thomas jefferson and the declaration of independence essay

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Toward independence

• The nature and influence of the Declaration of Independence
• Text of the Declaration of Independence

What is the Declaration of Independence?

 where was the declaration of independence signed, where is the declaration of independence, how is the declaration of independence preserved.

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Declaration of Independence

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• Table Of Contents

The Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the United States, was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. It explained why the Congress on July 2 “unanimously” (by the votes of 12 colonies, with New York abstaining) had resolved that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be Free and Independent States.”

On August 2, 1776, roughly a month after the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, an “engrossed” version was signed at the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall ) in Philadelphia by most of the congressional delegates (engrossing is rendering an official document in a large clear hand). Not all the delegates were present on August 2. Eventually, 56 of them signed the document. Two delegates, John Dickinson and Robert R. Livingston , never signed.

Since 1952 the original parchment document of the Declaration of Independence has resided in the National Archives exhibition hall in Washington, D.C. , along with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights . Before then it had a number of homes and protectors, including the State Department and the Library of Congress . For a portion of World War II it was kept in the Bullion Depository at Fort Knox , Kentucky.

In the 1920s the Declaration of Independence was enclosed in a frame of gold-plated bronze doors and covered with double-paned plate glass with gelatin films between the plates to block harmful light rays. Today it is held in an upright case constructed of ballistically tested glass and plastic laminate. A $3 million camera and computerized system monitor the condition of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution , and Bill of Rights .

Declaration of Independence , in U.S. history, document that was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and that announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. It explained why the Congress on July 2 “unanimously” by the votes of 12 colonies (with New York abstaining) had resolved that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be Free and Independent States.” Accordingly, the day on which final separation was officially voted was July 2, although the 4th, the day on which the Declaration of Independence was adopted, has always been celebrated in the United States as the great national holiday—the Fourth of July , or Independence Day .

On April 19, 1775, when the Battles of Lexington and Concord initiated armed conflict between Britain and the 13 colonies (the nucleus of the future United States), the Americans claimed that they sought only their rights within the British Empire . At that time few of the colonists consciously desired to separate from Britain. As the American Revolution proceeded during 1775–76 and Britain undertook to assert its sovereignty by means of large armed forces, making only a gesture toward conciliation, the majority of Americans increasingly came to believe that they must secure their rights outside the empire. The losses and restrictions that came from the war greatly widened the breach between the colonies and the mother country; moreover, it was necessary to assert independence in order to secure as much French aid as possible.

On April 12, 1776, the revolutionary convention of North Carolina specifically authorized its delegates in the Congress to vote for independence. On May 15 the Virginia convention instructed its deputies to offer the motion—“that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States”—which was brought forward in the Congress by Richard Henry Lee on June 7. John Adams of Massachusetts seconded the motion. By that time the Congress had already taken long steps toward severing ties with Britain. It had denied Parliamentary sovereignty over the colonies as early as December 6, 1775, and on May 10, 1776, it had advised the colonies to establish governments of their own choice and declared it to be “absolutely irreconcilable to reason and good conscience for the people of these colonies now to take the oaths and affirmations necessary for the support of any government under the crown of Great Britain,” whose authority ought to be “totally suppressed” and taken over by the people—a determination which, as Adams said, inevitably involved a struggle for absolute independence.

The passage of Lee’s resolution was delayed for several reasons. Some of the delegates had not yet received authorization to vote for separation; a few were opposed to taking the final step; and several men, among them John Dickinson , believed that the formation of a central government, together with attempts to secure foreign aid , should precede it. However, a committee consisting of Thomas Jefferson , John Adams, Benjamin Franklin , Roger Sherman , and Robert R. Livingston was promptly chosen on June 11 to prepare a statement justifying the decision to assert independence, should it be taken. The document was prepared, and on July 1 nine delegations voted for separation, despite warm opposition on the part of Dickinson. On the following day at the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia , with the New York delegation abstaining only because it lacked permission to act, the Lee resolution was voted on and endorsed . (The convention of New York gave its consent on July 9, and the New York delegates voted affirmatively on July 15.) On July 19 the Congress ordered the document to be engrossed as “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.” It was accordingly put on parchment , probably by Timothy Matlack of Philadelphia. Members of the Congress present on August 2 affixed their signatures to this parchment copy on that day and others later.

The signers were as follows: John Hancock (president), Samuel Adams , John Adams, Robert Treat Paine , and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts; Button Gwinnett , Lyman Hall, and George Walton of Georgia; William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, and John Penn of North Carolina; Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch , Jr., and Arthur Middleton of South Carolina; Samuel Chase , William Paca, Thomas Stone, and Charles Carroll of Maryland; George Wythe , Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison , Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, and Carter Braxton of Virginia; Robert Morris , Benjamin Rush , Benjamin Franklin, John Morton , George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson , and George Ross of Pennsylvania; Caesar Rodney and George Read of Delaware; William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, and Lewis Morris of New York; Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon , Francis Hopkinson , John Hart, and Abraham Clark of New Jersey; Josiah Bartlett , William Whipple, and Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire; Stephen Hopkins and William Ellery of Rhode Island; and Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington , William Williams , and Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut . The last signer was Thomas McKean of Delaware , whose name was not placed on the document before 1777.

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Why Was the Declaration of Independence Written?

By: Sarah Pruitt

Updated: June 22, 2023 | Original: June 29, 2018

When the first skirmishes of the Revolutionary War broke out in Massachusetts in April 1775, few people in the American colonies wanted to separate from Great Britain entirely. But as the war continued, and Britain called out massive armed forces to enforce its will, more and more colonists came to accept that asserting independence was the only way forward.

And the Declaration of Independence would play a critical role in unifying the colonies from the bloody struggle they now faced.

The Road to Revolution Was Paved with Taxes

Over the decade following the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, a series of unpopular British laws met with stiff opposition in the colonies, fueling a bitter struggle over whether Parliament had the right to tax the colonists without the consent of the representative colonial governments. This struggle erupted into violence in 1770 when British troops killed five colonists in the Boston Massacre .

Three years later, outrage over the Tea Act of 1773 prompted colonists to board an East India Company ship in Boston Harbor and dump its cargo into the sea in the now-infamous Boston Tea Party .

In response, Britain cracked down further with the Coercive Acts, going so far as to revoke the colonial charter of Massachusetts and close the port of Boston. Resistance to the Intolerable Acts, as they became known, led to the formation of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1774, which denounced “taxation without representation” - but stopped short of demanding independence from Britain.

How Thomas Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ Helped Inspire the American Revolution

The 47‑page pamphlet took colonial America by storm in 1776 and made critical arguments for declaring independence from England.

How the Declaration of Independence Was Printed—and Protected

America’s earliest founding document survived war, fire, mistreatment, insects and the ravages of time prior to landing at its current home in the National Archives.

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The Founding Fathers were fighting for freedom—just not for everyone.

Would Colonists Reconcile or Separate?

Then the first shots rang out between colonial and British forces at Lexington and Concord, and the Battle of Bunker Hill cost hundreds of American lives, along with 1,000 killed on the British side.

Some 20,000 troops under General George Washington faced off against a British garrison in the Boston Siege, which ended when the British evacuated in March 1776. Washington then moved his Continental Army to New York, where he assumed (correctly) that a major British invasion would soon take place.

Meanwhile, many in the Continental Congress still clung to the assumption that reconciliation with Britain was the ultimate goal. This would soon change, thanks in part to the actions of King George III , who in October 1775 denounced the colonies in front of Parliament and began building up his army and navy to crush their rebellion.

In order to have any hope of defeating Britain, the colonists would need support from foreign powers (especially France), which Congress knew they could only get by declaring themselves a separate nation.

Thomas Paine Disavowed the Monarchy

In his bestselling pamphlet, “Common Sense,” a recent English immigrant named Thomas Paine also helped push the colonists along on their path toward independence.

“His argument was that we had to break from Britain because the system of the British constitution was hopelessly flawed,” the late Pauline Maier , professor of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said in a 2013 lecture on “The Making of the Declaration of Independence.”

“[Britain] had hereditary rule, it had kings—you could never have freedom so long as you had hereditary rule.”

After Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced a motion to declare independence on June 7, 1776, Congress formed a committee to draft a statement justifying the break with Great Britain.

