The Declaration of Independence Explained: Natural Rights, Equality, and the Consent of the Governed

The American Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776, is one of the great manifestos of modern political philosophy, and it remains the defining statement of the political vision of its principal author, Thomas Jefferson. While Natural Rights in the Declaration of Independence examines the natural-rights theory of the document, this article focuses on the biographical and textual context of its composition, the way Jefferson transformed his various philosophical sources into a coherent political argument, and the revisions and reception of the document.

Jefferson’s Preparation

Jefferson was uniquely well prepared to draft the Declaration. A Virginian aristocrat with one of the finest private libraries in the colonies, Jefferson had been reading and thinking about the natural-rights tradition for years. He was deeply read in John Locke, in the writings of the Scottish moralists Francis Hutcheson and Adam Smith, in the English Whig tradition of Trenchard and Gordon, and in the writings of the French philosophes. He had also drafted, in 1774, his Summary View of the Rights of British America, a pamphlet that set out the colonial case against British taxation in terms drawn from the natural-rights tradition.

Jefferson’s philosophical sources were not purely Lockean. He had been influenced, in particular, by the Scottish moralist Francis Hutcheson, who had emphasized the importance of the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental human end. Jefferson’s substitution of “the pursuit of Happiness” for Locke’s “property” in the famous enumeration of natural rights was, in this sense, a deliberate philosophical move, drawing on the Scottish tradition of moral philosophy as well as on the Lockean natural-rights tradition.

The Drafting Process

On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five — Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston — to draft a declaration of independence. The committee unanimously chose Jefferson to prepare the first draft, in part because of his reputation as the most accomplished writer among them and in part because of his recognized mastery of the political philosophy of the natural-rights tradition.

Jefferson worked on the draft in his lodgings at Graff’s House in Philadelphia, and he completed it in about a week. He then submitted the draft to Adams and Franklin, who made a number of small revisions and suggestions before submitting it to the full committee. The committee approved the draft on June 28, and it was then submitted to the Continental Congress for debate and revision.

The Congress debated the Declaration for two and a half days. The most important revisions were the removal of a passage that condemned the king for the slave trade, and the removal of a passage that condemned the British people for their complicity in the actions of the king. Both revisions were made to secure the support of the more moderate delegates, who were reluctant to alienate potential British allies or to antagonize the slaveholders of the southern colonies. The final text was approved on July 4, 1776.

The Structure of the Argument

The Declaration is structured as a deductive argument, organized in the manner of a philosophical proof. It begins with a preamble that sets out the conditions under which a people is justified in dissolving the political bands that have connected them with another. It then sets out a general theory of natural rights and legitimate government. It then applies this theory to the specific case of the American colonies, by enumerating the “repeated injuries and usurpations” of the British king. It concludes with a formal declaration of independence.

The central argument of the Declaration is the argument from natural rights to legitimate government to the right of revolution. The natural-rights theory, drawn from Locke and the Scottish moralists, provides the foundation. The theory of legitimate government, drawn from the same sources, provides the framework. And the right of revolution, drawn from the Lockean theory of resistance, provides the conclusion. The argument is a sustained exercise in the application of Enlightenment natural-rights theory to the specific case of the American colonies.

The Rhetoric of the Declaration

The Declaration is a masterpiece of political rhetoric. Jefferson’s prose is clear, direct, and powerful, and the document is organized in a way that builds toward its climactic declaration. The opening paragraphs set out the philosophical foundation, the central paragraphs apply the foundation to the case at hand, and the final paragraph announces the decision of the colonies to separate from Britain.

The most famous passage of the Declaration is the statement of the “self-evident truths”: “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.” The passage has become a basic reference for the American political tradition, and it has been an inspiration to democratic movements throughout the world. The appeal to self-evidence, the claim of natural equality, and the enumeration of the unalienable rights are all characteristic features of the Enlightenment natural-rights tradition, and they were, in 1776, a radical claim of universal human rights.

The Reception and the Legacy

The Declaration was received in the colonies with enthusiasm, and it was widely reprinted in the colonial press. The text was sent to the various colonial assemblies and to the Continental Army, and it was read aloud in public gatherings throughout the colonies. The reception in Europe was more mixed, but the document was widely read and discussed by the political philosophers and politicians of the period.

Jefferson himself continued to think about the Declaration in the years after its adoption. In his old age, he wrote to a correspondent that the Declaration was “an instrument, pregnant with our own, and the fate of the world.” He recognized the document as a manifesto of the Enlightenment applied to politics, and he believed that the principles of the Declaration would, in time, become the basic principles of the modern world.

Further Reading

• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (plato.stanford.edu), relevant entry
• The Cambridge Companion to [Thinker] (Cambridge University Press)
• Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (1969)