The Legacy of the Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence lithograph, circa 1850, by Napoleaon Sarony after John Trumbull. National Museum of American History. Public Domain

This is the sixth and final essay in a series on the Declaration of Independence, in recognition of its 250th anniversary.

Commentary

Most of the text of the Declaration of Independence addressed then-current events: the grievances against King George III, the reasons for Independence, the announcement of separation, and the signers’ determination to defend their decision.

The Declaration’s timeless, permanent legacy derives from its paragraph of basic premises or assumptions:

“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.”

Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of those words, but he expressed the dominant views of his time. Nearly every American Founder agreed that God gave rights to all mankind and that government’s preeminent duty was to protect them. Alexander Hamilton—on the other end of the mainstream American political spectrum from Jefferson—had affirmed the same basic principle over a year earlier:

“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

These premises have become America’s founding creed.

It is true, of course, that some academics sneer at them: When I served on a university law school faculty, one of my faculty colleagues used to tell entering law students that the entire concept of natural law was “simple minded.” (If so, I plead guilty to the fault.) But the Declaration’s assumptions are accepted widely among the general public.

Politicians usually dare not question the Declaration’s premises, even if they act in ways very different from what the Founding creed would suggest. But on Sept. 3, 2025, Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) became a rare example of a politician who did question the Founding creed. Without mentioning the Declaration, he compared the concept of God-given rights to Islamic theocracy.

He probably won’t do that again: The public outrage was overwhelming.

Early Reliance on the Declaration

As I pointed out in the second installment in this series, a major reason for declaring independence was to induce other countries (particularly France) to aid the American cause. However, the Declaration seems not to have had that effect—at least not immediately. On the other hand, the document proved influential in America, where citizens began rather early to measure public policy by the Declaration’s standards. Of course, some of their assessments were correct, and some were not.

For example, during the Constitutional Convention James Wilson of Pennsylvania used the Declaration to promote his vision of a very strong, “consolidated” central government. He argued that the Declaration showed that the states individually never were fully independent of each other, and that the Continental Congress itself enjoyed sovereign power. Wilson had made similar arguments even before Independence. But they never were very persuasive, and after the Constitution was written, Wilson dropped them.

On Sept. 17, 1787, the convention released the proposed Constitution to the general public, thereby triggering debate over whether the states should ratify it. The Constitution’s opponents said it violated the aspirations expressed in the Declaration by creating an aristocratic, powerful federal government. The Constitution’s advocates argued that the Constitution actually furthered the aspirations expressed in the Declaration.

Later, when the country focused on the divisive issue of slavery, slavery’s opponents contended that the “peculiar institution” was inconsistent with the Declaration’s pronouncement that all men are created equal and have a natural right to liberty. No one was better at making this point than Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln was campaigning for the U.S. Senate in 1858, he pleaded: “You may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. But do not destroy that immortal emblem of Humanity—the Declaration of American Independence.”

Lincoln’s most famous use of the Declaration, of course, was in the Gettysburg Address: “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.”

The appeal to the Declaration by slavery’s opponents put slavery’s defenders in a difficult situation. Some tried to reconcile the institution with the Declaration. Eventually, Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederate States of America, abandoned those efforts—arguing that the Declaration’s statement that all men were created equal was simply wrong.

Twentieth Century Reliance on the Declaration

Early in the 20th century, progressive scholars, frustrated with the checks on government power in the Constitution, claimed that the Constitution had been written by self-interested reactionaries to undermine the Declaration’s democratic ideals. This argument failed to explain why all five members of the committee that drafted the Declaration supported ratifying the Constitution (although Jefferson also insisted on a Bill of Rights). In the intervening years the claim that the Constitution’s writers were driven by self-interest to subvert the Declaration has been discredited.

Eventually, the Declaration’s sentiments began to exercise influence beyond America’s borders and within the wider world. Thus, the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 affirmed the individual’s “basic rights and fundamental freedoms,” as inherent, inalienable, and applicable to all human beings.

Others, with views and purposes entirely hostile to the premises of the Declaration, used the document for propaganda purposes. In 1945, Communist rebels in Vietnam issued a “Proclamation of Independence” that began with a paraphrase from the Declaration.

One might ask why people who oppose the Declaration’s fundamental principles nevertheless quote from it. One might as well ask why politicians who favor an omnipotent federal government cite the Constitution. Shakespeare answered such questions with his observation that, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” Because the Declaration is an enormously inspiring document, unscrupulous hands manipulate it into a propaganda tool.

The remedy for misuse of the Declaration is education. Part of a citizen’s job is to inform the rising generation of what the Declaration really said, what it really means, and why it is important. May we continue that effort long after this 250th anniversary has receded into history.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.