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The American Declaration of Independence

This research will examine the American Declaration of Independence and the extent to which it accomplished the purposes that it articulated. The research will set forth the historical context in which the Declaration emerged and then discuss how the consequences that flowed from it correlated with what the document represented and with its function as an artifact of nation-state institutionalization.

It is both a commonplace and a definitive statement of origins in American history that the Declaration of Independence, written in 1776 as the justification for the revolution that resulted, in 1783, in dissolution of royal authority over the British colonies, was meant, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, "to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent." The Declaration is acknowledged as the provenance of the American republic, but the seriousness of purpose informing it is perhaps less well known. Part of this may be attributed to the fact that the Revolution itself was not shaped by men of extreme youth and idealism but rather by educated, professional men of property and generally high social position. The Continental Congress representatives who convened in Philadelphia in 1776 were steeped in Enlightenment thought, the political strands of which could be traced to such commentators as Rousseau and Voltaire in France, and Locke and Hume in England. It is not too much to say, indeed, that the intellectual groundwork for revolution, for good or ill, was laid in the reformist tone of the Enlightenment.

Rousseau's On the Origin of Inequality, for example, discusses the design of the social structure that preserves unequal, not equal, access to benefits of that structure. He cites "the different privileges, which some men enjoy to the prejudice of others; such as that of being more rich, more honoured, more powerful or even in a position to exact obedience." Rousseau'...

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The American Declaration of Independence. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:39, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1709565.html