A quote from the Declaration of Independence..

[Asmodeus]

"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."

Excuse me?

All men?

At the time wasn't slavery legal? Didn't they deny women the right to vote?

Perhaps they meant that all white men were created equal? Or all white property owners?

In the teeming millions opinions..Who did they mean?

[AHunter3]

Context and legal practice would indicate that "all men" did not, of course, include "spurious" exceptions such as slaves, women, and so forth; it did include men who did not own property, but the assumption of "born equal" meant that they, too, had the god-given inherent chance, and the right to pursue it, to perhaps attain property and, therefore, the right to vote. (But non-propertied men did not have the right to register to vote, IIRC).

There is some indication that some of the framers and idealistic thinkers of the time had a problem with slavery and were not blind to the contradictions.

We look back contemptuously at them and their exclusionary "equality" but when you are born into a culture with categorical exclusions it is easy to be blind to them and to think you mean it when you say you believe in equality. Before the late 1960s, a vast portion of the population did not really believe in equality (even in principle) for women, they believed they were inherently different in a way that made various discriminations OK, not unfair.

And you...do you believe in equality for all? You would reject any categorical distinction that would create a class of "others" to whom equality doesn't logically apply?
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Two words: Children's liberation.

[Asmodeus]

Excuse me?


You are suggesting we give children the rights of adults?

I don't know about you but I don't want my six yr old making decisions for herself.

[Whack-a-Mole]

The Declaration of Independence is a nifty document basically telling Great Britain to go to hell. It is not a legal document and has no legal ramifications whatsoever in the U.S..

The document can spout all the well meaning, noble sounding ideals it wants. In the end it didn't mean squat when it came to writing laws so the legislators of the time were free to be as contradictory as they wished.

Didn't someone once say something to the effect that, "All men are created equal...it's just that some people are more equal than others."? (or something to that effect)

I am interested in seeing people's opinions on how the writers of those documents got around their hypocrisy but in the end the document was somewhat meaningless (in any real sense...nice ideal though).

[Revtim]

During times of slavery I think most did not think of blacks as fully human, but more as work animals. Easy enough to not consider them men.

And it seems pretty obvious how to exclude women from the sentence "All MEN are created equal".

[Akatsukami]

We note that the DoI asserts the rights of men to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; it doesn't say a bloody thing about the franchise. In fact, it should be noted that the slogan is "no taxation without representation", not "no legislation without representation".

As for the interpretation of the phrase "all men are created equal", I'll refrain from pointing out that "man" is derived from the Germanic word for "human being", and from offering my theory that the Indo-European and Germanic word for "male human being" (wer) that was present in Old English was suppressed, except in derogatory circumstances, by medieval feminazis :rolleyes:

[andros]

LOL, Akatsukami.

Asmodean, you are absolutely correct that "all men" did not include women, blacks, amerinds, the poor, etc. If you want to think the writers of the DoI were evil for it, you're welcome to. But while you're doing so, try to remember that any moral judgements made upon the past are based in today's morals.

Ahunter3 was not suggesting anything. He was jumping the gun and putting words in your mouth, and was it seems comparing the disenfranchisement of children to slavery or something.

[Boris B]

Back in the 20th Century, particularly the latter half, after public opinion had been informed by Martin King and his analogs in the women's rights movement, would have agreed with the following statements:

(1) All people are created equal

(2) The government should be chosen by all the people, without regard to age or national origin, and without moral discrimination

And yet, in the olden days children, convicts, and foreigners were not allowed to vote! What did those people mean?

I'm not mocking the OP. I think the OP contains an excellent question, and one that I used to chew on a lot before I realized the Declaration of Independence is sort of a letter to the editor with King George in the role of "editor". The Declaration of Independence gets way too much credit. Principles of equality we now hold as totally natural and indispensible were not created by the DoI, nor did they spring from subsequent, more literal, interpretations of it.

We owe our expansive ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity to much later movements. The Jacksonian democracy movements eliminated property qualifications. The 14th and 15th Amendments put a de jure end to racial discrimination, which was realized a Century later. Gender discrimination started seriously getting its butt kicked in the era after the Civil War (Seneca Falls, et al., culminating in the Constitutional), when somebody asked something to the effect of, "If you'll enfranchise black men, who you used to beat up and force to work out in the hot sun for the inadequate wage of $0.00 per hour, then how can you not do the same for us women whom you're supposed to love and respect?"

