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The Declaration of Independence

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Study Guide

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LO 2: Discuss the “long train of abuses and usurpations,” background material leading to the Declaration of Independence. This material breaks down into two areas of

(1) external and

(2) internal factors.

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1619-1763

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1763-1776

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Internal Factors

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Internally

  • 1. News that the English had contracted German mercenaries.
    • Almost 30,000 Hessians (Germans) fought with the English over the course of the war?

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2. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense

  • A. Common Sense (Jan. 1776) was both an ideological and a practical appeal.
  • B. Advantages of independence
    • Free trade,
    • release from England-European conflicts,
    • freedom from having to appeal to a court 3,000 miles away
  • C. “There is something very absurd in supposing a Continent to be perpetually governed by an island.”
  • D. Attacked the very idea of monarchy
  • F. 150,000 copies sold by 1777

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External Factors

August 23rd, 1775, King George III refused to receive the conciliatory Olive Branch Petition.

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Externally

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  • King Closed all American ports effective on March 1st, 1776.�
  • April 6th 1776, Second Continental Congress opened all ports except to Great Britain�
  • Essentially an economic declaration

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External Factors

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By March of 1776, both France and Spain offered assistance

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LO 3 Discuss the structure of the Declaration of Independence.

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��The Structure�1. The preamble�

  • A. Stated the theory of natural rights and asserted the right under certain circumstances of revolution. �
  • B. The preamble stated that that governments rest upon the “the consent of the governed”�
  • C. It they did not have that consent, the people not only had a right to assert for “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” they had a duty to rebel!

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2. Grievances

  • A. Directed at “the present King of Great Britain.”
  • B. Why would Jefferson direct toward the King?�
  • C. What were some of those grievances?�
  • D. What do you think one grievance that was edited????

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Declaration Edited?

“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare… is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain, determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold…suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce… he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded.”

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LO 4: Discuss the function of the Declaration of Independence and its assertion of natural rights. ��Be sure to elaborate on Jefferson's arguments and his evidence for revolution. Be sure to identify specific examples.

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What is its function?

  • Did it speak for the majority of Americans?
    • Were many of the colonist in favor for a war with England?

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“Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness”

  • Where did it come from?�
  • What does this mean?
    • John Locke (1632 --1704) �
  • In 1688, John Locke wrote that the Glorious Revolution of the year against King James II for “…depriving the English people of their natural rights of life, liberty and property.”�
  • �Social Contract and the Basis of a Legitimate Government. �
  • Why did Jefferson replace “property” with “happiness”????��
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What are unalienable rights? And where did Jefferson get his ideas for such rights?�

  • Jefferson borrowed heavily from the Enlightenment philosophers.
  • What is the the Enlightenment?
    • 1. REASON
      • a. Reason can master Natural Law
      • b. Reason could persuade people to conform to the principles of Reason in philosophy and ethics, politics economics and the law.
      • c. Reason makes things self evident!
      • d. Will guide us to the “truth”and the “truth” is universal
      • e.. Reason will make society and the world Perfect.
      • f. Once discovered are permanent and universal.
  • Reason forced some revolutionary leaders to ask if these rights were self-evident to all!

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  • the Earth moves how fast?

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The Declaration of Independence�

  • 1. What were the internal and external forces that influenced the Declaration?
  • 2. What was its structure?
  • 3. What was its function?
  • 4. What are unalienable rights? And where did Jefferson get his ideas for such rights?
  • What does “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” mean?

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