Who Wrote the Declaration of Independence?

The initial draft of the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and was presented to the entire Congress on June 28 for debate and revision.

In addition to Jefferson’s eloquent preamble, the document included a long list of grievances against King George III, who was accused of committing many “injuries and usurpations” in his quest to establish “an absolute tyranny over these States.”

The Declaration of Independence United the Colonists

After two days of editing and debate, the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, even as a large British fleet and more than 34,000 troops prepared to invade New York. By the time it was formally signed on August 2, printed copies of the document were spreading around the country, being reprinted in newspapers and publicly read aloud.

While the road to independence had been long and twisted, the effect of its declaration made an impact right away.

“It changed the whole character of the war,” Maier said. “These were people who for a year had been making war against a king with whom they were trying to effect a reconciliation, to whom they were publicly professing loyalty. Now heart and hand, as one person said, could move together. They had a cause to fight for.”

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Background Essay: The Declaration of Independence

Background essay: declaration of independence.

Guiding Question: What were the philosophical bases and practical purposes of the Declaration of Independence?

• I can explain the major events that led the American colonists to question British rule.
• I can explain how the concepts of natural rights and self-government influenced the Founders and the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.

Essential Vocabulary

Directions: As you read the essay, highlight the events from the graphic organizer in Handout B in one color. Think about how each of these events led the American colonists further down the road to declaring independence. Highlight the impacts of those events in another color.

In 1825, Thomas Jefferson reflected on the meaning and principles of the Declaration of Independence. In a letter to a friend, Jefferson explained that the document was an “expression of the American mind.” He meant that it reflected the common sentiments shared by American colonists during the resistance against British taxes in the 1760s and 1770s The Road to Independence

After the conclusion of the French and Indian War, the British sought to increase taxes on their American colonies and passed the Stamp Act (1765) and Townshend Acts (1767). American colonists viewed the acts as British oppression that violated their traditional rights as English subjects as well as their inalienable natural rights. The colonists mostly complained of “taxation without representation,” meaning that Parliament taxed them without their consent. During this period, most colonists simply wanted to restore their rights and liberties within the British Empire. They wanted reconciliation, not independence. But they were also developing an American identity as a distinctive people, which added to the anger over their lack of representation in Parliament and self-government.

After the Boston Tea Party (1773), Parliament passed the Coercive Acts (1774), punishing Massachusetts by closing Boston Harbor and stripping away the right to self-government. As a result, the Continental Congress met in 1774 to consider a unified colonial response. The Congress issued a declaration of rights stating, “That they are entitled to life, liberty, & property, and they have never ceded [given] to any sovereign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.” Military clashes with British forces at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill in Massachusetts showed that American colonists were willing to resort to force to vindicate their claim to their rights and liberties.

In January 1776, Thomas Paine wrote the best-selling pamphlet Common Sense which was a forceful expression of the growing desire of many colonists for independence. Paine wrote that a republican government that followed the rule of law would protect liberties better than a monarchy. The rule of law means that government and citizens all abide by the same laws regardless of political power.

The Second Continental Congress debated the question of independence that spring. On May 10, it adopted a resolution that seemed to support independence. It called on colonial assemblies and popular conventions to “adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce [lead] to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular and America in general.”

Five days later, John Adams added his own even more radical preamble calling for independence: “It is necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said Crown should be totally suppressed [brought to an end].” This bold declaration was essentially a break from the British.

“Free and Independent States”

On June 7, Richard Henry Lee rose in Congress and offered a formal resolution for independence: “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved [set free] from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” Congress appointed a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence, while states wrote constitutions and declarations of rights with similar republican and natural rights principles.

On June 12, for example, the Virginia Convention issued the Virginia Declaration of Rights , a document drafted in 1776 to proclaim the natural rights that all people are entitled to. The document was based upon the ideas of Enlightenment thinker John Locke about natural rights and republican government. It read: “That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights … they cannot by any compact, deprive or divest [take away] their posterity [future generations]; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

The Continental Congress’s drafting committee selected Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence because he was well-known for his writing ability. He knew the ideas of John Locke well and had a copy of the Virginia Declaration of Rights when he wrote the Declaration. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams were also members of the committee and edited the document before sending it to Congress.

Still, the desire for independence was not unanimous. John Dickinson and others still wished for reconciliation. On July 1, Dickinson and Adams and their respective allies debated whether America should declare independence. The next day, Congress voted for independence by passing Lee’s resolution. Over the next two days, Congress made several edits to the document, making it a collective effort of the Congress. It adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4. The document expressed the natural rights principles of the independent American republic.

The Declaration opened by stating that the Americans were explaining the causes for separating from Great Britain and becoming an independent nation. It stated that they were entitled to the rights of the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”

The Declaration then asserted its universal ideals, which were closely related to the ideas of John Locke. It claimed that all human beings were created equal as a self-evident truth. They were equally “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” So whatever inequality that might exist in society (such as wealth, power, or status) does not justify one person or group getting more natural rights than anyone else. One way in which humans are equal is in possession of certain natural rights.

The equality of human beings also meant that they were equal in giving consent to their representatives to govern under a republican form of government. All authority flowed from the sovereign people equally. The purpose of that government was to protect the rights of the people. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The people had the right to overthrow a government that violated their rights in a long series of abuses.

The Declaration claimed the reign of King George III had been a “history of repeated injuries and usurpations ” [illegal taking] of the colonists’ rights. The king exercised political tyranny against the American colonies. For example, he taxed them without their consent and dissolved [closed down] colonial legislatures and charters. Acts of economic tyranny included cutting off colonial trade. The colonists were denied equal justice when they lost their traditional right to a trial by jury in special courts. Acts of military tyranny included quartering , or forcing citizens to house, troops without consent; keeping standing armies in the colonies; waging war against the colonists; and hiring mercenaries , or paid foreign soldiers, to fight them. Repeated attempts by the colonists to petition king and Parliament to address their grievances were ignored or treated with disdain, so the time had come for independence.

In the final paragraph, the representatives appealed to the authority given to them by the people to declare that the united colonies were now free and independent. The new nation had the powers of a sovereign nation and could levy war, make treaties and alliances, and engage in foreign trade. The Declaration ends with the promise that “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Americans had asserted their natural rights, right to self-government, and reasons for splitting from Great Britain. They now faced a long and difficult fight against the most powerful empire in the world to preserve that liberty and independence.

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Answer Key: The Declaration of Independence

Essay: The Declaration of Independence

America's Founders looked to the lessons of human nature and history to determine how best to structure a government that would promote liberty. They started with the principle of consent of the governed: the only legitimate government is one which the people themselves have authorized. But the Founders also guarded against the tendency of those in power to abuse their authority, and structured a government whose power is limited and divided in complex ways to prevent a concentration of power. They counted on citizens to live out virtues like justice, honesty, respect, humility, and responsibility.

Essay Graphic Organizer and Questions

Student Organizer: Declaration Preamble and Grievances

Jefferson’s Reflections: Declaration of Independence

America's Founding Documents

Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum .)  The spelling and punctuation reflects the original.

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Button Gwinnett

George Walton

North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts

John Hancock

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

Abraham Clark

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple

Samuel Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery

Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

Matthew Thornton

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The Declaration of Independence

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Analysis: “The Declaration of Independence”

The Declaration of Independence is both a legal document and a philosophical treatise. It has the structure of a government document but uses philosophy to underpin its political purpose. It is organized around two premises: that a government derives its power from the people and that the people can, therefore, dissolve the government and form a new one if it fails to protect the people’s rights. Jefferson first argues the undeniability of the first premise and then goes into extensive detail to prove the second. With both premises proven, the document reaches its conclusion: The people of the colonies are forming a new government. The three sections of the text (preamble, list of grievances, and conclusion) each use slightly different devices and ideas that are worth looking at closely.

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The first amendment, the declaration, the constitution, and the bill of rights.

by Jeffrey Rosen and David Rubenstein

At the National Constitution Center, you will find rare copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. These are the three most important documents in American history. But why are they important, and what are their similarities and differences? And how did each document, in turn, influence the next in America’s ongoing quest for liberty and equality?

