in its praise

of the Declaration and its effects, surprising for the stance Calhoun was to take later in life.

In 1828, the “Congress of [17]76” had a different lesson for Calhoun, which he offered in

a Fourth of July toast: “They taught the world how oppression could be successfully resisted[;]

may the lesson teach rulers that their only safety is in justice and moderation.” In 1830 on a

similar occasion, Calhoun warned in a toast of “consolidation and disunion—the two extremes of

our system; they are both equally dangerous and ought both to be equally the objects of our

apprehension.”157 And by 1839, the Fourth of July offered Calhoun the opportunity to toast “the

Union of the States: He is the most faithful and best friend to the general government, who

protects the rights of the States.”158 Incredibly enough, these toasts, which have little context as

recorded, provide one of the few ways to judge Calhoun’s opinion of the Declaration, at least

through public speeches. His later writings made very clear his low opinion of the principle of

equality, but they appear not to have received oratorical expression until the debate on the

Oregon Bill in the Senate in 1848. He charged that if the Union dissolved, historians could trace

the cause all the way back to “a hypothetical truism, but which, as now expressed and now

understood, is the most false and dangerous of all political errors,” namely the proposition that

“all men are born free and equal,” which had become “an established and incontrovertible

truth.”159

156. Ibid., 26.

He reminded his audience that the Declaration expressed the principle differently,

leaving out the “born free” part, but that did not make it any more true. With the creation of

157. Meriwether, Papers of Calhoun, X:208. 158. Ibid., 620. 159. Ross M. Lence, ed., Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun (Indianapolis,

Liberty Fund, 1992), 565.

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Adam and Eve, Calhoun identified the start of authority and subordination. This principle was

“inserted in our Declaration of Independence . . . [but] it made no necessary part of our

justification in separating from the parent country, and declaring ourselves independent. Breach

of our chartered privileges, and lawless encroachment on our acknowledged and well-established

rights by the parent country, were the real causes.”160 But this principle “had strong hold on the

mind of Mr. Jefferson . . . which caused him to take an utterly false view of the subordinate

relation of the black to the white race in the South; and to hold, in consequence, that the former,

though utterly unqualified to possess liberty, were as fully entitled to both liberty and equality as

the latter; and that to deprive them of it was unjust and immoral.”161

160. Lence, Union and Liberty, 566.

Interestingly enough,

Calhoun has here made a different argument about the meaning of the Declaration than previous

generations. First, he claimed that the equality principle was unnecessary to accomplish the

document’s primary purpose: the political separation of America from Great Britain. But then,

he seemed to acknowledge that Jefferson intended the equality statements of the preamble of the

Declaration to have an effect upon the future conduct of America. Thus, for Calhoun, the

document had a dual purpose, even if that second was, in Calhoun’s eyes, false. Prior

interpreters who emphasized the document’s purpose of separation from England often took no

notice of Jefferson’s statements on equality. But in this new age of interpretation, in which the

equality principle was publicly recognized as integral to the Declaration, and even openly

praised, Calhoun was forced to accept the statement as part of the argument that had to be

countered.

161. Ibid., 569-570.

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Even as the South denied the Declaration’s control over, and relevance to, the institution

of slavery, the North made the statements of equality in the Declaration a centerpiece of the

argument against slavery—whether it was an argument for abolition, or merely for preventing

the expansion of the institution.162 One of the most famous Fourth of July orations given by an

abolitionist orator was Frederick Douglass’s, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” given on

July 5, 1852.163 His rhetoric took no prisoners—after the speech, the citizens of Rochester, New

York, had no doubt how Douglass felt about the slave in relation to the Declaration of

Independence. This celebration marked the “birthday of your National Independence, and of

your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of

God.”164 Thus, Douglass articulated a basic understanding of the Declaration that harkened all

the way back to the 1770’s. He recounted to his audience the basic story of the document: the

grievances of the king of England and the pursuit of liberty by their fathers. Americans properly

celebrated this day, and he urged them to remain true to the “saving principles” contained in that

document.165 For these men, “justice, liberty and humanity were ‘final’ . . . They seized upon

eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defence.”166

162. Grant, North over South, 32.

But then Douglass came to

the question he addressed for the rest of the oration: “Are the great principles of political

freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?”

And could Douglas stand in front of his audience and thank them for the benefits conferred upon

163. In 1852, July 4 fell on a Sunday, pushing the celebrations off until Monday. 164. David B. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,

1998), 109. 165. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass, 111. 166. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass, 112-113.

