The Living Declaration

“…We should begin with the establishment of first principles…The Declaration of Independence, shall be the base of all the rest…”

This statement was not written in July 1776, but more than four decades later, in late 1817. Hezekiah Niles, the foremost newspaper publisher of his day, wrote an appeal to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, calling for new educational methods to build up a true “national character.” In pointing to the Declaration of Independence as the fount from which his generation should draw to create a character suited to the times, Niles revealed how the founding charter remained a living element of American society long after it announced the colonies’ separation from England.

When I began the book project that turned into National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America, I planned a short material history of the revered relic that now rests securely in the National Archives, in Washington, D.C. Like all Americans, I honored the Declaration, occasionally viewing it in the Archives, but I knew nothing of its story after July 1776. I thought of the Declaration primarily as a part of the Revolutionary War. Yet it was not simply a state paper that played its role on that first July 4 and then faded into revered irrelevance.

Writing and teaching about the complex history of America requires not just a complete, but an honest treatment of our most famous document.

Instead, the Declaration has influenced each generation throughout our history. It has been the inspiration for almost every attempt to both preserve our freedoms and make a more perfect union. I learned, for example, that during the 20th century, through two world wars and a cold war, Americans regularly couched their opposition to fascism and communism by explicitly invoking the Declaration’s principles as those for which they fought. In newspapers, presidential pronouncements, schools, and popular culture, it was the Declaration that served as a shining counterpart to totalitarian systems abroad, while its focus on individual liberty undoubtedly helped blunt socialist critiques of capitalist democracy at home.

While I found that Americans used the Declaration to maintain our deepest traditions, I also came to appreciate just how much it was the principles of the Declaration that pushed us to correct our shortcomings. While the Constitution is the “battlefield” on which we fight our most important legal and political issues, behind almost every struggle has been the shadow of the Declaration. From abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and women’s rights activists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the 19th century, to civil rights campaigners like Martin Luther King, Jr., in the 20th century, the Declaration was the deep spring from which they drew their ideas of civic justice. King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream Speech” quoting the Declaration is justly famous, but I discovered that throughout the Civil Rights Movement, whether in local newspaper editorials or Oval Office speeches, the Declaration’s promises were repeatedly cited as the goal to which the country must move.

While the Constitution is the “battlefield” on which we fight our most important legal and political issues, behind almost every struggle has been the shadow of the Declaration.

Along the way, I learned as well that the history of the Declaration’s influence isn’t always so straightforward. Our founding charter was claimed by both the North and the South during the Civil War, with Confederates like Jefferson Davis appealing to Thomas Jefferson’s argument that government is only legitimate with consent of the governed, while Abraham Lincoln championed equality as the true and universal, meaning of the document. Such disagreements continue to swirl around the Declaration. Today, for example, those who read it as a call for equality of outcome over equality of opportunity misunderstand the document. Writing and teaching about the complex history of America requires not just a complete, but an honest treatment of our most famous document.

There is a reason that the Declaration has remained the supreme statement of the American ethos. It is a living covenant, speaking to each generation of Americans, whether those who trace their heritage back to the Mayflower or are new citizens. Those fleeing from oppression continue to seek individual freedom in America, while others urge the continual process of expanding opportunity and equal treatment for both the majority and minority at home. It was the Declaration that most famously expressed our “pragmatic idealism” (in the words of historian Bernard Bailyn) that kept the American Revolution from spinning off into the excesses of the French, Russian, or Chinese catastrophes. Let us hope it continues to inspire our democratic experiment for another quarter-millennium.

About the Author

Michael Auslin is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.