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 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. — excerpt from the Declaration of Independence
Welcome back
My plan for the first few issues of Daily Conquest is to spend some time reflecting on the founding principles and documents of the United States — the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. That may sound like dry, boring, civics class stuff, but I’ll try to make it interesting. Moreover, it’s important.
We live in an environment in which government seeks to involve itself in every aspect of our lives, in which there is seemingly no escape from the imposition of politics and political demands on us, and in which almost every issue of public concern is presented as an “us against them” slugfest.
The predominant news sources seem more about pushing narratives and exacerbating conflicts than informing us about the world in an accurate and non-manipulative way. The social media outlets that consume much of our attention are powered by algorithms that drive division and accelerate extreme views. Everything is politicized, right down to the sports and entertainment worlds that previously offered us some respite.
I could go on. We all recognize how poisonous much of the current cultural and political environment is. Is this the America we want? If not, how do we change it? How do we make things better?
An idea I want to explore through Daily Conquest is that we can look to first principles, to the founding ideas of America, and to the tools built into our system at the founding, as a means of getting back on track.
At the very least, reminding ourselves of these principles can help us better grapple with the many issues and controversies thrust at us every day.
We will get to present day topics! But I think it’s worth taking the time to look at how it started before we dive into how it’s going.
All that said, we’re going full political science nerd for this one — so come along for the ride! It will be fun…
We hold these truths
The Declaration of Independence sets out five “self-evident truths” that are worth a close look because they are the truly revolutionary part of the document. The self-evident truths are:
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 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.
These five axioms form the basis for the people of the thirteen colonies asserting their right to declare independence from Great Britain and establish their own government. The self-evident truths are not themselves a declaration of political independence — that comes later in the document — but lay the groundwork for that declaration.
What makes these self-evident truths revolutionary? These five assertions describe and advance a new theory of government1 — that governments are created by the people and for a specific purpose: to secure the rights of the people.
That might not sound extraordinary to us now, but in an age of kings, it was quite literally revolutionary. Although British monarchs were, by the 18th century, much constrained by Parliament, the British people were still considered subjects of the king. The king was king by hereditary right. The government was the king’s government. The nation — and its colonies — ultimately belonged to the king. All laws were passed in the name of the king, and so on and so on.
While the more extreme claims of the divine right of kings and the powers of absolute monarchy had ended with the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the sacking of King James II, the logic of monarchy still ultimately rested on that basis — a king was king by the grace of God. The king’s government was, in effect, a gift of the king to his subjects and could, in theory, be withdrawn.2
We’re in charge now
Not so fast, says the Continental Congress. Governments aren’t something a king gives his grateful people, to be altered or abolished at his will. Governments aren’t handed down from God but are instituted “among Men”3 to secure their rights.
And wait! There’s more! The just powers of government derive from and depend on the consent of the governed.
Monarchial minds blown. That one line turns everything upside down. It says the people are sovereign, not the king. The king’s power to govern, assuming there is to be a king, depends on the people’s consent. The people aren’t subjects. The people are in charge.
And if the people decide they no longer want to be ruled by a king, then the people have the right to dispense with a king. Or they can separate from the king’s rule and form their own government, in a form of their own choosing. As the thirteen British colonies would do, becoming instead the thirteen United States of America.4
All of that is contained in the fourth and fifth “self-evident truths”. We’ve skipped over the first three, which are the most radical of all.
Created equal
That all men are created equal. There is so much packed into these six words.5 All men means we’re asserting something universal, that applies to all people everywhere.6 Not only to American colonists, or British subjects, or people then living. But all people everywhere, for all time. Bold move. Go big or go home.
The people of the United States were not only laying the groundwork for declaring their independence from Great Britain, but a foundation for something far more dangerous and radical — a universal idea that the people of any nation could, and had the inherent right to, do what the Americans were doing — throw off an old form of government and establish a new one of their choosing. When that idea spread across Europe and around the world it inspired revolutions and caused shockwaves that are still being felt today.
As for created equal, countless volumes have been written about what those two words mean. Most certainly they mean equal in the eyes of their Creator (however you conceptualize a Creator), and thus equal in basic human dignity and equal in possessing the unalienable rights referred to in the next clause. We’ll stick with that for now.