And no, I don't think that prohibiting children, convicts, and aliens from voting is morally equivalent to prohibiting women, racial minorities, and poor folks from doing so. But then, that's kind of the point - I live in the late 20th Century, and I share the values of post-MLK, post-women's liberation society. I have yet to embrace the "Enfranchise Violent Criminals Movement!" which will win the hearts and minds of the country in the 2030s.

[Asmodeus]

So most people equate the declaration with a document that really meant nothing?

Perhaps like "The Emancipation Proclamation?"

[Akatsukami]

The DoI is exactly like the EP; neither had any legal force whatsoever. Both independence from England (yeah, yeah, I know, Great Britain; not a lot of Scots in parliament busily planning the oppression of the colonials, though) and liberating blacks from slavery had to be achieved by force of arms, not high-sounding phrases.

As for meaning: well, subsequent generations have tried to read into both documents things that aren't there, that their authors couldn't, wouldn't, and didn't have meant at the time. I suppose that we can be contemptuous of that. I rather don't think on that basis, though, that the documents of our time are going to stand up any better.

[andros]

Without meaning offense, that's kinda silly, Asmodean. In the extremely long-term, nothing written by humankind means anything.

The point is, one must view the DoI in its context--to wit: it was, as Boris says, a "letter to the editor." It was never meant a a dynamic document, as was, say, the Constitution. It reflected the views and morals of its time, and by virtue of the fact that it made assertions about government and society that were theretofore unexamined (not to mention the nucleus of the political independence of the USA) it is an extremely important historical and political document.

The Emancipation Proclamation is a similar issue, in that whie it didn't "do anything," whatever you mean by that, it was also not expected to be an evolving document and as such is similarly "flawed." It was a document of political expediency which paved the way for a fundamental restructuring of US society through three amendments to the Constitution of the US.

Once again, anything written in the past will be continually reevaluated by the morals and ethics of the present. While we can say from our vaunted, oh-so-moral and righteous modern position ( :rolleyes: ) that the DoI is hypocritical or evil or whatever, or at least incomplete, it is imperative that it and all such writings of the past be read in their historical context and understood for what they were rather than our current interpretation.

[Whack-a-Mole]

So most people equate the declaration with a document that really meant nothing?

Perhaps like "The Emancipation Proclamation?"

I may have been glib in my initial response so I think it's important I make a distinction.

The Declaration of Independence means 'nothing' in the same way the Bible means 'nothing'. That is to say, as a matter of law either of those two documents are meaningless. While the U.S. may base many of it's laws on moral/ethicla grounds that could be derived from either document there is nothing stopping legislators from going 100% against the grain of either document. This would be in contrast to the U.S Constitution which is the base of all law in the U.S. and may not be contradicted short of an amendment to the Constitution (in theory...the Constitution is often contradicted but usually said contradictions get corrected by the courts/Supreme Court).

All of that said the Declaration of Independence is a very interesting document and worth study as is the Bible for many people. Just don't confuse them with law.

As for The Emancipation Proclamation it carries far more legal weight than the DoI. Proclamations along with Executive Orders carry legal obligations that the President of the United States is empowered to make thus forcing the country to a course of action. I do not know the difference between a Proclamation or an Executive Order unfortunately so I can't say just how much legal weight either carries.

[Boris B]

I'm with Jeff on the Emancipation Proclamation bit. The EP meant that slaves were freed in any area immediately upon its being captured by Northern troops. The North's inability to capture the South wholly and effortlessly doesn't make the EP any less important.

If I remember correctly (and I do scramble my dates occasionally) Wilson's Fourteen Points were promulgated before the Central Powers had quit fighting (I think they numbered over 20 in their original incaration). They only went into effect upon Allied victories. How would you evaluate the Fourteen Points, in terms of practical effect (leaving aside their value as exhortative and educational documents, which we agree are high in all these examples). I'd say, the practical impact of the Fourteen Points was huge, regardless of their timing. Instead of resolving as a couple of empires whipping a couple of other empires, the First World War resolved as the end of empires (well, two of them) and the birth of about a kazillion republics.

