THE CHANGING INTERPRETATION OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 1776-1863

Andrew Odell Honors Thesis 8 April 2011 Committee: Dr. Richard Gamble Dr. David Raney Dr. R.J. Pestritto

Odell 2 In a time when rancorous political debate rages over the proper interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, very few argue over the meaning of the Declaration. To be sure, conservatives and liberals disagree about the exact implications of its meaning, but all generally agree that the Declaration holds a particular promise for particular groups of people or for mankind in general. After all, what else could these famous words of the so-called Preamble of the Declaration mean? 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. 1 Perhaps the most famous thirty-five words in the American canon, they are universally understood as announcing the Founders belief in natural, unalienable rights for all men. Abraham Lincoln provided perhaps the classic and definitive statement of the meaning of the Declaration in his Gettysburg Address in 1863. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 2 For Lincoln, the nation was born at the issuance of the Declaration, and it was committed to a particular idea, equality, from its founding. The interpretation of the Declaration after the Gettysburg Address is dominated by this idea that the Declarations central principle was a promise of equality, both to America, and eventually to the world. In a speech entitled The Inspiration of the Declaration, President Calvin Coolidge provided an example of these two canons of interpretation. Clearly, the Declaration was more than an announcement of political independence. We are obliged to

1. Declaration of Independence. 2. Gary Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 263.

Odell 3 conclude, he acknowledged, that the Declaration of Independence represented the movement of a people. But even more than that: We can not escape the conclusion that [the Declaration] had a much broader and deeper significance than a mere secession of territory and the establishment of a new nation. Events of that nature have been taking place since the dawn of history . . . They have occurred too often to hold the attention of the world and command the admiration and reverence of humanity. There is something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that event would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused it to be regarded as one of the great charters . . . . This led directly into the second: the idea that the Declaration held promise for more than just America and its citizens. Indeed, as Coolidge continued, the Declaration was not onlyto liberate America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity. 3 Few in the modern world have dared to depart from these basic interpretive schemes. But was this the original intent of the Declaration, so to speak? Is this conception of the documentan articulation of an abstract principle of equality applicable to all ages and holding promise for all peopleone that the drafters and signers of the document would recognize? Was this the Declaration they had in mind? The answer seems to be no, although the history of the shift in the interpretation of the document is no simple story. The small amount of existing scholarship on the question identifies a clear shift in the understanding and interpretation of the Declaration, and at least one author finds a clear culmination in Lincoln. 4 Surprisingly, however, no systematic history of the shift in interpretation exists. This thesis brashly seeks to step into the gap and attempt a cursory examination of the change in interpretation from the time of the signing of the Declaration in 1776, until Lincolns famous explications, as summed up at

3. Calvin Coolidge, The Inspiration of the Declaration of Independence, Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, http://www.calvin-coolidge.org/html/the_inspiration_of_the_declara.html (accessed March 1, 2011). 4. Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making of the Declaration of Independence, reprint, (New York: Vintage Books, 1997).

Odell 4 Gettysburg in 1863. Moreover, it seeks to answer the question by focusing on public, political rhetoric, primarily Fourth of July orations. As public declarations, political speeches and even some sermons are intended to appeal to an audience, requiring them to articulate a view of their subject that is popular. In other words, orations, and particularly those delivered at Fourth of July celebrations, generally seek to present material with which their audiences agree. Comparing and contrasting these utterances finds that the change in interpretation generally confirms the hypothesis set out by Philip Detweiler: that by the time of Lincoln the interpretation of the Declaration had shifted decisively, moving from a mere statement of the reasons for independence from the British monarch, to a document that declared abstract principles of natural right and equality in such a way as to promise them to Americans, and even to the world. 5 The history of the interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, as presented incompletely here, suggests a far more cautious approach to attempts to declare the true meaning of the document, and should spur further research on this question. The standard source for information on the reception of the Declaration of Independence is Pauline Meyers American Scripture, which itself bases much of its argument upon the work of Detweiler. Taken in combination, the two clearly argue that the people of 1776 understood the Declaration to be no more than a defense of separation from Great Britain that did not articulate anything particularly unique to its time. Indeed, after it was signed, The Declaration was at first forgotten almost entirely. 6 Maier identified at least ninety documents that were, in their own right, declarations of independence issued by local communities, and even states,

5. Philip F. Detweiler, The Changing Reputation of the Declaration of Independence: The First Fifty Years, William and Mary Quarterly Third Series 18, no. 4 (Oct. 1926). 6. Maier, American Scripture, 154.

Odell 5 between April and July 1776. 7 Consequently, the Declaration of the Continental Congress in July 1776 appeared unremarkable, as all these publications tended to articulate the same reasons for separation. That separation, ultimately, was the subject of these documents, even the Declaration of Congress. Although they did not ignore the phrases of the preamble, the language regarding natural rights and equality, the American public viewed the Declaration principally as a proclamation of independence. 8 Indeed, regardless of the position of an individual on the warwhether one was a patriot or Toryall understood that the Declaration of Independence was the formal proclamation of this change. They did not focus on the preamblethat now-famous statement of equality and rightsbut instead attention centered upon the conclusionthe announcement of independence. 9 The day itself was a cause for great celebrationafter all, the Declaration had finally announced the independence of the colonies from the oppression of Great Britain, a moment for which many had long been waiting. And as the instrument of that proclamation, the Declaration featured prominently in the subsequent celebrations in 1776. Maier described the frequent public readings of the document as it spread throughout all the land, and the accompanying festivities, including gun salutes, toasts, bonfires to burn regal memorabilia or mementos, and other similar activities. 10 All the celebration, however, was for the news, not the vehicle that brought it. 11 In other words, the former colonists celebrated the act of independence, not specifically the document by which independence came to be.
7. Maier, American Scripture, 48. 8. Detweiler, Changing Reputation, 557-558. 9. Ibid., 558. 10. Maier, American Scripture, 155-160. 11. Ibid., 160.

Odell 6 This celebration of the event continued on into the war years, and even the period before the ratification of the Constitution, beginning with the first anniversary celebrations conducted in a few cities, including Charleston, South Carolina, and Boston, Massachusetts. 12 The first few anniversaries were marked with enthusiasm. In Boston in 1777, Fort Independence and ships in the harbor fired a salute to open the day, a minister delivered a sermon, Governor John Hancock proposed thirteen toastspunctuated by the crash of cannon fire in the street below, and the militia paraded, drilled and later launched fireworks. 13 Celebrations in Philadelphia and Charleston proceeded similarly, but in the latter, it was something of an anticlimax after an anniversary of more local import, Palmetto Daythe commemoration of the South Carolinians repulsion of a British invasion on June 28, 1776. Published accounts of festivities in one town would inspire other towns to hold similar celebrations the following year. 14 Not all citizens, however, participated in the celebrations. As expressions of revolutionary ardor, these celebrations did not appeal to loyalist or politically apathetic citizens, who simply stayed at home while the revolutionaries celebrated their holiday. 15 After the first couple of years, the celebrations decreased in fervor. Len Travers documented the difficulties Congress had in commemorating the day, particularly because it was frequently on the move during the war. Moreover, Philadelphia was occupied by the British for much of the conflict, putting a damper on the mood, and even in Boston and Charleston the celebrations never did reach the level of excitement in 1777. Indeed, the celebrations in Boston seem not to have included orations, while
12. Diana Karter Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth: An American Holiday, An American History (New York: Facts On File, Inc., 1827), 19. 13. Len Travers, Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 17-18. 14. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 18. 15. Ibid., 21.