Unalienable rights
About those unalienable rights — where do they come from? And what does unalienable mean anyway?
The source of all men’s rights, according to the Declaration, is their Creator. Without getting into theology or the particular religious beliefs of the Founders, all or most of them believed in some higher power that was the source of our rights. They were following a theory of natural law7 and saying that we all have certain natural rights that don’t come from any legislator or king or other human law-giver. You can dive into the footnote for more on what natural law is. Short version for us: the Declaration says our rights come from God.8 Or, if you prefer, from Nature.
As for unalienable, that means these rights cannot be taken or given away. Something that is alienable can be “made alien” to you. So, for example, if you own a piece of property, say some land or a car, you have certain rights over your property. But if you sell that property, you no longer have those rights — the new owner of the land or car gets the rights you used to have. You have alienated those rights. So our rights in property are usually alienable rights, either voluntarily (give it away or sell it) or involuntarily (Your car is repossessed or your property is foreclosed.)
But the rights the Declaration is talking about are unalienable. You always have them. You can’t give them away. The king or other government can’t take them away. Of course, you can choose not to assert a right. You can choose not to pursue happiness. And rights can be violated — the government could arbitrarily and unjustly kill or imprison you. But the point is that would be a violation of a right.
That among these are…
We’ll talk about life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness in a separate post, because they deserve their own discussion and I want to wrap this up. But before I do, I’ll point out that there is another “unalienable right” mentioned in the Declaration aside from the famous three that most people can probably list. Do you see it in the excerpt at the top of this post?
We already talked about it, as part of the fifth “self-evident truth”. Here it is: 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 new Government,
The right to alter or abolish the form of government is also an unalienable right. And there are others not listed in the Declaration, which only says “among these are…”. Which means there are others not listed. What are they? Well, that’s a topic for another day.
Those are my thoughts on the self-evident truths in the Declaration of Independence. I hope you enjoyed this discussion and found it informative and thought-provoking. If so, please click the heart icon to like this post.
Also, let me know your thoughts! If you’re a Daily Conquest subscriber, you can leave a comment below. If you want to comment privately, you can reply to the email you received or write to dailyconquest @ substack.com.
See you next time! Conquer the day!
The ideas and the theory behind them were not entirely new — the drafters of the Declaration drew heavily on the writings of John Locke and others. But they were new in the sense that the signers of the Declaration had skin in the game. This wasn’t some theoretical treatise. They were putting their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor on the line, as well as the future of their nation, in support of this theory of government. That hadn’t been done before. (But see England’s “Glorious Revolution” of 1688).
As a practical matter, by the 18th century, there was no way King George III, or any British monarch was going to dispense with Parliament and implement direct rule — but it was, in theory, possible.
In the Declaration, the Founders were building on a long tradition of placing limitations on royal power going all the way back to the Magna Carta in 1215. But regardless of those developments, British sovereignty still rested with the British monarch.
The radical step the Americans took was declaring that, no, sovereignty instead rests with the people. The American Revolution was at the same time both a continuation of political developments over many centuries and a radical, decisive break with the past. But that’s Americans for you.
In 1776 it was mostly men doing most of the instituting of governments. Obviously (you might even say self-evidently), the principle applies to women as well, who have all the same unalienable rights and are also perfectly capable of instituting governments and all the rest. Maybe I should rewrite the Declaration into bland and bloodless 21st century gender-neutral language? Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I trust the reader to figure it out.
Decolonization? America invented that.
Well, That is sort of hanging out and being a conjunction while the other five do the heavy lifting.
“But it leaves out women!” We already discussed this in Footnote 3. Sit down.
We’ll go to Encyclopedia Britannica for this: “Natural law, in philosophy, a system of right or justice held to be common to all humans and derived from nature rather than from the rules of society, or positive law.” And see a more thorough discussion at Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy “Natural Law”
Though you can also reach “unalienable rights” by arguing certain rights are derived through reason from the inherent Nature of the world and try to leave God out of it. Hence, they are natural rights. Again, see the links in the previous footnote if you want to go down that rabbit hole.