My point (and I do have one), is that the EP made Southern defeat and freedom for Southern slaves one and the same. There would be no off-the-cuff decisions by Union Generals, with "abolitionist sectors" lying next to "slave sectors" of the conquered South. No, I'm not forgetting that the EP didn't touch slavery in the loyal border states. That's a different issue. I'm just saying that, assuming that the North had some chance of capturing Southern territory (which apparently it did), the EP had very real, if not immediate, effects.

[andros]

Asmodeus, please accept my apologies for calling you by the wrong name.

[AHunter3]

Excuse me?


You are suggesting we give children the rights of adults?


That was not the point that I was making.

I was saying that you probably believe (or would have said) that you believe in equality for ALL PEOPLE. You then point to the framers of the Declaration and imply that they were hypocrites or awfully dense not to think about how they weren't applying those lofty ideals to women, slaves, etc.

But in 1776, most folks would have said "Excuse me? You are suggesting we give women and slaves the rights of men?", and they would have dismissed you (as you dismissed me) and continued to think that, in every way that mattered, they believed in and wrote legislation in support of equality for all men.

You may not believe that children should have the rights of adults (many would share that belief with you), but they ARE people and it ISN'T consistent with the notion that ALL PEOPLE should receive equal treatment under the law.

[Danielinthewolvesden]

Jeff: the DoI is a legal document, promulgated by the Continental Congress, which dissolved all legal ties between the USA and GB. It was not a listing of rights or anything which was meant as a law to aplly to the citizens of the US.

And the EP DID free slaves, lots of them. Those idiots that say the EP freed no slaves, as it only applied to lands/slaves in Confederate states forget that we held and were cpturing territory from the South, and it freed THOSE slaves. It was a very important document.

And, please, let us not judge the Heroes of the Past by todays standards. Some day they are going to be calling US all "bigots" as we did not let Dolphins & Chimps vote. (ok ook, ee-eeeeee"

[waterj2]

I seem to have been taught that the British didn't agree with the notion that the Declaration of Independence "dissolved all legal ties between the USA and GB". My teachers deluded me into thinking that after it was passed by the Continental Congress, there were an additional seven years of fighting and a surrender that actually settled the issue. Hmmm, so much for the public school system, I guess.

[Apollyon]

You may not believe that children should have the rights of adults (many would share that belief with you), but they ARE people and it ISN'T consistent with the notion that ALL PEOPLE should receive equal treatment under the law.


Children can have equal protection under the law without having equal rights.

I imagine that in the US (since it was the DOI under discussion) the slaying a child will be punished at least as severely as the slaying of an adult.

But like the mentally ill, or those suffering intellectual disability, who may have guardians appointed to make decisions in their best interest, children are presumed incapable of certain responsibilities and denied certain rights until they reach a prescribed age at which point the natural guardianship of their parents expires.

[AHunter3]

All this is true, but replace "children" with "slaves" and "mentally ill" with "women" and see how bigoted and quaint you sound!

Logically speaking, of course, it is entirely possible that "children" and "mentally ill people" constitute categories of people who genuinely and truly should NOT have have equal standing in all respects before the law, although, speaking as a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and former child, I reserve the right to differ, but that's not important right now. For now, for the sake of argument, I shall grant that these categories may well be different in such a way that it is somehow rational and OKAY to ascribe different political and legal status to schizzies and kids yet NOT OKAY to ascribe different political and legal status to slaves and women.

But if that is so, I think you should lighten up in your implicit cricitism of the colonial-era framers of the DOI and other period pieces, unless you can spell out, in a vividly coherent way, why the categorical discriminations that were socially normative in their day are intrinsically and obviously nothing but plain old ugly prejudice-based discrimination, whereas categorical discriminations that differentiate between "free citizens" and those of us who are so obviously not included when folks say "all people are created equal" such as children and lunatics are intrinsically and self-evidently rational exclusions that do not require any defense or contemplation.

[Occam]

Damn, take that Apollyon.