Odell 7 Palmetto Day continued to overshadow July 4. 16 The picture painted is of an anniversary commemorated by a small group of those intensely devoted to the Revolution, and what they celebrated was the fact of their independence, with the Declaration involved only as the instrument by which independence came. Only with the successful conclusion of the war did the Fourth of July cease to be the annual political rally of a revolutionary party and become the national holiday of a sovereign people. 17 Maier noted one strange feature of all these celebrations: Seldom if ever, to judge by newspaper accounts and histories of the celebrations, was the Declaration of Independence read publicly. 18 Indeed, the addresses and sermons delivered on July 4 in this period before the Constitution, and even orations offered outside the context of Fourth of July festivities, declined to speak of the Declaration in any way other than as a document announcing independenceif they mentioned it at all. In what Detweiler identified as the first address ever given on the subject of the Declaration, Peter Whitney, a New England clergyman, preached a sermon on the topic of American Independence Vindicated in September 1776. While comparing the cause of America to the revolt of Israel from Rehoboam, he quoted from several colonial documents, including the Declaration of Independence, but also the Declaration on Taking Arms of 1775, and even Thomas Paines Common Sense. The Declaration by no means took center stage. Moreover, when he did quote from it, Whitney dwelt on the charges against the King, the second part of the document, and some of the conclusion, the part that actually declared that the colonies were independent states. He only mentioned the preamble, the political theory of the

16. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 25-27. 17. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 21. 18. Maier, American Scripture, 162.

Odell 8 document, by way of paraphrase: When rulers, by leaping the bounds of constitution, violate the covenant or compact, between them, and the people; the people are discharged from their oath of allegiance, and it then is their right, their duty to oppose and resist them. 19 Orators frequently appealed to this articulation of the right of revolution in the Declaration, but rarely did any of the other rights mentioned in the Declaration enter the conversation. Whitneys oration was not abnormal. An Election Day sermon preached in Boston in May 1778 by Phillips Payson chose to speak about the habits, principles, and qualities of mind necessary to maintain liberty in America. Presumably the Declaration would have factored prominently in such a commentary, but Payson merely alluded to it once. Anticipating the future glory of the country, he imagined, We behold our country, beyond the reach of all oppressors, under the great charter of independence, enjoying the purest liberty; beautiful and strong in its union; the envy of tyrants and devils, but the delight of God and all good men; a refuge to the oppressed; the joy of the earth . . . . 20 Payson here openly celebrated the liberty America had from Britain, resulting from the Declaration, the great charter of independence. He hinted that Americas liberty would enable it to aid the world in some form, but this seemed mainly a promise of general liberty, coming about in part because the knowledge that would spread from America would enlighten the world. But he did not appeal to specific promises of the Declaration, or to any abstract principles in the document. Rather, he understood it merely as a declaration of freedom from a particular regime, along with the justifications for that separation.
19. Peter Whitney, American Independence Vindicated: A Sermon Delivered . . . September 12, 1776 . . . (Boston, 1777), 10, 39-40, 47, 50, quoted in Detweiler, Changing Reputation, 559. 20. Phillips Payson, A Sermon Preached Before the Honorable Council, and the Honorable House of Representatives, of the State of Massachusetts-Bay, in New-England, at Boston, May 27, 1778 . . . , in John Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution: Political Sermons of the Period of 1776 (1860; repr., New York: Da Capo Press, 1970), 348.

Odell 9 At the celebration of the second year of independence in Charleston, South Carolina, David Ramsay, a member of the South Carolina legislature, offered a commentary on, The Advantages of American Independence. He reminded his audience of the sufferings of the colonies under British oppression, then marveled, How widely different is our present situation? The glorious fourth of July, MDCCLXXVI, repealed all these cruel restrictions . . . . He continued to sing the praises of the document, focusing on the fact that, by it, the bands of British government were dissolved . . . . 21 Independence certainly had its fruits, which he enumerated, and they came as a direct consequence of the Declaration, but only because it was the instrument which effected the separation. Admittedly, he ended his oration with a vision of the promise of America to the world, but it was not a promise of equality based in the Declaration, but rather one of independence. Our sun of political happiness had risen, he explained, illuminating our hemisphere with liberty, light, and polished life. Moreover, Our independence will redeem one quarter of the globe from tyranny and oppression . . . We are laying the foundation of happiness for countless millions. 22 Ramsay anticipated Americas independence providing an example for the world, but he did not embrace that fulfillment of this promise required of America action abroad beyond the example of her conduct at home. Incredibly, these two public addresses are some of the only ones given before 1783 that are readily accessible. As such, the patterns noted should be taken as potentially indicative of a trend, not as definitive proof. The patterns observed after the conclusion of the war in the celebration of the Fourth of July, and the orations at these festivities, however, suggest these two present an accurate picture of the rhetoric from 1776-1782.
21. David Ramsay, The Advantages of American Independence, in Frank Moore, American Eloquence: A Collection of Speeches and Addresses, vol. 1 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1857), 314. 22. Ramsay, The Advantages of American Independence, 317.

Odell 10 Diana Applebaum noted the effect of successfully establishing the independence of the American states, which transformed all Americans into . . . patriot[s] ready to celebrate the glorious cause. Celebrations of the Fourth of July meant more now that independence had been secured. Surprisingly, though, As the war receded into memory, the Fourth of July lost popularity. A holiday that been celebrated to promote the cause of independence and then, in 1783, with special enthusiasm as a victory celebration, seemed less important now that independence was secure. Celebrations were fewer and smaller in the years after the war . . . . 23 Indeed, Travers observed that, The survival of Independence Day was an open question in the early 1780s. 24 He argued that, The Fourth of July had outlived its original function as a rite of passage in the immediate sense. If it was to continue . . . it would have to acquire new significance. 25 Maier chimed in: It was as if that document had done its work in carrying news of Independence to the people, and neither needed nor deserved further commemoration. 26 In Boston, Independence Day celebrations replaced a tradition of commemoration of the date of the Boston Massacre of 1775, as decreed by town ordinance in 1783. The fact that independence had been won suggested to the town selectmen that it would be more suitable to remember this date, as opposed to one that aroused hatred for the British. They also saw in the celebration, and particularly the prescribed oration, which was to consider the feelings, manners, and principles of the Revolution, a chance to provide education in republicanism for a new generation. The new holiday would be a constructive exercise in citizenship as well as patriotism. 27

23. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 26. 24. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 31. 25. Ibid., 30. 26. Maier, American Scripture, 162. 27. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 33-35, 49.

Odell 11 Philadelphia soon demonstrated a similar desire to commemorate the Fourthmany citizens were concerned with the lackluster observances after the British occupation endedbut in Charleston, citizens did not immediately continue the celebration with any kind of patriotic festivities. For the first few years, attempts at any kind of festivities ended in severe antiLoyalist riots. 28 A desire to avoid this type of violence led the more important members of cities throughout the states to seek to carefully organize and control the elements of the celebrations to keep them from degenerating into popular outpourings of emotion, which often ended poorly. Travers described the difficulty as a delicate balancing act between [patriotic] intoxication, an emotion generally agreed upon as needed for the maintenance of the republic, and civil reinforcement. 29 Because the Revolution had been the product of a rational process in an age of reason . . . it ought to be celebrated in a rational, decorous manner. 30 The near-scripting of celebrations also demonstrated the desire to make the Revolution meaningful not only for themselves, but for all time. 31 The difficulty, of course, was determining just what the Revolution meant. In this period, just as during the war, orations generally took no notice of the language of equality in the Declaration. In 1783, John Warren offered an address in Boston that featured a motif that came to dominate interpretations of the Founding, one that inquired into the principles of the nation. For Warren, virtue was the true principle of republican governments, and its

28. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 38-41. 29. Ibid., 65-66. 30. Ibid., 68. 31. Ibid., 67.