There are some clear similarities among the three documents. All have preambles. All were drafted by people of similar backgrounds, generally educated white men of property. The Declaration and Constitution were drafted by a congress and a convention that met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia (now known as Independence Hall) in 1776 and 1787 respectively. The Bill of Rights was proposed by the Congress that met in Federal Hall in New York City in 1789. Thomas Jefferson was the principal drafter of the Declaration and James Madison of the Bill of Rights; Madison, along with Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson, was also one of the principal architects of the Constitution.

Most importantly, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are based on the idea that all people have certain fundamental rights that governments are created to protect. Those rights include common law rights, which come from British sources like the Magna Carta, or natural rights, which, the Founders believed, came from God. The Founders believed that natural rights are inherent in all people by virtue of their being human and that certain of these rights are unalienable, meaning they cannot be surrendered to government under any circumstances.

At the same time, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are different kinds of documents with different purposes. The Declaration was designed to justify breaking away from a government; the Constitution and Bill of Rights were designed to establish a government. The Declaration stands on its own—it has never been amended—while the Constitution has been amended 27 times. (The first ten amendments are called the Bill of Rights.) The Declaration and Bill of Rights set limitations on government; the Constitution was designed both to create an energetic government and also to constrain it. The Declaration and Bill of Rights reflect a fear of an overly centralized government imposing its will on the people of the states; the Constitution was designed to empower the central government to preserve the blessings of liberty for “We the People of the United States.” In this sense, the Declaration and Bill of Rights, on the one hand, and the Constitution, on the other, are mirror images of each other.

Despite these similarities and differences, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are, in many ways, fused together in the minds of Americans, because they represent what is best about America. They are symbols of the liberty that allows us to achieve success and of the equality that ensures that we are all equal in the eyes of the law. The Declaration of Independence made certain promises about which liberties were fundamental and inherent, but those liberties didn’t become legally enforceable until they were enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In other words, the fundamental freedoms of the American people were alluded to in the Declaration of Independence, implicit in the Constitution, and enumerated in the Bill of Rights. But it took the Civil War, which President Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address called “a new birth of freedom,” to vindicate the Declaration’s famous promise that “all men are created equal.” And it took the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, to vindicate James Madison’s initial hope that not only the federal government but also the states would be constitutionally required to respect fundamental liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights—a process that continues today.

Why did Jefferson draft the Declaration of Independence?

When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in 1775, it was far from clear that the delegates would pass a resolution to separate from Great Britain. To persuade them, someone needed to articulate why the Americans were breaking away. Congress formed a committee to do just that; members included John Adams from Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin from Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman from Connecticut, Robert R. Livingston from New York, and Thomas Jefferson from Virginia, who at age 33 was one of the youngest delegates.

Although Jefferson disputed his account, John Adams later recalled that he had persuaded Jefferson to write the draft because Jefferson had the fewest enemies in Congress and was the best writer. (Jefferson would have gotten the job anyway—he was elected chair of the committee.) Jefferson had 17 days to produce the document and reportedly wrote a draft in a day or two. In a rented room not far from the State House, he wrote the Declaration with few books and pamphlets beside him, except for a copy of George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights and the draft Virginia Constitution, which Jefferson had written himself.

The Declaration of Independence has three parts. It has a preamble, which later became the most famous part of the document but at the time was largely ignored. It has a second part that lists the sins of the King of Great Britain, and it has a third part that declares independence from Britain and that all political connections between the British Crown and the “Free and Independent States” of America should be totally dissolved.

The preamble to the Declaration of Independence contains the entire theory of American government in a single, inspiring passage:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

When Jefferson wrote the preamble, it was largely an afterthought. Why is it so important today? It captured perfectly the essence of the ideals that would eventually define the United States. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” Jefferson began, in one of the most famous sentences in the English language. How could Jefferson write this at a time that he and other Founders who signed the Declaration owned slaves? The document was an expression of an ideal. In his personal conduct, Jefferson violated it. But the ideal—“that all men are created equal”—came to take on a life of its own and is now considered the most perfect embodiment of the American creed.

When Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address during the Civil War in November 1863, several months after the Union Army defeated Confederate forces at the Battle of Gettysburg, he took Jefferson’s language and transformed it into constitutional poetry. “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,” Lincoln declared. “Four score and seven years ago” refers to the year 1776, making clear that Lincoln was referring not to the Constitution but to Jefferson’s Declaration. Lincoln believed that the “principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society,” as he wrote shortly before the anniversary of Jefferson’s birthday in 1859. Three years later, on the anniversary of George Washington’s birthday in 1861, Lincoln said in a speech at what by that time was being called “Independence Hall,” “I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender” the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

It took the Civil War, the bloodiest war in American history, for Lincoln to begin to make Jefferson’s vision of equality a constitutional reality. After the war, the Declaration’s vision was embodied in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, which formally ended slavery, guaranteed all persons the “equal protection of the laws,” and gave African-American men the right to vote. At the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, when supporters of gaining greater rights for women met, they, too, used the Declaration of Independence as a guide for drafting their Declaration of Sentiments. (Their efforts to achieve equal suffrage culminated in 1920 in the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.) And during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his famous address at the Lincoln Memorial, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men—yes, black men as well as white men—would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

In addition to its promise of equality, Jefferson’s preamble is also a promise of liberty. Like the other Founders, he was steeped in the political philosophy of the Enlightenment, in philosophers such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, Francis Hutcheson, and Montesquieu. All of them believed that people have certain unalienable and inherent rights that come from God, not government, or come simply from being human. They also believed that when people form governments, they give those governments control over certain natural rights to ensure the safety and security of other rights. Jefferson, George Mason, and the other Founders frequently spoke of the same set of rights as being natural and unalienable. They included the right to worship God “according to the dictates of conscience,” the right of “enjoyment of life and liberty,” “the means of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety,” and, most important of all, the right of a majority of the people to “alter and abolish” their government whenever it threatened to invade natural rights rather than protect them.

In other words, when Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and began to articulate some of the rights that were ultimately enumerated in the Bill of Rights, he wasn’t inventing these rights out of thin air. On the contrary, 10 American colonies between 1606 and 1701 were granted charters that included representative assemblies and promised the colonists the basic rights of Englishmen, including a version of the promise in the Magna Carta that no freeman could be imprisoned or destroyed “except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” This legacy kindled the colonists’ hatred of arbitrary authority, which allowed the King to seize their bodies or property on his own say-so. In the revolutionary period, the galvanizing examples of government overreaching were the “general warrants” and “writs of assistance” that authorized the King’s agents to break into the homes of scores of innocent citizens in an indiscriminate search for the anonymous authors of pamphlets criticizing the King. Writs of assistance, for example, authorized customs officers “to break open doors, Chests, Trunks, and other Packages” in a search for stolen goods, without specifying either the goods to be seized or the houses to be searched. In a famous attack on the constitutionality of writs of assistance in 1761, prominent lawyer James Otis said, “It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer.”

As members of the Continental Congress contemplated independence in May and June of 1776, many colonies were dissolving their charters with England. As the actual vote on independence approached, a few colonies were issuing their own declarations of independence and bills of rights. The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, written by George Mason, began by declaring that “all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” 

When Jefferson wrote his famous preamble, he was restating, in more eloquent language, the philosophy of natural rights expressed in the Virginia Declaration that the Founders embraced. And when Jefferson said, in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, that “[w]hen in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,” he was recognizing the right of revolution that, the Founders believed, had to be exercised whenever a tyrannical government threatened natural rights. That’s what Jefferson meant when he said Americans had to assume “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.”

The Declaration of Independence was a propaganda document rather than a legal one. It didn’t give any rights to anyone. It was an advertisement about why the colonists were breaking away from England. Although there was no legal reason to sign the Declaration, Jefferson and the other Founders signed it because they wanted to “mutually pledge” to each other that they were bound to support it with “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Their signatures were courageous because the signers realized they were committing treason: according to legend, after affixing his flamboyantly large signature John Hancock said that King George—or the British ministry—would be able to read his name without spectacles. But the courage of the signers shouldn’t be overstated: the names of the signers of the Declaration weren’t published until after General George Washington won crucial battles at Trenton and Princeton and it was clear that the war for independence was going well.

What is the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?

