Thomas Jefferson was chosen to put the freedom of the new colonies into words. He was a man of great political influence, but more importantly, he was a man of eloquence. His writing style emancipated us from Britain. The Declaration of Independence is convincing and clear, making it seem unbiased. But, is it really devoid of all prejudices?
Throughout Jefferson’s summary of the crimes that “He” (King George III) committed against the country and its people, Jefferson makes a very strong argument against persecution through the use of stating mandatory rights with the phrases, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights…” [paragraph 1]. However, how are slaves allotted these “Rights”? How could Jefferson have been a slave owner with these beliefs? One must question if Jefferson knew what would be the best (most convincing) on paper, yet harbored a more Philus (in terms of Cicero’s The Defense of Injustice) view where, “The most fortunate choice is…the perform injustice, if you can get away with it.” Also, women seem to be left out of the bulk of this piece. When people in general are referred to, women are implied, but this does not seem to be the case in this early patriarchal society (mindset). How do you feel women, slaves, and minorities in general are included in this declaration (or, why they were silently excluded)?
The Declaration of Independence was written to showcase the injustices of Britain and free the colonies, revolutionaries, from corruption using a Rousseau-based approach (as we talked about in class / V for Vendetta, etc.). However, who exactly is this document meant to free? As previously stated, The Declaration of Independence is directed more towards the freedom of men. This was interesting to me because Cady Stanton saw this same view and transformed Jefferson’s work into her own feminine version. This is such an influential piece, and it can all be related back to Rousseau. His (Rousseau’s) idea of radical change in government influenced the French Revolution and American Revolution, which many years later, again inspired Stanton’s radical idea of a women’s independence.
2 comments:
In response to the question that you asked about how we feel that women, slaves and minorities in general are included in this declaration (or excluded) I thought that it had to do with the time period and how people saw (or did not see) things during that time. Jefferson definitely seem to contradict himself by stating all of these rights in the Declaration but then is a slave owner. I think deep down he knew what the right thing was so that he could put it down on paper and make it sound good, but at this time in society, slave owning was a thing that a lot of people did without questioning it. Kind of like slavery was excluded from the thoughts in the Declaration because it was seen as a separate entity or something. At the time many probably did not see it as immoral because there was nothing to convince them otherwise. Also, there are many times in history where women are not included in everything. Even today, when someone is writing an article or something, usually the masculine pronoun is used and assumed that it applies to all people. Again, I think that this is how things were at the time and people did not realize it yet. Although I thought it was really interesting how Cady Stanton later used the Declaration as a base for her piece on feminism. It seems like she knew what was going on before everybody else and figured out some of the questions that we have today about the Declaration.
I also agree with the response posted before mine. Today, if a document as important as The Declaration of Independence was written in the same way, excluding the rights of anyone but white men, we could criticize the author for it. But I do not think that we can criticize Jefferson for this aspect of the Declaration. During that time period, openly giving rights to women and slaves was not widely accepted in the colonies or in Britain. And while this would be unacceptable today, I am not going to become hostile and upset about something that happened so long ago. Jefferson, I believe, was trying to quickly write a statement of our independence from Britain and the King’s rule, and if he had considered adding in the independence of women and slaves it would have only taken it longer to be ratified by delegates and their respective colonies. During this time in America’s history, there was not a lot of extra time to waste on arguing the wording of the Declaration, which would have just ended up in wording similar to what it was finished as, leaving out women and slaves.
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