Odell 12 object was to secure the liberties of the community. 32 He explored manifestations of these principles throughout history, and then expounded on the American experience. Praising American resistance in the face of British policies, he described the Declaration as the American audacity to pass the irrevocable decree that forever cut asunder the ties that bound you to a cruel parent, assumed your rank among the nations of the world, and instituted a new epoch in the annals of your country. 33 Generations yet unborn, he waxed eloquent, shall read with rapture that distinguished page . . . and celebrate to the latest ages of this republic the anniversary of that resolution of the American Congress, which gave the rights of sovereignty and independence to these United States. 34 Warrens speech continued the pattern of focusing on the Declaration as simply that: a declaration of separation from Great Britain, not a document that established a new nation upon certain principles. The following year in Boston, Benjamin Hichborn commemorated July 4, the event which has made a new era in the annals of the world . . . the day which gave existence to thirteen states, and freed their numerous inhabitants from disgrace and wretchedness . . . . 35 But his address took a different tact than Warrens. Hichborn sought to warn the young nation of the dangers of departing from her republican principles, the chief of which, the main pillar in the great temple of liberty, was having every power in government which could possibly be fraught with danger annually returning to the

32. John Warren, An Oration Delivered July 4, 1783, in Edward Warren, The Life of John Warren, M.D., (Boston: Noyes, Holmes, and Company, 1874), 534-535. 33. Warren, An Oration Delivered July 4, 1783, 546. 34. Ibid. 35. Benjamin Hichborn, An Oration Delivered July 5th, 1784 at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston; in Celebration of the Anniversary of American Independence, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 18527 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 6-7.

Odell 13 people, the great source from which it flowed. 36 Notably, he did not chose to express this principle, or the others he identified, in language that even remotely reflected that of the preamble of the Declaration. Admittedly, he did recognize what a modern reader would term the right of self government, which received recognition in the Declaration in the clause explaining that government derived its just powers from the consent of the governed, but Hichborn did not choose to use language that paralleled the Declaration, suggesting that there was nothing particularly authoritative about the Declaration. A 1785 oration by John Gardiner, also delivered in Boston, was devoted to The First Citizen in the World, the Most Illustrious George Washington. In it, he gave some consideration to the feelings, manners, and principles which led to that great national event, which we now commemorate. 37 He also traced throughout history an argument that, The introduction and progress of freedom, illustrated in America, have generally attended the introduction and progress of letters and science. 38 Tracing this pattern through the American story, he mentioned the Declaration, but only in one short paragraph. The great, the important day is come; let the world of man rejoice! Congress declare, and their illustrious President, the late proscribed Hancock, our beloved townsman, proclaims, that we abjure the British tyrant, and that America is sovereign, free, and independent! 39 His description lacked any notion of the Declaration as a statement or promise of natural rights or equality, seeing instead a day that marked independence, in which the document itself did not seem the most important part. At
36. Hichborn, An Oration Delivered July 5th, 1784, 13. 37. John Gardiner, An Oration Delivered July 4, 1785, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Celebration of the Anniversary of American Independence, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 19017 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 7-8. 38. Gardiner, An Oration Delivered July 4, 1785, 10. 39. Ibid., 31.

Odell 14 one point, his address mentioned both equality and natural rightshe offered the pursuit of both as a reason some colonists sought to leave Englandbut in no way did he connect them to the Declaration. And even though he suggested that the world should rejoice at American independence, he did not see America as an example to be exported. Rather, she should cheerfully open . . . [her] arms to the industrious, and to the oppressed, of every nation, tongue, and kindred. She had to extend . . . to all the peace, liberty, and safety given to her by God. 40 He lacked any notion, though, that America was an example to the world of adherence to a principle of universal equality. As the fledgling nation began to experience crises, orations appealed to the past as a kind of guide for conduct in the present. Jonathan Austins 1786 oration, also delivered in Boston, provided a fine example. Given just weeks before tensions flared up in Massachusetts in what is now called Shays Rebellion, the oration mingled rejoicing with a sense of the imminent crisis. 41 He praised the auspicious day, the natal day of their political existence, forever to be . . . remembered with joy, so long as these United States can maintain with honour and applause the character they have so gloriously acquired. 42 He reminded them of the spirit of their ancestors, who dared boldly to renounce the arbitrary mandates of a British Parliament, to appeal to God, who first planted the principles of natural freedom in the human breath principles, repeatedly impressed on our infant minds by our great and glorious ancestors. 43 As

40. Gardiner, An Oration Delivered July 4, 1785, 36. 41. Gerd Hurm, The Rhetoric of Continuity in Early Boston Orations, in The Fourth of July: Political Oratory and Literary Reactions, 1776-1876, Paul Goetsch and Gerd Hurm, eds. (Tubingen, Germany: Muller + Bass, 1992), 66. 42. Jonathan L. Austin, An Oration Delivered July 4, 1786, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Celebration of the Anniversary of American Independence, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 19482 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), 5. 43. Austin, An Oration Delivered July 4, 1786, 7.

Odell 15 Gerd Hurm observed, This triad of providential religion, public virtue, and ancestral tradition is developed further in the oration, and is a pattern repeated in many other Fourth of July orations. 44 Describing the contest between Britain and America as the assertion by one party of its right to impose its will on the other, and the other party denying any assertion of this right, he spoke with high praise of this glorious birth-day of our independence,a day, which cut the cords that bound us to an unnatural parent. He continued his description of American emancipation, the day on which America was arrayed in the glorious garb of independence . . . [and] seated among the nations of the world, driving home his understanding of the Fourth of July as marking the independence of America from Britain. 45 Hurm contended that this oration actually provided a counter to the expression of equality and natural rights in the Declaration, noting the appearance of the Lockean-Federalist triad of life, liberty, and property, as opposed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The principle of equality, he wrote, continued to be absent from the communal traditions of the forefathers, helping in his mind to explain the commercial elitism expressed in the speech. 46 Perhaps Hurm observed a pattern in other speeches, of which Austins was an example, but he provided no other documentation for this claim. Moreover, this observation of elitism in the speech strikes the reader as strange, particularly as there are no explicit expressions of hostility for the principle of equality. To be sure, Austin warned of the dangers of the unrest in the landhe specifically targeted the tendency of the states to ignore requests for money from the Continental Congressbut he nowhere chastised those who were not elites. He did praise the virtue of encouraging manufactures, but he reciprocated the sentiments for agriculture. He seemed not to have a
44. Hurm, Rhetoric of Continuity, 66. 45. Austin, An Oration Delivered July 4, 1786, 10. 46. Hurm, Rhetoric of Continuity, 70.

Odell 16 pronounced disdain for equality, merely to have taken no notice of it, or given it little importance in connection with the Fourth of July and the Declaration of Independence. The alternate formulation of life, liberty, and property, found in other speeches, including Gardiners, reflected a common, Lockean conception of natural rights, not necessarily a reaction against the Declaration. 47 In the final examination, then, Austin seems ambivalent to the Declaration, not hostile. That cautionary tone reached its height in an oration given by David Daggett in NewHaven, Connecticut, on July 4, 1787. Surprising in its candid assessment of America, the speech recalled the lofty expectations for the nation offered by earlier writers and orators and bemoaned that those brilliant scenes are not yet realized, but are intercepted by an almost impenetrable gloom. He found it difficult to maintain his belief that God has designed this empire to be the most illustrious on earth, a rather romantic thought given present appearances. 48 Recalling the revolution, he reminded his audience that their ancestors were then wise enough to distinguish between liberty and licentiousness, a distinction forgot by the ignoble contemptible Shays, the Massachusetts farmer who led the popular uprising that now bears his name. 49 Continuing his denunciation, Daggert compared Shays to Cromwell and Caesar, articulated the need for a change in government, and then praised the constitutional convention then in session. 50 He closed with the observation that the American Revolution, precipitated by the Declaration, had disseminated much useful knowledge thro the world. This knowledge often

47. Hurm, Rhetoric of Continuity, 70; Austin, An Oration Delivered July 4, 1786, 15. 48. David Daggett, An Oration, Pronounced in the Brick Meeting-House, in the City of New-Haven, on the Fourth of July, A.D. 1787It Being the Eleventh Anniversary of the Independence of the United States of America, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 23014 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 4. 49. Daggett, An Oration, Pronounced . . . on the Fourth of July, A.D. 1787, 15. 50. Ibid., 15-24.