In the years between 1776 and 1787, most of the 13 states drafted constitutions that contained a declaration of rights within the body of the document or as a separate provision at the beginning, many of them listing the same natural rights that Jefferson had embraced in the Declaration. When it came time to form a central government in 1776, the Continental Congress began to create a weak union governed by the Articles of Confederation. (The Articles of Confederation was sent to the states for ratification in 1777; it was formally adopted in 1781.) The goal was to avoid a powerful federal government with the ability to invade rights and to threaten private property, as the King’s agents had done with the hated general warrants and writs of assistance. But the Articles of Confederation proved too weak for bringing together a fledgling nation that needed both to wage war and to manage the economy. Supporters of a stronger central government, like James Madison, lamented the inability of the government under the Articles to curb the excesses of economic populism that were afflicting the states, such as Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts, where farmers shut down the courts demanding debt relief. As a result, Madison and others gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 with the goal of creating a stronger, but still limited, federal government.

The Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania State House, in the room where the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Jefferson, who was in France at the time, wasn’t among them. After four months of debate, the delegates produced a constitution.

During the final days of debate, delegates George Mason and Elbridge Gerry objected that the Constitution, too, should include a bill of rights to protect the fundamental liberties of the people against the newly empowered president and Congress. Their motion was swiftly—and unanimously—defeated; a debate over what rights to include could go on for weeks, and the delegates were tired and wanted to go home. The Constitution was approved by the Constitutional Convention and sent to the states for ratification without a bill of rights.

During the ratification process, which took around 10 months (the Constitution took effect when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify in late June 1788; the 13th state, Rhode Island, would not join the union until May 1790), many state ratifying conventions proposed amendments specifying the rights that Jefferson had recognized in the Declaration and that they protected in their own state constitutions. James Madison and other supporters of the Constitution initially resisted the need for a bill of rights as either unnecessary (because the federal government was granted no power to abridge individual liberty) or dangerous (since it implied that the federal government had the power to infringe liberty in the first place). In the face of a groundswell of popular demand for a bill of rights, Madison changed his mind and introduced a bill of rights in Congress on June 8, 1789.

Madison was least concerned by “abuse in the executive department,” which he predicted would be the weakest branch of government. He was more worried about abuse by Congress, because he viewed the legislative branch as “the most powerful, and most likely to be abused, because it is under the least control.” (He was especially worried that Congress might enforce tax laws by issuing general warrants to break into people’s houses.) But in his view “the great danger lies rather in the abuse of the community than in the legislative body”—in other words, local majorities who would take over state governments and threaten the fundamental rights of minorities, including creditors and property holders. For this reason, the proposed amendment that Madison considered “the most valuable amendment in the whole list” would have prohibited the state governments from abridging freedom of conscience, speech, and the press, as well as trial by jury in criminal cases. Madison’s favorite amendment was eliminated by the Senate and not resurrected until after the Civil War, when the 14th Amendment required state governments to respect basic civil and economic liberties.

In the end, by pulling from the amendments proposed by state ratifying conventions and Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights, Madison proposed 19 amendments to the Constitution. Congress approved 12 amendments to be sent to the states for ratification. Only 10 of the amendments were ultimately ratified in 1791 and became the Bill of Rights. The first of the two amendments that failed was intended to guarantee small congressional districts to ensure that representatives remained close to the people. The other would have prohibited senators and representatives from giving themselves a pay raise unless it went into effect at the start of the next Congress. (This latter amendment was finally ratified in 1992 and became the 27th Amendment.)

To address the concern that the federal government might claim that rights not listed in the Bill of Rights were not protected, Madison included what became the Ninth Amendment, which says the “enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” To ensure that Congress would be viewed as a government of limited rather than unlimited powers, he included the 10th Amendment, which says the “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Because of the first Congress’s focus on protecting people from the kinds of threats to liberty they had experienced at the hands of King George, the rights listed in the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights apply only to the federal government, not to the states or to private companies. (One of the amendments submitted by the North Carolina ratifying convention but not included by Madison in his proposal to Congress would have prohibited Congress from establishing monopolies or companies with “exclusive advantages of commerce.”)

But the protections in the Bill of Rights—forbidding Congress from abridging free speech, for example, or conducting unreasonable searches and seizures—were largely ignored by the courts for the first 100 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. Like the preamble to the Declaration, the Bill of Rights was largely a promissory note. It wasn’t until the 20th century, when the Supreme Court began vigorously to apply the Bill of Rights against the states, that the document became the centerpiece of contemporary struggles over liberty and equality. The Bill of Rights became a document that defends not only majorities of the people against an overreaching federal government but also minorities against overreaching state governments. Today, there are debates over whether the federal government has become too powerful in threatening fundamental liberties. There are also debates about how to protect the least powerful in society against the tyranny of local majorities.

What do we know about the documentary history of the rare copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights on display at the National Constitution Center?

Generally, when people think about the original Declaration, they are referring to the official engrossed —or final—copy now in the National Archives. That is the one that John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, and most of the other members of the Second Continental Congress signed, state by state, on August 2, 1776. John Dunlap, a Philadelphia printer, published the official printing of the Declaration ordered by Congress, known as the Dunlap Broadside, on the night of July 4th and the morning of July 5th. About 200 copies are believed to have been printed. At least 27 are known to survive.

The document on display at the National Constitution Center is known as a Stone Engraving, after the engraver William J. Stone, whom then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned in 1820 to create a precise facsimile of the original engrossed version of the Declaration. That manuscript had become faded and worn after nearly 45 years of travel with Congress between Philadelphia, New York City, and eventually Washington, D.C., among other places, including Leesburg, Virginia, where it was rolled up and hidden during the British invasion of the capital in 1814.

To ensure that future generations would have a clear image of the original Declaration, William Stone made copies of the document before it faded away entirely. Historians dispute how Stone rendered the facsimiles. He kept the original Declaration in his shop for up to three years and may have used a process that involved taking a wet cloth, putting it on the original document, and creating a perfect copy by taking off half the ink. He would have then put the ink on a copper plate to do the etching (though he might have, instead, traced the entire document by hand without making a press copy). Stone used the copper plate to print 200 first edition engravings as well as one copy for himself in 1823, selling the plate and the engravings to the State Department. John Quincy Adams sent copies to each of the living signers of the Declaration (there were three at the time), public officials like President James Monroe, Congress, other executive departments, governors and state legislatures, and official repositories such as universities. The Stone engravings give us the clearest idea of what the original engrossed Declaration looked like on the day it was signed.

The Constitution, too, has an original engrossed, handwritten version as well as a printing of the final document. John Dunlap, who also served as the official printer of the Declaration, and his partner David C. Claypoole, who worked with him to publish the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser , America’s first successful daily newspaper founded by Dunlap in 1771, secretly printed copies of the convention’s committee reports for the delegates to review, debate, and make changes. At the end of the day on September 15, 1787, after all of the delegations present had approved the Constitution, the convention ordered it engrossed on parchment. Jacob Shallus, assistant clerk to the Pennsylvania legislature, spent the rest of the weekend preparing the engrossed copy (now in the National Archives), while Dunlap and Claypoole were ordered to print 500 copies of the final text for distribution to the delegates, Congress, and the states. The engrossed copy was signed on Monday, September 17th, which is now celebrated as Constitution Day.

The copy of the Constitution on display at the National Constitution Center was published in Dunlap and Claypoole’s Pennsylvania Packet newspaper on September 19, 1787. Because it was the first public printing of the document—the first time Americans saw the Constitution—scholars consider its constitutional significance to be especially profound. The publication of the Constitution in the Pennsylvania Packet was the first opportunity for “We the People of the United States” to read the Constitution that had been drafted and would later be ratified in their name.

The handwritten Constitution inspires awe, but the first public printing reminds us that it was only the ratification of the document by “We the People” that made the Constitution the supreme law of the land. As James Madison emphasized in The Federalist No. 40 in 1788, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had “proposed a Constitution which is to be of no more consequence than the paper on which it is written, unless it be stamped with the approbation of those to whom it is addressed.” Only 25 copies of the Pennsylvania Packet Constitution are known to have survived.

Finally, there is the Bill of Rights. On October 2, 1789, Congress sent 12 proposed amendments to the Constitution to the states for ratification—including the 10 that would come to be known as the Bill of Rights. There were 14 original manuscript copies, including the one displayed at the National Constitution Center—one for the federal government and one for each of the 13 states.