[Danielinthewolvesden]

Water: don't matter what brits thought, they lost. But, according to the USA, that was our legal separation, so it was a legal doc., no more taxes sent to GB, etc. :D

[Apollyon]

All this is true, but replace "children" with "slaves" and "mentally ill" with "women" and see how bigoted and quaint you sound!


Yeee-ouch!


Logically speaking, of course, it is entirely possible that "children" and "mentally ill people" constitute categories of people who genuinely and truly should NOT have have equal standing in all respects before the law...


Perhaps I can clarify what I meant.

There is a difference between Protection and Oppression.

Children (and certain other groups, usually those suffering significant mental illness or disability) are given special protections.

To offer a couple of examples, children are prevented form entering into contracts (such as hire purchase) because we judge (rightly or wrongly) that they are not competent to make the best decision in their own interests. I would suggest that "age of consent" exists for a similar reason, it is not intended to oppress children, but rather to protect them from manipulation and exploitation. Child labour laws also serve a similar purpose.


...speaking as a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and former child...it is somehow rational and OKAY to ascribe different political and legal status to schizzies and kids yet NOT OKAY to ascribe different political and legal status to slaves and women.


I not believe that I suggested that it was OK to ascribe different legal status to "schizzies". Your arguments in this forum appear demonstrably coherent and indicative of an active and able mind.

This difference in legal status is (or should be) based on a judgement that specific individual people are not sufficiently mentally able or mature to look after themselves or bear the same rights and responsibilities that are expected of ordinary adults.

I tend to agree that the designation of children as "minors" based solely on age runs counter to this. It is interesting (at least to me) to note that children may be judged to be adults under the law when they have commited "adult" crimes, but they are not judged adult enough to sign a contract no matter their personal maturity, and as a former child myself I do see that as a glaring double standard.


But if that is so, I think you should lighten up in your implicit cricitism of the colonial-era framers of the DOI and other period pieces...


No such criticism was intended, and I apologise if I implied otherwise. The DoI itself is not a document with which I am overly familiar -- living as I do in part of the world which has yet to declare independance from Brittania. :)


unless you can spell out, in a vividly coherent way, why the categorical discriminations that were socially normative in their day are intrinsically and obviously nothing but plain old ugly prejudice-based discrimination...


No, I can't. Each age's social norms are just that.

When the DoI was written, slavery was still a norm -- although going out of style; Women were largely kept barefoot and pregnant.

In England at least, children were often not named until they had grown up a bit, so many died young that calling them "baby" probably helped ease the pain. Older children pulled coal carts down mine pits in spaces that were too small for adults, and if you were caught stealing you were likely to get a 2 minute trial before "the beak" before being transported to the colonies for 10 years.

When the framer's of the DoI made claims that were "self evident" all their cultural baggage went along with it.


...children and lunatics are intrinsically and self-evidently rational exclusions that do not require any defense or contemplation.


I would certainly hope that in line with our "enlightened" social norms, any exclusion of people from equal rights should require both contemplation and defence.

Kind Regards,
Martin

[Northern Piper]

I'd like to jump into the discussion of the legal effect of the Declaration of Independence. My understanding is that it is a legal document, but a legal document that is primarily concerned with international law, not domestic law.

As others have noted, the primary purpose of the Declaration was to end the legal ties with the U.K., and to create a new international entity. Since international law is made by a combination de facto situations (such as a successful armed revolution), and de jure principles (such as recognition of the new status by other countries like France, in this case), it didn't take immediate effect as a matter of international law. But, it did eventually have status as a document with legal effect in international law.

It also had effect on U.S. domestic law. For example, under colonial law, the British Parliament was supreme over colonial legislatures, and could override any colonial law. The Declaration, once it was made good on the battlefield and through diplomacy, ended that legal relationship and substituted a new one, of sovereignty for the individual states.

One example of the different way the Declaration worked in international law and U.S. domestic law relates to the date of U.S. independence. Under U.S. domestic law, the U.S. gained independence on July 4, 1776. Under British domestic law, it dates from the British recognitiion of U.S. independence with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. That difference actually had some significance at the time, as issues such as a change of citizenship by American colonials as a result of independence would be recognized differently in the American courts and the U.K. courts.