Odell 17 sprouted just ideas respecting the rights of human nature, but he did not further elaborate what these rights might be. 51 Thus, Daggert provided yet another example of a Fourth of July oration that placed great importance on the actual proclamation of independence, but did not emphasize the Declaration or mention it by namelet alone appeal to the preamble and its statements of natural rights and equality. One cannot help but concur with Maiers statement: Considering how revered a position the Declaration of Independence later won in the hearts and minds of the American people, their disregard for it in the earliest years of the new nation verges on the incredible. 52 Both Maier and Detweiler observed that other writings of the time supported the proposition that the Declaration was viewed primarily as the act of independence. 53 Detweiler illustrated his contention by appealing to the first histories of the Revolution, published in the late 1780s. One such history, by David Ramsay, accurately represented other histories, which reflected the stunted image of the Declaration, presenting it as the act that separated the colonies from Great Britain. Ramsays particular account omitted any mention of the committee that drafted it, the authorship of Jefferson, or any language from the preamble. 54 And yet, from the time of the ratification of the Constitution through the War of 1812, political disputes enveloped the celebration of independence. As a result of the bitter Federalist-Republican controversies that dominated the time, the Declaration began to acquire the interpretation that would eventually come to prevail. 55 With the Revolution fading into memory, Americans

51. Daggett, An Oration, Pronounced . . . on the Fourth of July, A.D. 1787, 24. 52. Maier, American Scripture, 160. 53. Detweiler, Changing Reputation, 564. 54. Ibid., 564-565. 55. Ibid., 565.

Odell 18 discovered that, far from sharing a monolithic political outlook, they had decidedly differing views of what the Revolution was supposed to have accomplished, or even whether the Revolution was truly over. 56 The hostilities began as early as the time of ratification. So divided over the Constitution, Federalist and Anti-Federalist mobs warred in Albany during Fourth of July festivities in 1788, leaving one dead. 57 The fight over the Constitution carried over into the politics of the 1790s and 1800s, affecting the celebration of the Fourth of July. Most celebrations took on a distinctly Federalist flavor, because Federalist ideas had basically prevailed with the ratification of the Constitution. Clergymen, who often delivered orations at the festivities, and members of the Society of Cincinnati, which played a prominent part in organizing the celebrations, were generally Federalists. The festivities, therefore, often became a celebration of the Constitution. Refusing to passively sit by, the Anti-Federalists, who soon became the Democratic-Republicans, then just Republicans, responded by organizing their own celebrations that emphasized the Declarations recognition of the equality principle. 58 Hamiltons successful economic program, followed by a boom-and-bust in 1791, soured public opinion towards the Federalists, as did feelings towards the French Revolution. At first seemingly American in character, the French Revolution grew increasingly bloody and radical, causing the Federalists to denounce the French. 59 The Federalists became doubly wary of the Declaration at the onset of the Reign of Terror, because the assertions of equality and unalienable rights in the second paragraph of the Declarationalthough different in formulation from the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, still seemed too French for the Federalists
56. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 70. 57. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 31. 58. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 38; Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 69. 59. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 88-89.

Odell 19 comfort. As Detweiler explained, the example of the French confirmed the Federalist fears of rule by the people at large, seeming to justify them in their search for government by the better part of the people. 60 Moreover, the Federalists argued that the French had perverted the concept of true liberty, which could exist only under firm laws, only under a strong, energetic (Federalist style) regime. 61 As hostilities between Britain and France grew and war seemed inevitable, The Declarations anti-British character was an embarrassment to a party that sought economic and diplomatic rapprochement with the onetime Mother Country. 62 The Republicans, however, continued to appeal to the Declaration to argue for supporting the revolution in France. They saw the goals of this revolution as practically the same thing for which America had fought in her struggles against Britain. 63 Furthermore, Republicans constantly suspected the elitist Federalists of attempting to return the country to a tyranny similar to the one they overthrew in the Revolution. They began touting the doctrines asserted in the Declaration of Independence, natural Liberty and Equality, and Rights of Men, in a large part in support for the French, and this explanation of the Declaration grew in popularity when Jefferson was elected President in 1801. 64 Detweiler identified perhaps the first history that popularized this interpretation, Mercy Warrens famous account of the Revolution, which

60. Detweiler, Changing Interpretation, 567. 61. Ibid., 568. 62. Maier, American Scripture, 170. 63. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 89. 64. Barnabas Bidwell, A Summary Historical and Political Review of the Revolution, the Constitution, and Government of the United States . . . , quoted in Detweiler, Changing Reputation, 570.

Odell 20 celebrated the Declaration in glowing language. She extolled the principles that produced the revolution, principles grounded on the natural equality of man, among others. 65 Fourth of July celebrations changed accordingly. 66 Both Republicans and Federalists could agree on what became a time-honored traditionpaying homage to Washington as the first citizen of his countrybut they then quickly diverged. Republican orators would sing the praises of the Declaration and the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, while Federalist speakers would glory in the Constitution. Moreover, in pursuit of their generally pro-French agenda, the Republicans labored to make American response to the French Revolution a touchstone of American patriotism. 67 Additionally, they tended to emphasize the American Revolution as firing the opening shots in a worldwide republican movementThey wanted their fellow citizens to understand the Revolution as American in origin, but international in scope. 68 Republicans, therefore, appealed to American patriotism and love for the founding, as expressed by the Declaration, in order to raise support for the cause of France. By contrast, Federalists tended to praise the Constitution as the culmination of the American Revolution, referred very little to the Declaration of Independence and even less to its articulation of equality and natural rights, and cautioned againsteven warnedcitizens of the dangers of the French Revolution. Fourth of July orations delivered around the time of ratification and in the years immediately following the adoption of the Constitution betray the same striking lack of emphasis on the Declarations pronouncement of natural rights and equality, but gradually they begin to

65. Mercy Warren, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution . . . , quoted in Detweiler, Changing Reputation, 570-571. 66. Paul Goetsch, The Declaration of Independence, in The Fourth of July: Political Oratory and Literary Reactions, 1776-1876, Paul Goetsch and Gerd Hurm, eds. (Tubingen, Germany: Muller + Bass, 1992), 28. 67. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 91. 68. Ibid., 94-95.

Odell 21 reflect the expected partisan bias. In 1788, Enos Hitchcock delivered an address at Providence, Rhode Island, intended both to commemorate the anniversary of American Independence, but also to celebrate the accession of nine states to the Federal Constitution. 69 He described July 4, 1776, in familiar language: Upon this day, which history will ever commemorate, America, compelled by reiterated and atrocious acts of tyranny and oppression, declared her independency, and determined, at all hazards to maintain it. 70 Noting Americas struggle to maintain her existence in liberty since the winning of the war, he explained that, We came into national existence without national ideas, and therefore, could not have those arrangements which more experience is suited to give. 71 He nowhere makes any reference to the political theory of the Declaration, at least not specifically, but his address does present an interpretive challenge. Hitchcock announced his pride that, The happy effects of the American revolution are felt far beyond the bounds of America, citing the supposed liberation of the oppressed Irelander and the subsiding bigotry of the Catholic, and the resentment of the Protestant. 72 Furthermore, he expressed the hope that, The spark of liberty, which has been kindled on the American altar, be blown into one pure universal flame, and irradiate the whole world of intelligent beings.No longer let the lovers of freedom impiously dare trample under foot the natural rights of othersnor wrest, by violence or fraud, from their own domain, Africas unoffending sons.May the happy time be hastened when the reign of tyranny and oppression, of every description, shall forever cease,when the majesty of laws shall be superior to that of
69. Enos Hitchcock, Oration: Delivered July 4, 1788, at the Town of Providence, in Celebration of the Anniversary of American Independence, and of the Accession of Nine States to the Federal Constitution, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 21145 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 2. 70. Hitchcock, Oration, 8. 71. Ibid., 9. 72. Ibid., 21.

