government is based on a contract between the rulers and the ruled. The ruled agree to obey the laws as long as the rulers protect their basic rights to life, liberty, and property. If the rulers fail to do that, they break the contract, and the ruled are free to set up another government. This is exactly what the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence says, except that Jefferson changed “property” to “the pursuit of happiness,” perhaps to garner the support of those Americans who didn’t own enough property to worry about. The rest of the Declaration focuses on documenting the ways in which the colonists believed that England, and particularly George III, had violated their rights and broken the social contract.
Declaration of Independence the political document that dissolved the colonial ties between the United States and Britain
Are there any circumstances in which it would be justifiable for groups in the United States to rebel against the federal government today?
“. . . That All Men Are Created Equal”
The Declaration of Independence begins with a statement of the equality of all men. Since so much of this document relies heavily on Locke, and since clearly the colonists did not mean that all men are created equal, it is worth turning to Locke for some help in seeing exactly what they did mean. In his most famous work, A Second Treatise of Government, Locke wrote,
Though I have said above that all men are by nature equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality. Age or virtue may give men a just precedency. Excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level. Birth may subject some, and alliance or benefits others, to pay an observance to those whom nature, gratitude, or other respects may have made it due.9
Men are equal in a natural sense, said Locke, but society quickly establishes many dimensions on which they may be unequal. A particularly sticky point for Locke’s ideas on equality was his treatment of slavery. Although he hemmed and hawed about it, ultimately he failed to condemn it. Here, too, our founders would have agreed with him.
African Americans and the Revolution
The Revolution was a mixed blessing for American slaves. On the one hand, many slaves won their freedom during the war. Slavery was outlawed north of Maryland, and many slaves in the Upper South were also freed. The British offered freedom in exchange for service in the British army, although the conditions they provided were not always a great improvement over enslavement. The abolitionist, or antislavery, movement gathered steam in some northern cities, expressing moral and constitutional objections to the institution of slavery. Whereas before the Revolution only about 5 percent of American blacks were free, the proportion grew tremendously with the coming of war.10
In the aftermath of war, African Americans did not find their lot greatly improved, despite the ringing rhetoric of equality that fed the Revolution. The economic profitability of slave labor still existed in the South, and slaves continued to be imported from Africa in large numbers. The explanatory myth, that all men were created equal but that blacks weren’t quite men and thus could be treated unequally, spread throughout the new country, making even free blacks unwelcome in many communities. By 1786 New Jersey prohibited free blacks from entering the state, and within twenty years northern states started passing laws specifically denying free blacks the right to vote.11 No wonder the well-known black abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, in 1852, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”
Human Trade Slaves were used to meet the needs of the South’s burgeoning economy in tobacco and cotton, which required plentiful, cheap labor. They were shipped from Africa and sold to farmers alongside rice, books, and other goods. In the eighteenth century, approximately 275 slaves were shipped to the American colonies. Many did not survive the harsh conditions of the passage.
Sarin Images/Granger, NYC — All rights reserved.
Native Americans And The Revolution
Native Americans were another group the founders did not consider to be prospective citizens. Not only were they already considered members of their own sovereign nations, but their communal property holding, their nonmonarchical political systems, and their divisions of labor between women working in the fields and men hunting for game were not compatible with European political notions. Pushed farther and farther west by land-hungry colonists, the Indians were actively hostile to the American cause in the Revolution. Knowing this, the British hoped to gain their allegiance in the war. Fortunately for the revolutionary effort, the colonists, having asked in vain for the Indians to stay out of what they called a “family quarrel,” were able to suppress early on the Indians’ attempts to get revenge for their treatment at the hands of the settlers.12 There was certainly no suggestion that the claim of equality at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence might include the peoples who had lived on the continent for centuries before the white man arrived.
Women And The Revolution
Neither was there any question that “all men” might somehow be a generic term for human beings that would include women. The Revolution proved to be a step backward for women politically: it was after the war that states began specifically to prohibit women, even those with property, from voting.13 That doesn’t mean, however, that women did not get involved in the war effort. Within the constraints of society, they contributed what they could to the American cause. They boycotted tea and other British imports, sewed flags, made bandages and clothing, nursed and housed soldiers, and collected money to support the Continental Army. Under the name Daughters of Liberty, women in many towns met publicly to discuss the events of the day, spinning and weaving to make the colonies less dependent on imported cotton and woolen goods from England, and drinking herbal tea instead of tea that was taxed by the British. Some women moved beyond such mild patriotic activities to outright political behavior, writing pamphlets urging independence, spying on enemy troops, carrying messages, and even, in isolated instances, fighting on the battlefields.14
Men’s understanding of women’s place in early American politics was nicely put by Thomas Jefferson, writing from Europe to a woman in America in 1788:
But our good ladies, I trust, have been too wise to wrinkle their foreheads with politics. They are contented to soothe & calm the minds of their husbands returning ruffled from political debate. They have the good sense to value domestic happiness above all others. There is no part of the earth where so much of this is enjoyed as in America.15
Women’s role with respect to politics at the time was plain. They may be wise and prudent, but their proper sphere was the domestic, not the political, world. They were seen as almost “too good” for politics, representing peace and serenity, moral happiness rather than political dissension, the values of the home over the values of the state. This narrative provided a flattering reason for keeping women in “their place” while allowing men to reign in the world of politics.
In