Twelve of the 14 copies are known to have survived. Two copies —those of the federal government and Delaware — are in the National Archives. Eight states currently have their original documents; Georgia, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania do not. There are two existing unidentified copies, one held by the Library of Congress and one held by The New York Public Library. The copy on display at the National Constitution Center is from the collections of The New York Public Library and will be on display for several years through an agreement between the Library and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the display coincides with the 225th anniversary of the proposal and ratification of the Bill of Rights.

The Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are the three most important documents in American history because they express the ideals that define “We the People of the United States” and inspire free people around the world.

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History Resources

The Declaration of Independence

By tim bailey, view the declaration in the gilder lehrman collection by clicking here and here . for additional primary resources click here  and here ., unit objective.

This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical significance. Students will demonstrate this knowledge by writing summaries of selections from the original document and, by the end of the unit, articulating their understanding of the complete document by answering questions in an argumentative writing style to fulfill the Common Core State Standards. Through this step-by-step process, students will acquire the skills to analyze any primary or secondary source material.

While the unit is intended to flow over a five-day period, it is possible to present and complete the material within a shorter time frame. For example, the first two days can be used to ensure an understanding of the process with all of the activity completed in class. The teacher can then assign lessons three and four as homework. The argumentative essay is then written in class on day three.

Students will be asked to "read like a detective" and gain a clear understanding of the Declaration of Independence. Through reading and analyzing the original text, the students will know what is explicitly stated, draw logical inferences, and demonstrate these skills by writing a succinct summary and then restating that summary in the student’s own words. In the first lesson this will be facilitated by the teacher and done as a whole-class lesson.

Introduction

Tell the students that they will be learning what Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776 that served to announce the creation of a new nation by reading and understanding Jefferson’s own words. Resist the temptation to put the Declaration into too much context. Remember, we are trying to let the students discover what Jefferson and the Continental Congress had to say and then develop ideas based solely on the original text.

• The Declaration of Independence, abridged  (PDF)
• Teacher Resource:  Complete text of the Declaration of Independence  (PDF). This transcript of the Declaration of Independence is from the National Archives online resource The Charters of Freedom .
• Summary Organizer #1  (PDF)
• All students are given an abridged copy of the Declaration of Independence and are asked to read it silently to themselves.
• The teacher then "share reads" the text with the students. This is done by having the students follow along silently while the teacher begins reading aloud. The teacher models prosody, inflection, and punctuation. The teacher then asks the class to join in with the reading after a few sentences while the teacher continues to read along with the students, still serving as the model for the class. This technique will support struggling readers as well as English Language Learners (ELL).
• The teacher explains that the students will be analyzing the first part of the text today and that they will be learning how to do in-depth analysis for themselves. All students are given a copy of Summary Organizer #1. This contains the first selection from the Declaration of Independence.
• The teacher puts a copy of Summary Organizer #1 on display in a format large enough for all of the class to see (an overhead projector, Elmo projector, or similar device). Explain that today the whole class will be going through this process together.
• Explain that the objective is to select "Key Words" from the first section and then use those words to create a summary sentence that demonstrates an understanding of what Jefferson was saying in the first paragraph.
• Guidelines for selecting the Key Words: Key Words are very important contributors to understanding the text. Without them the selection would not make sense. These words are usually nouns or verbs. Don’t pick "connector" words (are, is, the, and, so, etc.). The number of Key Words depends on the length of the original selection. This selection is 181 words so we can pick ten Key Words. The other Key Words rule is that we cannot pick words if we don’t know what they mean.
• Students will now select ten words from the text that they believe are Key Words and write them in the box to the right of the text on their organizers.
• The teacher surveys the class to find out what the most popular choices were. The teacher can either tally this or just survey by a show of hands. Using this vote and some discussion the class should, with guidance from the teacher, decide on ten Key Words. For example, let’s say that the class decides on the following words: necessary, dissolve, political bonds (yes, technically these are two words, but you can allow such things if it makes sense to do so; just don’t let whole phrases get by), declare, separation, self-evident, created equal, liberty, abolish, and government. Now, no matter which words the students had previously selected, have them write the words agreed upon by the class or chosen by you into the Key Words box in their organizers.
• The teacher now explains that, using these Key Words, the class will write a sentence that restates or summarizes what was stated in the Declaration. This should be a whole-class discussion-and-negotiation process. For example, "It is necessary for us to dissolve our political bonds and declare a separation; it is self-evident that we are created equal and should have liberty, so we need to abolish our current government." You might find that the class decides they don’t need the some of the words to make it even more streamlined. This is part of the negotiation process. The final negotiated sentence is copied into the organizer in the third section under the original text and Key Words sections.
• The teacher explains that students will now be putting their summary sentence into their own words, not having to use Jefferson’s words. Again, this is a class discussion-and-negotiation process. For example, "We need to get rid of our old government so we can be free."
• Wrap up: Discuss vocabulary that the students found confusing or difficult. If you choose, you could have students use the back of their organizers to make a note of these words and their meanings.

Students will be asked to "read like a detective" and gain a clear understanding of what Thomas Jefferson was writing about in the Declaration of Independence. Through reading and analyzing the original text, the students will know what is explicitly stated, draw logical inferences, and demonstrate these skills by writing a succinct summary and then restating that summary in the student’s own words. In the second lesson the students will work with partners and in small groups.

Tell the students that they will be further exploring the meaning of the Declaration of Independence by reading and understanding Jefferson’s text and then being able to tell, in their own words, what he said. Today they will be working with partners and in small groups.

• Summary Organizer #2  (PDF)
• All students are given the abridged copy of the Declaration of Independence and are asked to read it silently to themselves.
• The students and teacher discuss what they did yesterday and what they decided was the meaning of the first selection.
• The teacher then "share reads" the second selection with the students. This is done by having the students follow along silently while the teacher begins reading aloud. The teacher models prosody, inflection, and punctuation. The teacher then asks the class to join in with the reading after a couple of sentences while the teacher continues to read along with the students, still serving as the model for the class. This technique will support struggling readers as well as English Language Learners (ELL).
• The teacher explains that the class will be analyzing the second selection from the Declaration of Independence today. All students are given a copy of Summary Organizer #2. This contains the second selection from the Declaration.
• The teacher puts a copy of Summary Organizer #2 on display in a format large enough for all of the class to see (an overhead projector, Elmo projector, or similar device). Explain that today they will be going through the same process as yesterday but with partners and in small groups.
• Explain that the objective is still to select "Key Words" from the second selection and then use those words to create a summary sentence that demonstrates an understanding of what Jefferson was saying in that selection.
• Guidelines for selecting the Key Words: The guidelines for selecting Key Words are the same as they were yesterday. However, because this paragraph is shorter than the last one at 148 words, they can pick only seven or eight Key Words.
• Pair the students up and have them negotiate which Key Words to select. After they have decided on their words both students will write them in the Key Words box of their organizers.
• The teacher now puts two pairs together. These two pairs go through the same negotiation-and-discussion process to come up with their Key Words. Be strategic in how you make your groups to ensure the most participation by all group members.
• The teacher now explains that by using these Key Words the group will build a sentence that restates or summarizes what Thomas Jefferson was saying. This is done by the group negotiating with its members on how best to build that sentence. Try to make sure that everyone is contributing to the process. It is very easy for one student to take control of the entire process and for the other students to let them do so. All of the students should write their negotiated sentence into their organizers.
• The teacher asks for the groups to share out the summary sentences they have created. This should start a teacher-led discussion that points out the qualities of the various attempts. How successful were the groups at understanding the Declaration and were they careful to only use Jefferson’s Key Words in doing so?
• The teacher explains that the group will now be putting their summary sentence into their own words, not having to use Jefferson’s words. Again, this is a group discussion-and-negotiation process. After they have decided on a sentence it should be written into their organizers. Again, the teacher should have the groups share out and discuss the clarity and quality of the groups’ attempts.

Students will be asked to "read like a detective" and gain a clear understanding of the meaning of the Declaration of Indpendence. Through reading and analyzing the original text, the students will know what is explicitly stated, draw logical inferences, and demonstrate these skills by writing a succinct summary and then restating that summary in the student’s own words. In this lesson the students will be working individually.