[Monty]

There's an excellent book entitled Vindicating the Founders which addresses the points raised by the OP.

[slick_willie]

Does it really matter what they wrote then? The point is that everyone is free now. And the fact that most of the representatives in the Continental Congress were from the northern states, such as massachusetts, new york, etc. And yes slavery was an issue at the time. I can almost guarantee that the people in the north heavily disagreed with those representative from the southern states and it finaly grew into the civil war. But my entire point is that 1)The decleration of Independence is not a law, but a simple statement in which it says that all men should be treated equally. 2)The representatives also saw it as a right for southerners to carry on buissness freely, which included slavery. The decleration was also written for trade free from limitations and heavy taxes from the British. Why then would the newly formed U.S.A barage southerners with all these limitations? It is true that slavery is a very gloomy part of American history, and i'm glad that it was ended. The Emancipation Proclamation came slightly late, but it came. We can't change the past, so why complain about it?

[Asmodeus]

Did the Brits lose or did they have more pressing matters to attend to?

[Boris B]

It's hard to say. An empire as large as Britain's is always faced with hard choices about which matters to attend to. Certainly, the North American colonies were one of the most important matters around; we were not some far-flung colony like Diego Garcia or New Zealand (and yes, my timing may be out of whack; fill in some smallish, faraway colony the British had in the late 18th Century to get my meaning). The point is, North America was one of Britain's most important colonies, so it obviously wasn't a simple matter of getting distracted.

On the other hand, no colony is as important as the homeland. Britain has been threatened at various times by Continental forces. How threatened were they by enemies or potential enemies (France, bits of the Holy Roman Empire, Spain) in 1776? I can't remember. Obviously, some pretty heavy wars with France were yet to come - a bunch of Napoleonic Wars, for one, and the obvious example of French intervention in the American independence struggle. And some pretty big wars had just gone by - the Seven Years' War, which is really a superset of the French and Indian War (the concept of world war was yet to come so there still were different names for different theaters of action). So Britain wasn't exactly having tea and crumpets with Europe.
So the answer to your question, Asmodeus, is: I don't know. I would hazard the guess that, if the British were going to save any one colony, they would have picked the 13 in the New World, partly because they felt, reasonably, that the loss of those threatened Canada. (Are you sensing that I don't know the contemporary names for these colonies? I don't. I mean, how would a Briton, in 1775, distinguish the uppity colonies of Georgia and Vermont and stuff, from the placid colonies of Newfoundland and neighbors? They were both "British Colonies in the New World", after all.) This chunk of the answer favors the the British just got whipped in battle (Yorktown and the Chesapeake) thesis.

The other school of thought, as alluded to by Asmodeus, is that the British had other fish to fry. This is based on perfectly rational fears of folks on the restive Continent dying to invade Briton. It wouldn't be prudent to risk too many people or munitions putting down a lawyers' rebellion in the New World, if it meant a serious chance of merry old England being invaded. Was there a serious chance? Interesting moot question. It doesn't matter as long as anybody important believed there was a chance of an anti-Britain coalition forming on the continent. Austria, France, Spain, maybe even Russia. The first three are also largely Catholic. Could this have stoked fears of an atavistic Protestant - Papal conflict sweeping Europe? I dont' know. But I sure as heck like to speculate!

[tracer]

Asmodeus (an old favorite of mine from the AD&D Monster Manual) wrote:

You are suggesting we give children the rights of adults?

Well ... how about giving teen-agers the rights of adults? You know, by lowering the Age of Majority to, say, 13?

[Duck Duck Goose]

originally posted by Jeff42:
Didn't someone once say something to the effect that, "All men are created equal...it's just that some people are more equal than others."? (or something to that effect)

Nobody answered Jeff's question. George Orwell, in Animal Farm, has the animals set up a list of seven commandments.
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

Later, as the situation deteriorates and the pigs take over the farm, the animals wake up one morning to find that the first seven have been erased, and another commandment has been added:

But some animals are more equal than others.


This website (http://pages.citenet.net/users/charles/af-notes.html) has a good summary of the book.