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blacks by the Revolution? “Would to God . . . that an affirmative answer could be truthfully

returned to these questions!”167 He vehemently reminded his audience that the Fourth of July

was a celebration for white citizens only. For rhetorical effect, he even accused them of mocking

him, by inviting him into a celebration not meant for him. His comparison of the situation of

enslaved blacks to the Jewish captives, who in Psalm 137 lament their Babylonian captors’

requests for songs of Zion, was apt, for blacks had been participating in Fourth of July

celebrations for years. On some plantations in the South, the festivities of July 4 were “the major

holidays of the year…at which slaves would play patriotic music and sometimes even deliver

patriotic Fourth of July orations.”168

He claimed that every point that he could argue, America had already conceded. “Would

you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body?

You have already declared it.”

For Douglas, himself a free black, the participation of

enslaved blacks in a celebration of liberty was the ultimate slap in the face.

169 Indeed, he appealed to every man’s understanding of what was

right—and no man, Douglass asserted, could honestly contend that slavery was wrong.

Everyone knew it, and Douglass believed he would look ridiculous were he to attempt to set out

a logical argument for the proposition. All that was left then, was “scorching irony, not

convincing argument.”170

167. Ibid., 114-115.

For the rest of the speech, Douglass described in detail the horrors of

the institution of slavery, taking every opportunity he could to chastise America for not

extending liberty to blacks. At one point, he quoted the entire preamble of the Declaration,

reminding America that they had declared before the world, and the world understood them to

168. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 71. 169. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass, 117. 170. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass, 117.

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declare, these principles, and then asking how they could keep blacks in bondage.171 But that

same Declaration that caused Douglass to condemn America, also gave him hope for the future,

because of the “obvious tendencies of the age.” He hoped for the day that liberty would come to

the black man, and believed it would come soon.172

Perhaps the most famous expositor of the meaning of the Declaration was Abraham

Lincoln, and it appears that he came to believe in its importance relatively late in his life, most

likely in the 1850’s. Apparently provoked by the attacks on the Declaration of Calhoun and

others, Lincoln made it his mission to defend the Declaration and its relevance to American

political life, and he developed his thought in several different speeches.

173 By February 1861,

in a speech given at Independence Hall just over a month before his inauguration, Lincoln was

able to declare, “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments

embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”174 For him, the principle keeping the nation

together was “not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but

something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to

the world for all future time . . . It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights

should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is

the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.”175

171. Ibid., 125.

This same theme pervaded all

of his rhetoric: the Declaration was meant by its signers to be an expression of timeless political

172. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass, 127-129. 173. Maier, 202; Lincoln took special offense to the argument by John Pettit, a senator from Indiana, who

in 1854 had argued that the proposition that “all men are created equal” was actually a “self-evident lie.” Lincoln mentioned this claim throughout his debates with Douglas.

174. Don E. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings (New York: The Library of America,

1989), I:213. 175. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln, I:213.

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principles meant to guide not only the people of 1776, but generations of Americans—indeed,

men all over the world—yet to be born.

His first major examination of the Declaration came in his speech on the Kansas-

Nebraska Act, given in 1854 at Peoria, Illinois. Championed through the legislature by Stephen

Douglas, the law acknowledged, among other things, the doctrine of popular sovereignty, the

right of new territories to decide for themselves whether they would permit the institution of

slavery within their borders, repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Lincoln claimed that

the supporters of the act masked their “covert real zeal for the spread of slavery” with popular

sovereignty, which professed indifference to the institution.176 The basic defense of popular

sovereignty was that it was the ultimate expression of the right of self-government. But Lincoln

hated that argument, because the issue actually began one step earlier, with the question of

whether or not blacks were men. “If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me

that ‘all men are created equal,’” and therefore, the white man could not continue to govern the

negro. Lincoln was troubled that so many ignored the clear language of the Declaration of

Independence: that because all men were created equal, governments were tasked to protect

man’s natural rights with power derived from the “consent of the governed.”177 Blacks, Lincoln

argued, were men, and so they deserved to govern themselves and not be ruled by others. “Let

us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence,” Lincoln urged his audience, “and with it, the

practices, and policy, which harmonize with it.”178

176. Ibid., I:315.

Lincoln did note at one point in his speech

that he was not “contending for the establishment of political and social equality between the

177. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln, I:328. 178. Ibid., I:340.

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whites and blacks,” potentially strange language for a man who claimed to be motivated almost

entirely by the principles of the Declaration.179 The statement can be explained merely by

remembering that, before he was President, Lincoln never advocated for total emancipation, but

merely against the expansion of slavery into the territories.180 Thus, he was not advocating

necessarily for raising the black to the political status of white citizens, but he was arguing that

the recognition of his moral right to be free required, at the very least, the prevention of the

extension of the institution of slavery. Guelzo offered the helpful distinction between natural

rights and civil rights. Regardless of his location, the black man possessed the same natural right

to freedom as the white man, but in a white man’s country, blacks possessed the civil rights—

“eligibility to vote, to serve on juries, in militias, and the like”—that the white society wished to

grant him.181

When the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford in March

1857, Lincoln critiqued the decision two months later. He took on Chief Justice Roger Taney’s

frequent assertions that, as Lincoln put it, “Negroes were no part of the people who made, or for

whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United States.”