Tell the students that they will be further exploring what Thomas Jefferson was saying in the third selection from the Declaration of Independence by reading and understanding Jefferson’s words and then being able to tell, in their own words, what he said. Today they will be working by themselves on their summaries.

• Summary Organizer #3  (PDF)
• The students and teacher discuss what they did yesterday and what they decided was the meaning of the first two selections.
• The teacher then "share reads" the third selection with the students. This is done by having the students follow along silently while the teacher begins reading aloud. The teacher models prosody, inflection, and punctuation. The teacher then asks the class to join in with the reading after a couple of sentences while the teacher continues to read along with the students, still serving as the model for the class. This technique will support struggling readers as well as English Language Learners (ELL).
• The teacher explains that the class will be analyzing the third selection from the Declaration of Independence today. All students are given a copy of Summary Organizer #3. This contains the third selection from the Declaration.
• The teacher puts a copy of Summary Organizer #3 on display in a format large enough for all of the class to see (an overhead projector, Elmo projector, or similar device). Explain that today they will be going through the same process as yesterday, but they will be working by themselves.
• Explain that the objective is still to select "Key Words" from the third paragraph and then use those words to create a summary sentence that demonstrates an understanding of what Jefferson was saying in that selection.
• Guidelines for selecting the Key Words: The guidelines for selecting Key Words are the same as they were yesterday. However, because this paragraph is longer (208 words) they can pick ten Key Words.
• Have the students decide which Key Words to select. After they have chosen their words they will write them in the Key Words box of their organizers.
• The teacher explains that, using these Key Words, each student will build a sentence that restates or summarizes what Jefferson was saying. They should write their summary sentences into their organizers.
• The teacher explains that they will be putting their summary sentence into their own words, not having to use Jefferson’s words. This should be added to their organizers.
• The teacher asks for students to share out the summary sentences they have created. This should start a teacher-led discussion that points out the qualities of the various attempts. How successful were the students at understanding what Jefferson was writing about?

Tell the students that they will be further exploring what Thomas Jefferson was saying in the fourth selection from the Declaration of Independence by reading and understanding Jefferson’s words and then being able to tell, in their own words, what he said. Today they will be working by themselves on their summaries.

• Summary Organizer #4  (PDF)
• The students and teacher discuss what they did yesterday and what they decided was the meaning of the first three selections.
• The teacher then "share reads" the fourth selection with the students. This is done by having the students follow along silently while the teacher begins reading aloud. The teacher models prosody, inflection, and punctuation. The teacher then asks the class to join in with the reading after a couple of sentences while the teacher continues to read along with the students, still serving as the model for the class. This technique will support struggling readers as well as English Language Learners (ELL).
• The teacher explains that the class will be analyzing the fourth selection from the Declaration of Independence today. All students are given a copy of Summary Organizer #4. This contains the fourth selection from the Declaration.
• The teacher puts a copy of Summary Organizer #4 on display in a format large enough for all of the class to see (an overhead projector, Elmo projector, or similar device). Explain that today they will be going through the same process as yesterday, but they will be working by themselves.
• Explain that the objective is still to select "Key Words" from the fourth paragraph and then use those words to create a summary sentence that demonstrates an understanding of what Jefferson was saying in that selection.
• Guidelines for selecting the Key Words: The guidelines for selecting Key Words are the same as they were yesterday. Because this paragraph is the longest (more than 219 words) it will be challenging for them to select only ten Key Words. However, the purpose of this exercise is for the students to get at the most important content of the selection.
• The teacher explains that now they will be putting their summary sentence into their own words, not having to use Jefferson’s words. This should be added to their organizers.

This lesson has two objectives. First, the students will synthesize the work of the last four days and demonstrate that they understand what Jefferson was saying in the Declaration of Independence. Second, the teacher will ask questions of the students that require them to make inferences from the text and also require them to support their conclusions in a short essay with explicit information from the text.

Tell the students that they will be reviewing what Thomas Jefferson was saying in the Declaration of Independence. Second, you will be asking them to write a short argumentative essay about the Declaration; explain that their conclusions must be backed up by evidence taken directly from the text.

• All students are given the abridged copy of the Declaration of Independence and then are asked to read it silently to themselves.
• The teacher asks the students for their best personal summary of selection one. This is done as a negotiation or discussion. The teacher may write this short sentence on the overhead or similar device. The same procedure is used for selections two, three, and four. When they are finished the class should have a summary, either written or oral, of the Declaration in only a few sentences. This should give the students a way to state what the general purpose or purposes of the document were.
• The teacher can have the students write a short essay now addressing one of the following prompts or do a short lesson on constructing an argumentative essay. If the latter is the case, save the essay writing until the next class period or assign it for homework. Remind the students that any arguments they make must be backed up with words taken directly from the Declaration of Independence. The first prompt is designed to be the easiest.
• What are the key arguments that Thomas Jefferson makes for the colonies’ separation from Great Britain?
• Can the Declaration of Independence be considered a declaration of war? Using evidence from the text argue whether this is or is not true.
• Thomas Jefferson defines what the role of government should and should not be. How does he make these arguments?

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Thomas Jefferson Argument in the Declaration of Independence Essay

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Introduction

Trade issues, unlawful taxes, unfair treatment by the troops, works cited.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence to highlight his sentiments about the colonies remaining under the rule of the Great Britain. Jefferson was particularly against the King’s rule because he believed that the Great Britain was imposing oppressive laws on the colonies. Jefferson believed that the colonies had the capabilities of developing a government that would provide the people with rules that facilitated political, social, and economic liberation (“The Argument of the Declaration of Independence” par. 3). According to the arguments made by Jefferson, he was particularly against three major issues, as discussed in this paper.

The first argument was that the Great Britain was taking advantage of the communities in the colonies because they could only export their produce to the Great Britain. The king had prohibited trade between the colonies and any other nation in the world; hence, the victimized communities could only sell their surplus products at relatively low prices to the Great Britain. Additionally, the King ensured that the colonies could only receive exports from the Great Britain (Jefferson and Fink 24).

It is also apparent that this arrangement provided the Great Britain with a chance to sell the products at a high profit to continue benefiting financially from the colonies. Jefferson expressed his concern that the King and his administration were exploiting the colonies indirectly (Slade 58).

The society in the colonies was angry at the Great Britain for being unfair in the imposition of taxes. Jefferson rebuked the fact that the majority of the taxes had been developed without the consent of the people. It is apparent that the society was willing to pay reasonable taxes, but the authorities in the Great Britain were notorious for introducing taxes whenever a commodity was in high demand.

This led to a rebellion on the part of the people in the colonies (Wills 167). For instance, the Boston Tea Party is one of the incidences that clearly highlighted the anger on the part of society. This incidence involved a group of men opposing the high taxes on tea. The men snuck into a ship ferrying tea, and they dumped tons of tea into the Boston Harbor to demonstrate their anger toward the King and his administration.

The King had claimed that the many soldiers deployed in the colonies were present to enhance security for the people, but they were the main instigators of crime. Jefferson highlighted the fact that the soldiers were treating the members of the society inhumanely, and they were involved in using violence to have their way in the community (Balko 44).

The protests against the soldiers led to the Third Amendment of the Bill of Rights, which stipulated that soldiers could not barge into homes in times of peace, and even during conflicts, they had to follow some rules to ensure the people were not victimized. However, the soldiers still broke this rule, and the King did nothing to mitigate the activity.

These arguments were valid, and they still apply in the contemporary world, whereby American society is still fighting against the violation of liberties like privacy. As the government fights to mitigate security issues in the nation, there have been many reports of harassment by civilians on the part of the law enforcers (Merill 124). As Jefferson’s argument revealed, when the society is not contented with the ruling strategies and policies of the administration, the people are bound to fight back to form a better government.

Balko, Radley. “How did America’s Police become a Military Force on the Streets.” ABAJ 99.1 (2013): 44. Print.

Jefferson, Thomas, and Sam Fink. The Declaration of Independence . New York: Scholastic Inc., 2002. Print.

Merrill, Thomas. “The Later Jefferson and the Problem of Natural Rights.” Perspectives on Political Science 44.2 (2015): 122-130. Print.