Odell 22 Kings,when the happy influences of a mild and benevolent religion shall be universally felt, putting a final period to the baleful effects of bigotry, superstition and persecution for conscience sake,when the nations of the earth shall learn war no more! 73 Hitchcock was not afraid to apply the principle of American liberty to the situation of the slave. His approach differed from later abolitionists, however, as these saw in the Declaration a promise of equality that the slaves had not yet been granted. Hitchcock nowhere appeals to the specific language of the Declaration, instead describing the spark of liberty in America and protesting the violations of the natural rights of others. To be sure, this is the closest any of the orations examined to this point have come to explicitly referring to the Declaration, but he still did not apply any particular phrase of the Declaration to the situation at hand. In Savannah in 1788, Major William Pierce commemorated independence by quoting from the Declaration the language in which the Americans dissolved the political band which had connected us with Great Britain, and assumed among the nations of the earth that separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and natures God entitled us. 74 Unlike many of the other addresses examined, this one did explicitly refer to the rights of nature. Pierce claimed that the revolution taught men how to define these rights, which included the principles of physical, moral, religious, and civil liberty. 75 He later praised America because, The rights of human nature, and the benefits of civil liberty, we contended for; the cause of all mankind we engaged in. None of this language, however, closely paralleled that of the Declaration: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
73. Hitchcock, Oration, 22. 74. Major William Pierce, An Oration Delivered at Christ Church, Savannah, on the 4th July, 1788, in Commemoration of the Anniversary of American Independence, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 21393 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 4. 75. Pierce, An Oration Delivered at Christ Church, Savannah . . . , 6.

Odell 23 endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. One might argue that these ideas were embedded within Pierces conception of the rights of human nature. The end of his speech, however, calls this into question. Continuing a motif common in Fourth of July orations, he urged his audience to look back and take a view of the principles on which our Revolution was founded; seriously observe the objects for which we contended. But what were these principles? Harmony and good order in society . . . a spirit of industry, the abandoning of all idle extravagance and illfounded animosities, and the nurturing of economy and love of country, among others. 76 And a 1789 oration delivered by Samuel Stillman in Boston made almost no reference to the events of July 4, 1776, other than to observe that, The declaration of Independence at once annihilated the diminutive term Colonies as applied to us, raised us to our equal station among the nations of the world, and opened to us a source of great advantages. 77 He expressed excitement at Americas almost boundless prospects for the future, one of which was universal liberty as to religion, but he did not express a hope in Americas promise of equality, or even natural rights. 78 A 1791 Fourth of July oration delivered at Worcester, Massachusetts, by Edward Bangs lacked any explicit reference to the Declaration of Independence. He commemorated July 4 as an anniversary designed to bring to our remembrance those united and virtuous efforts which made us all brethren, but his speech is conspicuously subdued in its language. He favorably contrasted the American quest to secure liberty with historical attempts, but his oration seemed

76. Pierce, An Oration Delivered at Christ Church, Savannah . . . , 17. 77. Samuel Stillman, An Oration, Delivered July 4th, 1789, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Celebration of the Anniversary of American Independence, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 22165 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 11. 78. Stillman, An Oration, Delivered July 4th, 1789, 28.

Odell 24 designed more to urge obedience to the constitutional system and the duly-elected rulers. 79 A 1792 Boston oration, however, by Joseph Blake, was far less subdued. When Congress pronounced the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Our pen, like the thunderbolt, in an instant shook . . . [Britains] court. From its language was she convinced that within the American vein thrilled a spirit too ardent for her controul. 80 If anything, though, the rest of the oration was concerned with predicting a bright future for America, but not because of any promise of the Declaration. Blake betrayed his political sympathies, undoubtedly already known to his audience because of the partisan nature of the celebrations at this time, when he offered high praise to Alexander Hamilton, whom he credited with opening the springs of wealth by securing the American credit abroad. If Detweiler and Travers are correct, then this identification of Blake as a Federalist, the party that generally supported Hamiltons economic program, explains the distinct lack of the Declaration from this speech given on Independence Day. In a change of medium, Nathan Williams preached a sermon as part of the celebration of July 4, 1793, in Stafford, Connecticut, choosing a text from Psalms that allowed him to preach on Gods loving kindness as displayed in the affairs of men, and particularly the American experience. He never named the Declaration, merely remarking that, It was evidently the will of Heaven that the connection between Great-Britain and these American Colonies should be

79. Edward Bangs, An Oration Delivered at Worcester, on the Fourth of July, 1791. Being the Anniversary of the Independence of the United States, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 23145 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 5. 80. Joseph Blake, An Oration, Pronounced July 4th, 1792, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston in Commemoration of the Anniversary of American Independence, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 24123 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 5.

Odell 25 dissolved. 81 The colonies renounced allegiance to the King of Great-Britain, and declared these colonies free and Independent states. Complicating the picture, he did remark that some views of the rights of man, have been disseminated amongst the nations of Europe, and particularly in France. He also praised Frances general aim in seeking independence, but simultaneously denounced its recent excesses. 82 Williams oration reminds the historian that there are no straight-forward answers to the question pursued, as this seemingly Republican minister did not mention the Declaration once. On that same date, Elihu Palmer delivered an oration at Philadelphia. Although this historian possesses what has been labeled an Extract from this oration, it provides an excellent example of a Republican oration. From the outset, he celebrated the age of reason and philosophy that had arrived to liberate the world from the pious alliance of church and state, which had made men miserable. 83 But, King-craft and priest-craft, those mighty enemies to reason and liberty, were struck with death by the genius of 1776. 84 He then lamented, in a confusing expression, that those who had demonstrated such manly firmness in proclaiming independence should now afford good ground of suspicion, that their political principles are directed to the total destruction of LIBERTY and EQUALITY. Beware, ye American aristocrats! he continued, warning that the genious of liberty was rousing to emancipate the world. 85 Excited at the prospect of the empire of reason . . . sweep[ing] from off the earth this bundle of nonsense and oppression, he praised the two
81. Nathan Williams, Carefully to Observe the Signatures of Divine Providence, a Mark of Wisdom. Illustrated in a Sermon, Delivered in Stafford, on the Anniversary of American Independence, July 4th, A.D. 1793, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 26847 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 16. 82. Williams, Carefully to Observe the Signatures of Divine Providence, 20. 83. Elihu Palmer, Extracts from an Oration, Delivered by Elihu Palmer, the 4th of July, 1793, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 26015 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 22. 84. Palmer, Extracts from an Oration, 22. 85. Ibid., 23.

Odell 26 revolutions in America and France for turning the pursuit of man upon scientific principle into the path of liberal discussion. 86 This oration provides the basic elements one would expect from a Republican speech of the time: it clearly appealed to the preamble of the Declaration, presenting liberty and equality as goals to be achieved, expressed support for the events in France, and railed against the American aristocracya thinly-veiled shot at the Federalists. Moving west in the same state, Citizen Hugh Brackenridge gave an oration on the same date in Pittsburgh. It did not refer to the Declaration, but he did indicate that the celebration of July 4 meant that the events commemorated had had an effect beyond the sphere of the states. It had spurred on France, and he urged excusing whatever intemperance had arisen in their exertions for liberty, for was there ever enthusiasm without intemperance? 87 He argued, moreover, that America had to come to the aid of France should she desire or need it. Republics had to unite in the face of tyranny, and the heart of America feels the cause of FranceWhy not? Can we be indifferent? Is not our fate interlaced with hers? 88 He imagined France calling out to her daughter America, saying: I know the dutifulness of they heart towards me; and that thou art disposed to shew it, by taking part in this war. 89 Convinced that France would, in the end, prevail, Brackenridge closed by remarking that, The anniversary of the independence of America will be a great epoch of Liberty throughout the world. 90 These two orations provided quintessential Republican pieces of rhetoric that both appealed strongly to a notion of

86. Palmer, Extracts from an Oration, 25. 87. Citizen Brackenridge, Oration by Citizen Brackenridge, on the Celebration of the Anniversary of Independence, in Early American Imprints, First Series, no. 26015 (New York: Readex Microprint, 1985), microfiche, 28. 88. Brackenridge, Oration by Citizen Brackenridge, 29. 89. Ibid., 30. 90. Ibid., 31.