182

179. Ibid., I:329.

In other words, Taney had made a common contention that the Declaration did not include

blacks in its definition of men, primarily because its signers did not intend it to. But Lincoln

argued that, at its signing, the Declaration “was held sacred by all, and thought to include all,”

180. Thomas L. Krannawitter, Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics of Our Greatest President

(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008), 20-21. 181. Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: the Debates that Defined America (New York: Simon &

Schuster, 2008), 81-82. 182. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln, I:395.

Odell 51

but that belief had changed in order to accommodate slavery.183

“They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them…They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening it influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that ‘all men are created equal’ was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism.”

Lincoln detested this change. “I

think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men,” he announced, “but

they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were

equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity.” But they were equal in the

unalienable rights that they possessed—“This they said, and this meant.” But,

184

By contrast, Douglas argued that vindicating the “character, motives and conduct” of the signers

of the Declaration required understanding the statements of equality and natural rights as

referring only to white men. Moreover, Douglas appealed to the earliest understanding of the

document, contending that the Declaration “was adopted for the purpose of justifying the

colonists in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing their allegiance from the British

crown, and dissolving their connection with the mother country.”185

183. Ibid., I:396.

The Declaration, therefore,

did not carry a moral mandate of equality, but was essentially a document confined by history.

184. Ibid., I:398-399. 185. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln, I:399.

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Lincoln castigated Douglas for making a “mere wreck—mangled ruin” of the

Declaration, and he laid into Douglas’s interpretation. “I had thought the Declaration

contemplated the progressive improvement in the condition of all men everywhere; but no,” it

was adopted merely to announce independence from Britain. “Why, that object having been

effected some eighty years ago, the Declaration is of no practical use now—mere rubbish—old

wadding left to rot on the battle-field after the victory is won.”186

In the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858, a set of seven debates conducted in various

locations throughout Illinois in their contest for a seat in the U.S. Senate, both Lincoln and

Douglas reiterated these positions, but often in stronger terms. In the very first debate, August

23, 1858, Douglas explained that he believe that the government of the United States “was made

on the white basis…made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity

forever,” and he announced his support for confining citizenship to only white men.

Lincoln hated the thought that

the Declaration, with its description of the equality of and rights of all men, might not be relevant

to the present day, so he argued strenuously for its applicability to all times and for all people.

187 He

mocked Lincoln for believing in black equality, for he believed that the “Almighty…[never]

intended the negro to be the equal of the white man.”188

186. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln, I:400.

As he explained in the third debate on

September 15, Douglas advanced some of these arguments in order to attempt to make the

signers consistent with themselves. After all, each of the thirteen colonies was a “slave-holding

colony,” and many who signed the document owned slaves but did not emancipate them. If they

had truly believed that equality was a natural right, Douglas argued, they “were bound, as honest

187. Edwin Erle Sparks, The Lincoln—Douglas Debates of 1858 (Springfield: Trustees of the illinois State

Historical Library, 1908), 95. 188. Sparks, Lincoln—Douglas Debates, 96.

Odell 53

men,” to free their slaves. “Instead of doing so, with uplifted eyes to Heaven they implored the

divine blessing upon them, during the seven years’ bloody war they had to fight to maintain that

Declaration, never dreaming that they were violating the divine law by still holding the negroes

in bondage and depriving them of equality.”189 For Douglas, the principle of equality was not

the foundation of the American system of government. “If we wish to preserve our institutions

in their purity, and transmit them unimpaired to our latest posterity, we must preserve with

religious good faith that great principle of self-government which guarantees to each and every

State, old and new, the right to make just such constitutions as they desire, and come into the

Union with their own constitution, and not one palmed upon them.”190

Lincoln began by defending himself against several of Douglas’s charges, reminding the

audience that he had no desire to give blacks perfect equality with whites, and that he did not

wish to interfere with slavery where it existed, but he did hold that, “Notwithstanding all this,

there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated

in the Declaration of Independence,—the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I

hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man.”