Slade, Joseph. “Thomas Jefferson.” American Literature and Science 1.1 (2015): 58. Print.

The Argument of the Declaration of Independence 2014. Web.

Wills, Garry. Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002. Print.

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• Why Thomas Jefferson Was Wrong
• The Stamp Act Resolutions and Declaratory Act
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• Ruling America: Wealth and Power in a Democracy
• Dilemmas of Ruling Elites in Revolutionary America
• The Revolution of 1776 and Its Prerequisites
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Thomas Jefferson: The Main Writer of the Declaration of Independence

Learn about thomas jefferson, principal author of the declaration of independence..

Thomas Jefferson, a prominent figure in American history, is widely recognized as the main writer of the Declaration of Independence. Born in 1743 in Virginia, Jefferson would go on to become the third President of the United States, but it was his role in drafting this groundbreaking document that solidified his legacy.

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights. Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence laid the foundation for the principles of liberty, equality, and democracy that would shape the nation.

Thomas Gilcrease loved his copy of the Declaration of Independence almost to death. That is why, said Mark Dolph, curator of history at the museum, it had to be placed in a special protective case to prevent further damage. The document, with Jefferson's eloquent prose, was a cherished possession for Gilcrease.

It was on this day in 1789 that Founding Father Benjamin Franklin wrote what was probably his last great quote, a saying about the importance of preserving freedom and democracy. Franklin, a contemporary of Jefferson, understood the significance of the Declaration of Independence in shaping the future of the nation.

In the decades following the Declaration of Independence, Americans began reading the affirmation that “all men are created equal” in a new light. Jefferson's powerful words served as a rallying cry for liberty and justice for all, inspiring generations to strive for a more perfect union.

Jefferson is widely credited with inventing his swivel chair. But he might have been beaten to the punch. Despite his innovative furniture designs, Jefferson's true impact lies in his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, a document that continues to resonate with Americans today.

The founding fathers were fighting for freedom—just not for everyone. Jefferson's vision of equality did not extend to all individuals, as he was a slave owner himself. This contradiction highlights the complexities of America's history and the ongoing struggle for equality and justice.

Thomas Jefferson, a spokesman for democracy, was an American Founding Father who left an indelible mark on the nation. His eloquent prose in the Declaration of Independence captured the spirit of the American Revolution and set the stage for the country's future.

The Declaration of Independence is near and dear to the University of Virginia. Literally. The University owns two copies of a rare early printing of the document, showcasing Jefferson's words in a place of honor. Students and scholars alike can study the document that shaped the nation's destiny.

Jefferson's influence extends beyond the Declaration of Independence, as his ideas on liberty and democracy continue to resonate in American political discourse. His commitment to freedom and equality remains a guiding principle for the nation, reminding us of the enduring legacy of his words.

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Creating the United States Creating the Declaration of Independence

Index: all documents, rough draft of the declaration of independence.

The Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson and heavily amended by the Continental Congress, boldly asserted humanity's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as well as the American colonies' right to revolt against an oppressive British government. Jefferson's "original Rough draught" illustrates Jefferson's literary flair and records key changes made by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and the Continental Congress before its July 4, 1776, adoption.

Author: Thomas Jefferson Title: Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence Medium: Manuscript Date: June–July 1776 Collection: Thomas Jefferson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776

In May 1776, Thomas Jefferson, a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, wrote at least three drafts of a Virginia constitution. Jefferson's litany of British governmental abuses in his drafts of the Virginia Constitution became his "train of abuses" in the Declaration of Independence.

Author: Thomas Jefferson Title: Draft Virginia Constitution Medium: Manuscript Date: May 1776 Collection: Thomas Jefferson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776

A call for American independence from Britain, the Virginia Declaration of Rights was drafted by George Mason in May 1776 and amended by Thomas Ludwell Lee (1730–1778) and the Virginia Convention. It was adopted by the Virginia Convention on June 12, 1776. Thomas Jefferson borrowed many ideas and phrases from the Virginia document when he drafted the Declaration of Independence a few weeks later. The Virginia Declaration of Rights has also been heralded as a model for the first ten amendments to the federal Constitution, the amendments known as the "Bill of Rights."

Author: George Mason with amendments by Thomas Ludwell Lee Title: Virginia Declaration of Rights Medium: Manuscript Date: May 1776 Collection: George Mason Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Common Sense, 1776

In January 1776, Thomas Paine (1737–1809) penned his famous pamphlet Common Sense , in which he urged the American Colonies to declare independence and immediately sever all ties with the British monarchy. With its strong arguments against monarchy, Common Sense paved the way for the Declaration of Independence more than any other single publication. Paine suggested a form of government to replace the British colonial system: a one-house legislature for each colony that would be subordinate to a one-house continental congress with no executive power at either level.

Author: Thomas Paine Title: Common Sense. . . . City: Philadelphia Publisher: R. Bell Date: 1776 Collection: Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress

Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, 1775

The Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms puts forth the reasons for America's rebellion that were raised in the 1775 congressional declaration. Although the final manifesto stressed a hope for the restoration of peace, Thomas Jefferson's draft was a "Spirited Manifesto," according to John Adams (1735–1826). The spirited and creative qualities of Jefferson's writing helped secure his selection as chair of the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Author: Thomas Jefferson Title: Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms Medium: Manuscript Date: 1775 Collection: Thomas Jefferson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1774

Thomas Jefferson's A Summary View of the Rights of British America declared America's right to rebel against an oppressive and despotic government and heralded the arrival of an independent America. Jefferson's pamphlet was originally drafted as instruction for Virginia's delegates to the Continental Congress in 1774.

Author: Thomas Jefferson Title: A Summary View of the Rights of British America City: Williamsburg: Publisher: Clementina Rind Date: 1774 Collection: Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress

Fairfax County Resolves, 1774

The Fairfax County Resolves, written by George Mason (1725–1792) and George Washington (1731/32–1799) and presented on July 17, 1774, was the first clear statement of fundamental constitutional rights of the British American colonies as subjects of the British Crown. Adopted the next day by the Fairfax County Convention, which met to protest British retaliations against Massachusetts after the Boston Tea Party, the resolves call for a "firm Union" of the colonies because an injury against one colony is "aimed at all."

Author: George Mason and George Washington Title: Fairfax County Resolves Medium: Manuscript Date: July 17, 1774 Collection: George Washington Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, 1764

The incongruity of arguing for their own freedom and liberty while enslaving others was openly discussed by American revolutionaries during the period leading up to the writing of the Declaration of Independence and beyond. In his most famous pamphlet, The Rights of British Colonists Asserted and Proved , James Otis (1725–1783) asserted that the slave trade is "the most shocking violation of the law of nature." He also stated that "It is a clear truth, that those who every day barter away other men's liberty will soon care little for their own."

Author: James Otis Title: Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved City: Boston Publisher: Edes and Gill Date: 1764 Collection: Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress

Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion, 1751

When Thomas Jefferson asserted the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence, he was influenced by the writings of Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–1782). Kames was a Scottish moral philosopher who argued for the right to "the pursuit of happiness" in his acclaimed work Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion . Jefferson owned and annotated this copy.

Author: Henry Home, Lord Kames Title: Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion, in Two Parts City: Edinburgh Date: 1751 Collection: Thomas Jefferson Library, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress

Two Treatises of Government, 1690

The works of John Locke (1632–1704), well-known English political philosopher, provided many Americans with the philosophical arguments for inalienable natural rights, principally those of property and of rebellion against abusive governments. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson did not incorporate Locke's emphasis in his "Second Treatise of Government" on the right to property but gave the right to rebel a prominent place.

Author: John Locke Title: Two Treatises of Government City: London City: Awnsham Churchill Date: 1690 Collection: Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress

First Printed Version of the Declaration of Independence, 1776

Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and directed that it be printed by John Dunlap. This only surviving fragment of the Declaration broadside printed by Dunlap was sent on July 6, 1776, to George Washington by John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. General Washington had this Declaration read to his assembled troops on July 9 in New York, where they awaited the combined British fleet and army.

