"We, the People..." and begin fulfilling, in practical terms, the inherent mandate prescribed therein: the attainment of the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
CRITERIA FOR SELECTION
Although different documents and works were suggested, from the Code of Hammurabi up to the Marshall Plan, except for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with its Bill of Rights, and except for one or two individuals who confused the Articles of Confederation with the so-called Federalist papers, no one mentioned the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Causes or the Emancipation Proclamation. No one, except for a few in the legal profession, who had taken up the issue of capital punishment, had ever heard of Beccaria's Treatise (Essay) On Crimes and Punishments. Several, on the other hand, wanted to include the Magna Charta and put forward good arguments for its inclusion.
No one mentioned Thomas Paine's Common Sense; "'Tis time to part," he urged, and many adhered to his call. At the same time, he became such a critic as to distort truths and indiscriminately malign, without much justification, otherwise innocent people. Thomas Paine's attacks on George Washington, for example, were far more vehement than those seen on television today between party candidates running for the same office. Nevertheless, his pamphlet played a very important role in bringing about America's independence.
The goal of this book, therefore, is to bring together the documents and other corroborative works which have galvanized this continent–more specifically, items that were actually used to forge the nation that was to become the United States of America.
1. MAYFLOWER COMPACT
In the Mayflower Compact of November 11, 1620, the signers explain why they quit England, knowing all the while about the hardships ahead. Looking forward to their new settlement, they arrogated for themselves the right to "covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."
The signers were leaving a nation governed by a monarchy guided by an established national (state) church. To see the word "constitution", therefore, becomes both brazen and promising at the same time. The signers may have been religious zealots at odds with the King and Church of England, but they were certainly clear in their undertakings and knowledgeable in the forms they were to design in order to govern themselves.
The original, herewith reproduced, is to be found among many other documents on the birth of this nation in the Archives of the State Library, Beacon Hill, Boston. The facsimile was made possible courtesy of the Library.
2. ON CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS
The treatise On Crimes and Punishments by Cesare Beccaria (Marquis) from Milan, Italy, was widely used by our Founding Fathers. From George Washington to John Adams, to Thomas Jefferson, they all quoted extensively from this book. In England, Beccaria's treatise was also widely quoted, and came back to America through the works of individuals like William Blackstone, who became extremely important in matters of case law as adopted and adapted to American laws. This small book (trattato is often translated from the Italian into English as essay rather than treatise), is required reading in order to better understand America's form of government.
It was a best seller in the colonies, having been translated and published throughout the world, having had a major impact in England, France, Poland, Italy, Germany and even in Russia; yet, the book is woefully absent in today's writings about that 1770 decade, a period that produced, in one group, a practical basis on which to found a government for practically a whole continent. How they did it remains a wonder.
3. DECLARATION OF THE CAUSES...
The Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms, July 6, 1775, was the second such document by the Continental Congress (the first being the Declaration and resolves... issued about three months earlier). Although the issue of the King's abusive taxation was the single most important gripe of the colonists–the perennial cry against taxation without representation, as is known today–the distinguishing element of the Declaration of Causes lies in the new, revolutionary idea which claimed that governments exist for the people and not vice-versa: "But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject that government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end."
This bold statement asserted what had already been discussed in Europe and in America, but never implemented in any definitive form. With the ensuing Declaration, which was to declare the Colonies' independence from England, the possibility of having a government existing for the people (and not the people existing for the government) began to take shape and to become reality. A government made to serve the people and not vice-versa is the cornerstone of America's Democracy.
In his Address, President John F. Kennedy challenged the American people in a very untraditional way: "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." His recommendation may need to be re-assessed especially if compared to the Address of John Adams: "The declaration that our people are hostile to a government made by ourselves and for themselves, and conducted by themselves, is an insult." Adams' defense for the type of government he and his colleagues created is also defended by Abraham Lincoln as exemplified by his deeds in preserving the Union and in his words delivered at Gettysburg in 1863: that "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth." Straying away from that cornerstone, therefore, should be forcefully avoided if Americans want to retain their democratic form of government and to remain steadfast in their basic character as individuals and as a people.
In the debates at the Convention of 1787, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, himself an immigrant from England, said it best: "The British Government cannot be our model. We have no materials for a similar one. Our manners, our laws, the abolition of enteils and of primogeniture, the whole genius of the people, are opposed to it."
Curiously, an extant Italian language version of this Declaration is to be found among the Jefferson papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., and offers several stylistic variations from the original published in Philadelphia.
4. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
The Declaration of Independence is the crowning glory of the Continental Congress. By reiterating the basic premise in the Declaration of Causes, and by adding that of independence with all of its ramifications, it specified the people's goal and described the means through which to achieve it. "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 a 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." The language is felicitous, its content noble, its intent bold and revolutionary. With that kind of resolve, how could the "new" Americans not succeed! However, in view of the divisiness of America's society as it goes into the 21st century, one is to wonder whether it is going in the opposite direction. The Founding Fathers refused to allow the category of nobility; today, people are arranged, divided, and engineered into all kinds of categories and classes, each receiving privileges according to gender,