191 As he had done in 1857, Lincoln

expressed his opinion that the world was moving forward towards liberty, quoting Henry Clay:

“Those who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation must…go back to

the era of our liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon that thunders its annually joyous

return; they must blot out the moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul, and

eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty!”192

189. Sparks, Lincoln—Douglas Debates, 225-226.

190. Ibid., 228. 191. Ibid., 102. 192. Ibid., 361.

Odell 54

The most famous articulation of Lincoln’s theory of the Declaration is, of course, the

Gettysburg Address, and it had all the features gleaned from his other speeches. Beginning with

a date, “Fourscore and seven years ago,” that identified the Declaration as the true founding of

the nation, “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and

dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”193 Lincoln’s identification of the

beginning of the nation with the issuance of the Declaration drove home his point that the

Declaration was a statement of founding principles, of which, as he explained time and again,

equality was the most important. Moreover, the address provided an excellent example of

Lincoln’s idea of the document’s command for future action. In the case of the Civil War, the

Declaration required continuing dedication to the struggle for the freedom of black slaves. “It is

for us the living, rather, to be dedicated” to the “unfinished work” to which the dead at

Gettysburg gave their lives, “the great task remaining,” the “cause,” so “that these dead shall not

have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that

government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”194

In 1992, Gary Wills published a controversial book, Lincoln at Gettysburg, in which he

argued that, in the address, Lincoln turned the whole messy struggle in the particulars into a

battle of abstract ideas. Lincoln meant to win the Civil War in ideological terms, and at

Gettysburg, he sought to win the battle for the mind. Wills noted that many—both at the time

For

Lincoln, the Declaration promised equality to whites and blacks in the freedom of self-

government, but the attainment of it required that America rededicate herself to the principles

contained therein.

193. Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 263.

194. Ibid.

Odell 55

and in subsequent years—accused Lincoln of having altered the Constitution from within, of

having “revolutionized the Revolution, giving people a new past to live with that would change

their future indefinitely.”195 Specifically, by identifying the founding of the nation with the

Declaration, Lincoln, had not only placed it in a “new light as a matter of founding law,” but put

its central proposition, equality, in a newly favored position as a principle of the Constitution.”196

From the time of the signing of the Declaration in 1776, the document had been understood as

exactly that: a statement of the causes for, and a justification of, the renunciation by the

American colonies of the authority of Great Britain. With this understanding, the most important

part of the document, and that most likely to be referred to in the orations of the time, was the

second section, the list of the grievances of the colonies against the king. In this context, the

preamble of the document was understood as a statement of natural rights, the violation of which

justified this particular exercise of the right of revolution. Indeed, the Declaration was

“emphatically not a bill of rights…that is, a statement of fundamental rights that government

must honor and protect.”197

195. Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 38.

This could probably be correctly labeled the “original intent” of the

document. What should amaze is how far from that intent the modern understanding has shifted,

in a large part due to Lincoln’s interpretive efforts, and in part because he won the war. In the

years of the Federalist-Republican controversies, a form of the modern understanding competed

with this original understanding for primacy. The outcome of the War of 1812, and the resulting

collapse of the Federalist Party, which essentially advocated for the original understanding,

automatically chose the winner of the debate. For the next half decade, the Republican notion of

the document as a statement of the founding principles of America that held out a promise

196. Ibid., 145.

197. Maier, American Scripture, 164.

Odell 56

needing to be fulfilled dominated the understanding of the Declaration. With this interpretation

now politically acceptable, various groups promoting social causes began to appropriate the

Declaration for their own use to give their cause a legitimacy unable to be conferred by any other

American document. But the original understanding received a form of revival in the 1820’s as a

result of the burgeoning sectional crisis. Both sides considered themselves as remaining faithful

to the signers of the Declaration and the traditions of the Founding Fathers, but the South argued

that the statement of equality in the Declaration was at the very least superfluous, at best not

required to declare independence, and at worst, a complete falsehood. The North, on the other

hand, fought against the institution of slavery in a variety of forms, but perhaps most important

was its invocation of the equality principle as expressed in the Declaration as the guide for future

conduct. And again, the outcome of a war decided this dispute, again in favor of understanding

the document as a statement of timeless principles meant to guide future generations. Indeed, this

is perhaps the most significant feature of the modern interpretation of the Declaration, and the

uses to which it is put: every cause sees in the Declaration the expression of an unfulfilled

promise of equality for some group of people, and because of the mandate in the Declaration that

group must receive it in order to be true to the Founding. But, as Maier observed, “The

Declaration of Independence was, in fact, a peculiar document to be cited by those who

championed the cause of equality. Not only did its reference to men’s equal creation concern

people in a state of nature before government was established, but the document’s original

function was to end the previous regime, not to lay down principles guide and limit its

successor.”198

198. Maier, American Scripture, 192.

Maier further observed that the descendants of the revolutionaries who authored

the document required a document that “could guide the nation, a document that the founding

fathers had failed to supply.” Therefore:

Odell 57

“They made one, pouring old wine into an old vessel manufactured for another purpose, creating a testament whose continuing usefulness depended not on the faithfulness with which it described the intentions of the signers but on its capacity to convince and inspire living Americans.”199

It seems, then, that Lincoln did effect a revolution at Gettysburg. He ensured that a

particular understanding of the Declaration and the founding of the nation became

wrapped up in the Union cause. With the Union victory, and the stigma of the

association of the historical view with the cause of slavery, ensured that the original

understanding of the Declaration met its death.

199. Maier, American Scripture, 208.

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