Odell 27 the American Revolution, and even the Declaration, as promising equality and liberty to the world. In 1793, a young John Quincy Adams delivered the Fourth of July oration for Boston. In accordance with the town ordinance, he examined the feelings, manners and principles which led to independence. 91 Adams was a Federalist at this time, but his speech proved somewhat atypical. He generally recognized that July 4 marked the day on which the representatives of America . . . declared the United Colonies free, sovereign and independent states, the day on which our national existence commenced. 92 But he also used high language to describe independence. For example, he claimed that the act of independence finally erected the holy temple of American liberty, over the tomb of departed tyranny, and he called the signers the venerable asserters of the rights of mankind. 93 Later, however, he described the contest as one involving the elementary principles of governmenta question of right between the sovereign and the subject, not necessarily one over equality or natural rights. 94 He ended with a lamentation of the state of events in France, then a wish that all the nations of Europe should partake of the blessings of equal liberty and universal peace. 95 Indeed, the death of arbitrary power in the world would mean the rise of the fair fabric of universal liberty . . . upon the durable foundation of social equality. 96

91. John Quincy Adams, An Oration Pronounced July 4th, 1793, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Commemoration of the Anniversary of American Independence, in E.B. Williston, ed. Eloquence of the United States. (Middletown, CT: E. & H. Clark, 1827), V:100. 92. Adams, An Oration Pronounced July 4th, 1793, V:103. 93. Ibid., V:104. 94. Ibid., V:107. 95. Ibid., V:108. 96. Ibid., V:109.

Odell 28 The same year, in New Jersey, Elias Boudinot delivered an oration before the Society of the Cincinnati in New Jersey. For him, the revolution established several principles, the first being the rational equality and rights of men as men and citizens. He did offer a qualification, though: I do not mean to hold up the absurd idea charged upon us by the enemies of this valuable principle . . . that all men are equal as to acquired or adventitious rights. Men must and do continually differ in their genius, knowledge, industry, integrity, and activity. 97 The equality of rights he recognized were natural, essential, and inalienable, such as the security of life, liberty, and property. He believed that every man is born with the same right to improve the talent committed to him, for the use and benefit of society. 98 Another important principle was the right that every people have to govern themselves, a principle he claimed was interwoven with our constitution, and not one of the least blessings purchased by that glorious struggle, to the commemoration of which this day is specially devoted, that every man has a natural right to be governed by laws of his own making, either in person or by his representative. 99 Already providing one of the strongest expressions of the belief that the Declaration stood for abstract principles, this oration is the first found by this historian that attempted to apply the principles of equality and natural rights to women. He reminded them that they had already been raised from the humiliating state of your sex in most other countries, rejoicing in the fact that, The rights of women are no longer strange sounds to an American ear. He hoped for the day when they should find these rights dignifying, in a

97. Elias Boudinot, Oration Before the Cincinnati, in Orations from Homer to William McKinley, Mayo Williamson Hazeltine, ed. (New York: P.F. Collier and Son, 1902), 8:2662. 98. Boudinot, Oration Before the Cincinnati, 8:2662. 99. Ibid., 8:2664.

Odell 29 distinguishing code, the jurisprudence of the several States in the Union. 100 Tens of other orations express similar sentiments but cannot be covered here because of space constraints. They amply demonstrate, however, the conflict in interpretation between the Republicans and the Federalists With the conclusion of the War of 1812, the Federalist Party basically disappeared from politics, leaving the Jeffersonian Republican vision of the Declaration without any real challenge, as both the Whigs and the Jacksonians claimed descent from the Jefferson Republicans. 101 Moreover, relatively peaceful relations with Great Britain meant that the Declaration became less of an anti-British document. The Declaration now emerged as a charter to which the nation as a whole might subscribe. 102 The occasional Federalist orator still aired his personal disagreements with Jefferson, minimizing the Declaration in the process. For example, in an 1823 Fourth of July oration, Timothy Pickering described the Declaration of Independence as a compilation of facts and sentiments previously stated by other defenders of colonial rights, and claimed that Congress manifestly improved the draft of the Declaration with its edits, a back-handed swipe at Jefferson. 103 Moreover, it appears that not all partisan sympathies had disappearedsome politically neutral Fourth of July celebrations were conducted in the morning so that the various parties could then hold their own dinners and toast their own political candidates and party heroes. 104 Generally, however, Americans were

100. Boudinot, 2672. 101. Maier, American Scripture, 171. 102. Detweiler, Changing Interpretation, 571. 103. Timothy Pickering, Col. Pickerings Observations Introductory to Reading the Declaration of Independence, at Salem, July 4, 1823 (Salem, Mass., 1823), quoted in Maier, American Scripture, 172. 104. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 53.

Odell 30 infected with a new spirit of nationalism, a sense of a distinct national character that transcended political and sectional identities. 105 Often referred to as the Second War for Independence, victory in the War of 1812 encouraged widespread inquiry into the history of the Revolution, and this generation made preservation of this history their peculiar mission. 106 Moreover, this new spirit revived the Declaration of Independence, the interpretation of which was now rarely contested along political lines. Travers quoted a South Carolinian who observed two different Boston orations in 1822, the Democratic and the Federal. In a city that had been predominantly Federalist before the war, the observer now identified both orations as Republican. 107 A new generation, sensible of having survived a conflict with the same enemies their parents had faced, found that the documents defiant rhetoric spoke with new meaning and vigor. 108 And it was during this time that the document acquired almost universally the interpretation that would dominate. In 1821, a young Secretary of State John Quincy Adams expressed in soaring language the idea that the Declaration articulated abstract principles of governance, as opposed to merely severing political ties with Great Britain. In an address to the U.S. House of Representatives on the Fourth of July, Adams declared that America had benefited mankind because, With the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, [she] proclaimed to mankind the extinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. She had proclaimed to all, even those who did not heed her call, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. But, Adams was quite clear that America did not go abroad, in

105. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 205-206. 106. Maier, American Scripture, 177. 107. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 204. 108. Travers, Celebrating the Fourth, 206-207.

Odell 31 search of monsters to destroy. She was the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all, but she would be the champion and vindicator only of her own. 109 This continued the tone set by earlier orations, which understood America as an example to the world, although these early speeches emphasized Americas example of republican principles, while Adams emphasized her example in the pronouncement of the principle of equality. Not all rhetoric of the time embraced this new interpretation. For example, in an 1812 Fourth of July oration delivered before the Washington Benevolent Society in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, William C. Jarvis offered a Federalist outlook on the country. For him, the gloomy hours of our revolutionary war, which Independence Day commemorated, served to teach the value of a Constitution free in its principles, and calculated to be equal in its operations. 110 At two points, he referenced the independence gained on this day, but that was the extent of the references to July 4. The Declaration of Independence was, at least to modern ears, conspicuously absent. Jarvis devoted much of the address to praising the promotion of commercea particularly New England Federalist concernwhich the Constitution made possible, and to honoring the memory of Washington. 111 But these types of speeches were few and far between. Most were similar in thought to Adamss, or even to Daniel Websters magnificent orations. Interestingly enough, not all of his speeches talked about the Declaration in the same terms. For example, in 1825, Webster delivered an oration at the ceremonial laying of the corner stone of a monument to be built at

109. John Quincy Adams, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on Foreign Policy, in American Presidency: An Online Reference Resource (Charlottesville: Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 2011), http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3484 (accessed March 10, 2011). 110. William C. Jarvis, An Oration, Delivered at Pittsfield, Before the Washington Benevolent Society of the County of Berkshire, on the 4th July, 1812 (Pittsfield: Milo Smith & Co., 1812), http://books.google.com/books?id=CPg-AAAAYAAJ (accessed April 1, 2011), 3. 111. Jarvis, An Oration, Delivered at Pittsfield, 17.

