understanding independence: the declaration of independence and its legacy

Understanding Independence:

The Declaration of Independence and its legacy

The Declaration of Independence

“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.”

What was “independence”?

Who was “independent”?Who was “equal”?


Goals for today:• Show how “independence” and

“equality” changed in meaning during last 200 years


Goals for today:• Show how different groups of

Americans made claims to “independence” and “equality” using the Declaration of Independence


Groups Examined:1) Ordinary white men2) Slaves/African Americans3) Women

“Independence” for Revolutionary Generation


Revolutionary-era Americans had very specific ideas of who was “independent” and “equal” when it came to citizenship and political rights


Ideas came from European debates about ideology of “republicanism”


What was republicanism?


Republicanism was a set of ideas about what it took to create a healthy republic


Republicanism was a set of ideas about what it took to create a healthy republicBased on lessons of failed past republics (Greek, Roman)


Why had past republics failed?


Why had past republics failed?Concentrations of wealth and political power


Healthy republic required citizens to be politically equal and independent


Healthy republic required citizens to be politically equal and independentBUT: to be politically “independent” one had to be economically “independent”


What did it mean to be economically independent?


What did it mean to be economically independent?Own property and especially LAND


Who was NOT economically independent (“dependent”)?


Who was NOT economically independent (“dependent”)?• Children, women, slaves, men

without land and property


• Dependents considered a threat to the republic: they would vote as parents, owners, husbands, employers, etc. directed


• Would lead to corruption: wealthy men dominating politics through control of dependents


In colonial period, voting rights linked to land ownership (property)


In colonial period, voting rights linked to land ownership (property)• 2/3 to 3/4 of white families owned

land


In colonial period, voting rights linked to land ownership (property)• 2/3 to 3/4 of white families owned

land• 50-75% of adult white males could

vote


New Revolutionary governments continued linking citizenship and voting rights to economic independence


Wealth standard for voters, even higher standard for political leaders


• Property requirements for office holding


• Property requirements for office holding

• In many new states, only wealthiest 10 percent could hold office


• Property requirements for voting


• Property requirements for voting• Lower requirements than colonial

period, so expanded voting


• Property requirements for voting• Lower requirements than colonial

period, so expanded voting• PA dropped property requirements

altogether


• Most white men could vote


• Most white men could vote• Black male property owners could

vote in most northern states


• Most white men could vote• Black male property owners could

vote in most northern states• Single women/ widows with

enough property could vote in NJ


The disenfranchised:• Propertyless white men


The disenfranchised:• Propertyless white men• All slaves


The disenfranchised:• Propertyless white men• All slaves• Most Free Blacks


The disenfranchised:• Propertyless white men• All slaves• Most Free Blacks• Nearly all women

C19: White Man’s Democracy


• In Jacksonian period, “independence” changed:


• Now to be independent, one had to be a white man


• White men used Declaration of Independence as a way to claim equality among white men regardless of wealth


• New push was related, in part, to the growing wealth inequality of the 19th century in countryside and cities with industrialization and the rise of capitalism


• In many places, a majority of white men were landless (even on the frontier)


• Led to universal white manhood suffrage


• Led to universal white manhood suffrage

• Elimination of property requirements to vote in most states


• At the same time, state constitutions were rewritten to bar voting by everyone who was not a white man


• New Jersey eliminated voting for propertied single women and widows

• Other states rewrote constitutions to specify only men could vote (even though women never had voted)


• Constitutions banned Black voters


• By 1840, 93 percent of free northern black adult males could not vote


• By 1858, free blacks were eligible to vote in just four northern states: NH, ME, MA, and VT (small black populations)


• At the same time, states and cities passed segregation and vagrancy laws to make free Blacks less independent

• New western states tried to ban Black in-migration


• Declaration was also used by White farmers and workers to express their grievances over growing inequality


• Raised idea of economic independence and economic equality as important to saving the democratic republic


• Used against land speculators, landlords, bankers, manufacturers/factory owners, railroad companies

African Americans and the Declaration


The Declaration was used by African Americans as a weapon against slavery and to gain rights for free Blacks


Before Emancipation Proclamation, most African Americans refused to celebrate July 4th: celebrated July 5th as a protest against slavery


Peter Osbourne, July 5, 1832: “Fellow Citizens—On account of the misfortune of our color, our fourth of July comes on the fifth; but I hope and trust that when the Declaration of Independence is fully executed which declares that all men, without respect to person, were born free and equal, we may then have our fourth of July on the fourth.”


Declaration frequently invoked by abolitionists pushing for an end to slavery.


Frederick Douglass, 1846: “I do speak against an American institution—that institution is American slavery. But I love the Declaration of Independence, I believe it contains a true doctrine—"that all men are born equal." It is, however, because they do not carry out this principle that I am here to speak.”


Declaration also used to demonstrate hypocrisy of “all men are created equal” for segregation, voting rights, employment discrimination, etc


Black Americans used it frequently in the 19th-20th century


One of the ways of trying to rally white support during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s

African Americans and the DeclarationMLK, “I have a dream” speech: “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. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.”

Women and the Declaration

Women tied the Declaration of Independence to push for “independence” and “equality”


First clear attempt was Seneca Falls Convention of 1848


“Declaration of Sentiments”:“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happines”


“Declaration of Sentiments”:Modeled on Declaration of Independence but substituted tyranny of men for the king


“Declaration of Sentiments”:“The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.”


Suffragists of late 19th and early 20th century also relied on Declaration


Declaration of the Rights of Women by National Woman Suffrage Association, July 4, 1876Susan B. Anthony

Women and the DeclarationDeclaration of the Rights of Women“And now, at the close of a hundred years, as the hour hand of the great clock that marks the centuries points to 1876, we declare our faith in the principles of self-government; our full equality with man in natural rights; that woman was made first for her own happiness, with the absolute right to herself—to all the opportunities and advantages life affords, for her complete development; and we deny that dogma of the centuries, incorporated in the codes of all nations—that woman was made for man—her best interests, in all cases, to be sacrificed to his will.”

understanding independence: the declaration of independence and its legacy

Documents

revolutionary generation

independent slide

land slide

understanding independence

revolutionary generation

roman slide

legacy slide

political rights slide