Author: Thomas Jefferson Title: Declaration of Independence City: Philadelphia Publisher: John Dunlap Date: July 4, 1776 Collection: George Washington Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

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Thomas Jefferson's Monticello

• Thomas Jefferson
• Jefferson's Three Greatest Achievements
• The Declaration of Independence

The Legacy of the Declaration

An American People

In its opening lines, the Declaration made a radical statement: America was “one People."  On the eve of independence, however, the thirteen colonies had been separate provinces, and colonists' loyalties were to their individual colonies and the British Empire rather than to each other.  In fact, only commercial and cultural ties with Britain served to unify the colonies.  Yet the Declaration helped to transform South Carolinians, Virginians, New Yorkers and other colonists into Americans.

A New System of Governance

The Declaration announced America's separation from one of the world's most powerful empires: Britain.  Parliament's taxes imposed without American representation, along with King George III's failure to address or ease his subjects' grievances, made dissolving the "bands which have connected them" not just a choice, but an urgent necessity.  As the Declaration made clear, the "long train of abuses and usurpations" and the tyranny exhibited "over these States" forced the colonists to "alter their former system of Government."  In such circumstances, Jefferson explained that it was the people’s “right, it was their duty,” to throw off the repressive government.  Under the new "system," Americans would govern themselves.

Closer to Europe

America did not secede from the British Empire to be alone in the world.  Instead, the Declaration proclaimed that an independent America had assumed a "separate and equal station" with the other "powers of the earth."  With this statement, America sought to occupy an equal place with other modern European nations, including France, the Dutch Republic, Spain, and even Britain.  America's independence signaled a fundamental change: once-dependent British colonies became independent states that could make war, create alliances with foreign nations, and engage freely in commerce.

Equal Rights

The Declaration proclaimed a landmark principle—that "all men are created equal."  Colonists had always seen themselves as equal to their British cousins and entitled to the same liberties.  But when Parliament passed laws that violated colonists' "inalienable rights" and ruled the American colonies without the "consent of the governed," colonists concluded that as a colonial master Britain was the land of tyranny, not freedom.  The Declaration sought to restore equal rights by rejecting Britain's oppression.

The "Spirit of 76"

The principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence promised to lead America—and other nations on the globe—into a new era of freedom.  The revolution begun by Americans on July 4, 1776 would never end.  It would inspire all peoples living under the burden of oppression and ignorance to open their eyes to the rights of mankind, to overturn the power of tyrants, and to declare the triumph of equality over inequality. Thomas Jefferson recognized as much, preparing a letter for the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration less than two weeks before his death, he expressed his belief that the Declaration

be to the world what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all.) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which Monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self government. the form which we have substituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. all eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man. the general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born, with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. these are grounds of hope for others. for ourselves let the annual return of this day, for ever refresh our recollections of these rights and an undiminished devotion to them. --Thomas Jefferson to Roger Chew Weightman, June 24, 1826.

ADDRESS: 931 Thomas Jefferson Parkway Charlottesville, VA 22902 GENERAL INFORMATION: (434) 984-9800

Recommended

Vivek ramaswamy: my 10 truths for the 2024 campaign.

This entire presidential campaign is about speaking the truth.

Especially when it’s hard, when it’s uncomfortable.

There’s no “your” truth or “one” of “many truths.”

It’s just the TRUTH. An undeniable reality.

I’d rather lose this race and speak truth at every step than win by saying what I’m “supposed to.”

When I penned these “10 Truths” in a notebook months ago on a flight from New Hampshire to Ohio, I drew inspiration from Thomas Jefferson’s original words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.”

• God is real.

We come from different walks but are bound by a common creed.

One of my favorite scientists, Blaise Pascal, said it best: If you have a hole the size of God in your heart and God doesn’t fill it, something else will.

That’s how you get climatism, COVIDism and transgenderism.

We all bend the knee — if not to God, to false idols instead. We must restore what is real over what is artificial to revive this nation.

2. There are two genders.

There are two sexes.

If you have XX chromosomes, you’re a woman.

If you have XY chromosomes, you’re a man.

Gender dysphoria is a mental-health disorder. Affirming confusion isn’t compassion. It’s cruelty.

3. Human flourishing requires fossil fuels.

Eight times as many people die from cold temperatures as warm ones. 

The answer to all temperature-related deaths is more abundant fossil fuels.

In fact, thanks to these fuels, climate-related deaths dropped a staggering 98% over the last century.

We can unshackle the US economy by abandoning the climate cult: Drill, frack, burn coal and embrace nuclear energy.

4. Reverse racism is racism.

It’s wrong now just as it was in 1964. The “anti-racist” movement actually creates more racism.

There’s no greater way to fuel racism in our country than to take something away from someone because of his or her skin color, which is exactly what affirmative action, the single greatest form of institutional racism in America today, does.

As president, I will end it in every sphere of American life.

I’ll repeal Lyndon Johnson’s disastrous Executive Order 11246, which mandates that federal contractors — about 20% of the US workforce — adopt race-based hiring preferences.

Time to restore colorblind meritocracy once and for all.

5. An open border is no border.

The No. 1 purpose of the US military is to protect Americans from foreign threats on our own soil.

It’s shameful that we’re using hundreds of billions in military resources to stop an invasion of someone else’s border when we fail to protect against the ongoing invasion across our own southern border.

It’s not just illegal migrants, human trafficking and fentanyl, but even armed cartel gunmen are directly invading our homeland.

Fentanyl deaths among young people rose 1,000% from 2020 to 2023; they were 80% of fatal teen overdoses last year.

I refuse to be a passive bystander in the White House like President Joe Biden.

We should use our military to secure our border and annihilate the Mexican drug cartels if necessary.

If we’re ready to do it, the Mexican government will step up and regain its sovereignty. That’s how we solve the problem.

6. Parents determine the education of their children.

Parents know what is best for their kids, not the teachers unions, not the US Department of Education.

There is an inverse correlation between how much money a public school spends per student and the actual outcomes that school achieves for its students.

I will shut down the Department of Education without apology and use its $80+ billion budget on school safety, school choice and vocational programs instead of foisting toxic ideologies onto kids.

7. The nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to mankind.

A quarter of kids in America don’t have a dad in the house. Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor and 20 times more likely to end up in jail.

True “privilege” is not based on the color of your skin. It’s being raised in a stable family with two parents.

The federal government cannot on its own fix the fatherlessness crisis, but here’s what it can do: get the progressive boot off the family’s neck.

Stop using taxpayer money to pay mothers more to not have a man in the house and do the exact opposite of what’s likely to be best for them.

8. Capitalism lifts people up from poverty.

Black, white, gay, straight, Democrat or Republican, doesn’t matter: Capitalism has lifted more people up from poverty than any other system in the history of mankind.

We shouldn’t apologize for it. I won’t.

9. There are three branches of US government, not four.

The biggest open secret in modern America: The people we elect to run the government don’t actually run the government.

I will replace civil-service protections with eight-year term limits for bureaucrats.

Civil-service rules protect against individual federal-employee firings, but they don’t apply to large-scale reductions in force.

And mass layoffs are absolutely what I will bring to the Washington, DC, bureaucracy.

10. The US Constitution is the strongest guarantor of freedoms in history.

The division and challenges our nation faces to many seem insurmountable.

Though we are young, we are battle-tested. We have overcome hardship before.

In August 1943, more than 1,000 US airmen were killed or captured while flying missions over Nazi-occupied Europe.

Thousands of sailors and Marines died that same month to push the Germans out of Sicily and the Japanese out of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

They died to ensure America would remain safe from foreign aggression.

In the summer of 1863, tens of thousands of Union soldiers were laid to rest at Gettysburg.

In the words of Lincoln’s famous address, “They gave their lives that the nation might live.”

In South Carolina, the black soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment led an attack at dusk on Fort Wagner. Only 315 men survived. They demonstrated through their valor that all men are created equal.

In the summer of 1783, British forces still occupied New York while John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay negotiated in Paris to bring our nation into existence.

When peace was achieved and the redcoats finally left at the end of November, George Washington resigned his commission, laid down his arms and went home.

His selfless patriotism protected the new nation from descending into dictatorship.

We are a young country — just three lifetimes separate us from the revolution.

Fourscore years from now, I hope 2023 is remembered as the beginning of a new revolution to ensure that once again the people of this country are sovereign.

Vivek Ramaswamy is a Republican candidate for president.

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