Odell 32 Bunker Hill. He recreated this first great battle of the Revolution in his audiences mind, reminded them of the benefits of the Revolution, and then celebrated the rise of other libertyloving peoples throughout the world. 112 Admittedly, this was not delivered at a celebration of Independence Day, and yet assuredly the commemoration of Bunker Hill would have given Webster, a fantastic orator, the opportunity to speak about the meaning of the Union in terms of equality and the rights of man. And yet, the speech contained none of this language. The Revolution, the origin of the Union, could still be talked about without reference to the Declaration of Independence. Even when he talked about the electric spark of Liberty, ignited in America, spreading to Europe, and the change in the world greatly beneficial, on the whole, to human liberty and human happiness, he nowhere described the spread this spread by appealing to language in the Declaration. 113 He hoped that the country would become a splendid Monument . . . of Wisdom, of Peace, and of Liberty, upon which the world might gaze and marvel, but he did not see America as promising equality and natural rights to the world. 114 Just a year later, in August, Webster delivered the eulogy in Boston for both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who had remarkably both died on the fiftieth anniversary of the Fourth of July 1776, within hours of each other. Webster offered both the highest praise, particularly for their role in the Declaration of Independence, the most prominent act of their lives. 115 Clearly, Jeffersons role as the drafter of the document, which in the era of rancorous

112. Daniel Webster, An Address Delivered at the Laying of the Corner Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, in E.B. Williston, ed. Eloquence of the United States (Middletown, CT: E. & H. Clark, 1827), V:302. 113. Webster, An Address Delivered at the Laying of the Corner Stone, V:311, 314. 114. Ibid., 321.

Odell 33 partisan dispute had been severely undercut and minimized, was now heralded. 116 He then progressed into the meaning of the Declaration, which still retained its role as the instrument by which Congress stated its reasons for independence. Webster was clear that Jefferson did not invent them, a point on which Jefferson himself agreed. 117 But Webster failed to describe the central purpose of the Declaration as laying out principles of equality and natural rights. Indeed, his approach proved much more similar to addresses given decades before. Encouraging his fellow citizens not to squander the glorious liberty . . . the dear purchase of our fathers, he reminded them that it was ours to preserve, ours to transmit. 118 This required faithfulness to the principles their fathers, which were not laid out in a list, but seemed to include virtue, religion, and morality, a formulation undoubtedly reflecting Washingtons Farewell Address. 119 Notably absent? Any mention of the rights of man or of the doctrine of equality. William Wirt pronounced a similar eulogy for both in October in Washington, D.C., in the hall of the House of Representatives. Drawing his audiences attention to the Revolution, which restored man to his long lost liberty, he praised Adams and Jefferson as heavencalled avengers of degraded man . . . [who] came to lift him to the station for which God had formed him, and to put to flight those idiot superstitions with which tyrants had contrived to inthral his reason and his liberty. 120 He even claimed for them status as the Apostles of human

115. Daniel Webster, A Discourse, in Commemoration of the Lives and Services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, August 2, 1826, in E.B. Williston, ed., Eloquence of the United States (Middletown, CT: E. & H. Clark, 1827), V:388. 116. Maier, American Scripture, 170-174. 117. Webster, A Discourse in Commemoration of the Lives and Services, V:389. 118. Ibid., 412. 119. Webster, A Discourse in Commemoration of the Lives and Services, V:412. 120. William Wirt, A Discourse, of the Lives and Characters of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who Both Died on the Fourth of July, 1826 . . . , in E.B. Williston, ed., Eloquence of the United States (Middletown,

Odell 34 liberty. 121 But the Declaration factored into this very little. It received attention as the instrument by which Congress announced separation from Britain, but Wirt praised Jefferson for fighting for equality only in connection with repealing the Virginia law of primogeniture, which kept up an artificial inequality among men whom their Creator had made equal. 122 Here finally appears an acknowledgment of a belief in equality, but not in connection with the Declaration. He did close, however, with a renewed emphasis on liberty, acknowledging the changing nature of the celebration of the Fourth of July. Hitherto, fellow-citizens, the Fourth of July had been celebrated among us, only as the anniversary of our independence, and its votaries had been merely human beings. But at its last recurrencethe great Jubilee of the nation, it was hailed as the anniversary, it may well be termed, of the liberty of man, and Adams and Jefferson had devoted their life to this cause of liberty. 123 Curiously enough, neither Webster nor Wirts speeches display the expected interpretation of the Declaration, and there does not seem to be an explanation readily available, particularly since some of Websters later orations are rife with the language of equality. Edward Everett, the famous New England orator from Boston, gave the July Fourth oration for 1826 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and it provides a textbook example of the new interpretation of the Declaration. To be sure, part of the struggle in which the Revolutionary fathers engaged was for independence, and they had a duty to discharge a high and perilous

CT: E. & H. Clark, 1827), http://books.google.com/books?id=uI8BAAAAMAAJ&lr= (accessed March 10, 2011), V:455, 457. 121. Wirt, A Discourse in Commemoration of the Lives and Services, V:457. 122. Ibid., V:484. 123. Wirt, A Discourse in Commemoration of the Lives and Services, V:502.

Odell 35 office to the cause of Freedom. 124 But the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, provided him the opportunity to examine its principles, a goal that no other orator had expressed in any of the orations examined thus far. Indeed, he denied what past orators had held to be the central purpose of the celebration of Independence Day. Do we celebrate the anniversary of our independence, merely because a vast region was severed form an European empire, and established a government for itself? Scarcely even this . . . . Everett argued that this couldnt be the casethe purchase of the Louisiana Territory, an analogous situation according to Everetts description, hadnt occasioned such celebrations, nor did it deserve it. We mistake the principle of our celebration when we speak of its object, either as a trite theme, or as one among other important and astonishing incidents, of the same kind in the world. 125 The real reason for celebration of the Declaration was that it marked the forming of an era, from which the establishment of government on a rightful foundation is destined universally to date. 126 Rather than other revolutions, which were merely palliatives and alleviations of systems essentially and irremediably vicious, the Declaration alone is the great discovery in political science; the practical fulfillment of all the theories of political perfection; which hadeluded the grasp of every former period and people. 127 He described the two doctrines of the foundation of government, the tory doctrine of the divine right and the whig doctrine of the original compact. 128 Before the American Revolution, governments were generally

124. Edward Everett, Orations and Speeches, on Various Occasions (Boston: American Stationers Company, 1836), http://books.google.com/books?id=WvcoAAAAYAAJ&lr= (accessed February 24, 2011), 97. 125. Everett, Orations and Speeches, 102. 126. Ibid., 102. 127. Ibid., 103. 128. Ibid., 105.

Odell 36 structured on the principle of divine right, and popular uprisings, kept in the dark about their rights and duties, took the unfortunate form of mob violence. But with the Revolution came the recognition, for the first time, that the only just foundation of all government is the will of the people. 129 More than the right of the people to govern, though, Webster identified as the principleof the form of government bequeathed to us by our fathers as that of equality: the equal enjoyment by every citizen of the rights and privileges of the social union. From this principle was inferred, as a necessary consequence, that the will of a majority of the people is the rule of government. 130 The drafters and signers of the Declaration taught that all men are born free and equal, and the constitutions of America were based on that principle. 131 This oration is entirely different than those delivered in the first few decades following independence. On the fiftieth anniversary, Everett extolled the pronouncement of the principle of equality as the primary contribution of the Declaration to American political society. Downplaying the documents severance of political ties from England, he emphasized the political theory of the preamble, making the declaration of that the central purpose of the proclamation. Moreover, because of the centrality of the equality principle, the Declaration provided an unimagined extension of social privileges. Everett offered the example of the right of suffrage, which under republican government belonged to all. 132 But another extension of the Declaration was the example that it provided the world. Everett did not have the sense that the Declaration has recently acquired, that it holds promise for the world that required American action, but he is quite conscious of the example of the American republic.
129. Ibid., 108. 130. Ibid., 111. 131. Ibid., 113. 132. Everett, Orations and Speeches, 114.

Odell 37 An organized, prosperous state that had a wise organization of its own institutions and administered its territories well would bless generations with its sweet influence. It would teach man that he is to be a part of a well-ordered family, a lesson taught in the charter of our independencethe lesson which our example is to teach the world. 133 Illustrating its new place and meaning in American society, the Declaration became the favorite foundation for numerous social causes. For example, the temperance movement coopted the Declaration, often holding celebrations that closely mirrored those of the Fourth of July. And as the movement progressed from advocating moderation to abstinence, a common theme for orations was the need for a second Declaration of Independencethe first proclaimed liberty from King George, the second freedom from King Alcohol. 134 The movement for womens rights also took inspirationeven moral authorityfrom the Declaration for their search for equality for women. One early reformer, Frances Wright, asked how one could make sense of the political condition of women, when the nations democratic government, based on the Declaration of Independence, derived its power form the consent of the governed. 135 Perhaps the most famous early American womens advocate, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, expressed a new interpretation, or perhaps just a reinterpretation, of the Declaration at the Seneca Falls Convention: We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men and women are created equal. As McMillen explained, she intended to give new meaning to Jeffersons often-quoted phrase from the Declaration of Independence. 136 In drafting her Declaration of Sentiments,

133. Ibid., 119-121. 134. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 162. 135. Sally G. McMillen, Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Womens Rights Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 15. 136. McMillen, Seneca Falls, 71.

Odell 38 Stanton merely adapted the Declaration to suit her purposes: the new document had a modified preamble, clarifying that the Creator had given inalienable rights to both men and women, and then it provided a list of injustices imposed on women by men in place of the colonial grievances against King George. 137 The movement for womens rights did not make significant gains until the twentieth century, but both this movement, the drive for temperance, and many other social causes constantly appealed to the Declaration, because its newfound status as a sacred document gave those who could claim it for their use the moral high ground in public debate. 138 That did not mean that resistance would evaporate in the face of such a claim, but it certainly made it difficult for opponents to argue against the position, particularly because it forced them to directly counteract the popular understanding of the Declaration, or at least argue for a different understanding. The debate over slavery demonstrated these new dynamics of argumentation and interpretation. From even before the time of the adoption of the Declaration, many in the colonies had recognized the inherent contradiction between a belief that men were born equal and the institution of slavery. 139 Thus, an element of abolition had always been present in American society. What remains unclear is the extent to which these advocates actually referred to the equality language of the Declaration. One history of abolition movements indicated that many Founding Fathers opposed slavery, including Alexander Hamilton, who wrote powerful

137. Ibid., 89. 138. Maier, American Scripture, 197. 139. Maier, American Scripture, 192; Maier noted that the Virginia Convention, in June 1776, had several days of debate over its Bill of Rights, but ultimately it ended by adopting language that excluded blacks from the protections expressed.

Odell 39 statements asserting the natural equality of Blacks and their right to freedom. 140 The author did not provide the wording of these writings, however, leaving one to wonder just how much they echoed the language of the Declaration. Such an examination is beyond the scope of this research, but given the current wide misconception about the interpretation of the Declaration in the 1770s and 1780s, further study is warranted before drawing a conclusion. What is clear, however, is that the debate over the Declaration continued straight up until the Civil War, which seemingly decided the question, but after the War of 1812, those seeking to advocate any historical understanding of the document were automatically in the minority. Maier documented a small sampling of the language on the issue from in the last decade of the eighteenth century, and first few of the nineteenth century, the same general time of the bitter Federalist-Republican controversy over the interpretation of the Declaration, and defenders of slavery denied the truth of the belief in equality as articulated by the document. Defenders of slavery even came from the political party most prone to exalt the Declaration. For example, Joseph Clay, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, pronounced in 1806 that the assertion of unalienable rights in the Declaration was not true. 141 Even though he was a Republican, Clays statement probably did not seem out of place at the time, as a significant political party in America was making a similar argument for the irrelevanceindeed, even dangerof the language of equality in the Declaration. But by the time John Randolph in 1826 labeled the equality language as a falsehood, and a most pernicious falsehood, his argument would automatically have been in the minority, a fact he seemed to acknowledge with the clarification that he took this position even though . . . [he found] it in the Declaration of
140. Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists: The Growth of a Dissenting Minority (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1974), 5. 141. Joseph Clay, quoted in Maier, American Scripture, 199.

Odell 40 Independence. 142 The majority position was that the Declarations expression of equality was a principle binding on the conduct of the nationthat is, it was an unfulfilled promise that future generations were to hold as a goal to seek to fulfill. These opposing positions on the Declaration transformed the celebration of the Fourth of July in the south. The case of Charleston, South Carolina, provides an instructive example, as laid out by Huff. He described the importance of the commemoration of the Fourth of July to this town. Interestingly, there is very little indication of a division over the celebration of hostilities during the Federalist-Republican controversy, but Huff noted a change during the Nullification Crisis. In 1831, the city began to have rival celebrations based upon ones particular position on nullification. 143 But orations delivered at the festivities manifested a change in interpretive scheme as early as the 1820s, when some in the South began to see the rise of the importance of the statement of equality in the Declaration as a serious threat to the institution of slavery. Surprisingly, in the 1790s and 1800s, orations given in Charleston expressed shock at the Federalist discussions in New England of disunion. Indeed, these orators emphasized the importance of unity as opposed to any particular political preference in the controversy. 144 In the 1820s, however, with the expansion of slavery threatened by the debate over the admission of Missouri, an undertone of suspicion crept into the annual addresses. 145 In the 1830s, citizens and orators of Charleston divided over the issue of nullification. Almost all agreed that the Tariff of 1828 had to go, but not all agreed on nullification as the proper

142. John Randolph, quoted in Maier, American Scripture, 199. 143. Huff, The Eagle and the Vulture: Changing Attitudes Towards Nationalism in Fourth of July Orations Delivered in Charleston, 1778-1860, The South Atlantic Quarterly 73 (1974), 13. 144. Huff, The Eagle and the Vulture, 15. 145. Ibid., 15.

Odell 41 solution. For Senator Robert Hayne, who gave the Fourth of July oration in Charleston in 1831, nullification was a means of preserving the Union. As a supporter the free principles that manifested themselves on July 4, 1776, Hayne proclaimed that the most important of these was the sacred duty, of resistance to the exercise of unauthorized power. 146 He inveighed against the tariff of 1828, classifying it as an abuse of power similar to those of the British monarch in 1776. Even while reviewing its deleterious effects against South Carolina, however, Hayne exclaimed, God forbid! that the Union ever be destroyed. 147 He hoped that he would soon see South Carolina marching under the Palmetto banner to assured victory in the great and just cause of Free Trade and State Rights, but he envisioned maintaining the Union, as long as adequate protection was given to state sovereignty. 148 In the late 1830s on, however, orations in Charleston became consumed with the issue of slavery. Henry Pinckney warned of the danger of the abolitionist movement in an 1833 oration, claiming that an attempted revival of the debate on the Missouri questionwhether slavery would expand into that territorywould subject our rights and liberties . . . to a more fiery trial than any they have yet sustained. 149 As the tension between North and South increased, orators in Charleston used Fourth of July orations to defend slavery. For all of them, the North had violated every principle of the Spirit of 1776, and the South was remaining true to the memory

146. Robert Hayne, An Oration, Delivered in the Independent or Congregational Church, Charlestonon the 4th of July, 1831, Being the 55th Anniversary of American Independence (Charleston: A.E. Miller, 1831), 1, 3. http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.library.hillsdale.edu/servlet/MOME?af=RN&ae=U105194746&srchtp=a&ste=14 (accessed April 7, 2011). 147. Hayne, An Oration Delivered in the Independent or Congregational Church, Charleston, 15. 148. Ibid., 2. 149. Henry L. Pickney, An Oration, Delivered . . . on the 4th of July, 1833 (Charleston, 1833), quoted in Huff, The Eagle and the Vulture, 19.

Odell 42 of the Founders. 150 Thus, for the South more generally, The Declaration of Independence came to represent less a mission statement than an insurance policy against the encroachments of centralized power. The right of revolution contained in the Declarationthe second part of the preamble, and the right within the Declaration most often emphasized throughout history became far more important to them than the statements of equality and natural rights. 151 An excellent illustration was presented by the fact that many of the Southern states patterned their declarations of secession after the Declaration of Independence, and that the Confederate Constitution closely imitated the U.S. Constitution. This seems to point to two simultaneous truths: that the South was of two minds about its actions, unable to entirely leave the American tradition, and that it saw itself as the authentic heirs of the Founding Fathers. 152 For these orators in Charleston, then, they believed they were offering the legitimate interpretation of the Declaration. As even more evidence, there is the remarkable fact that, right up to the Civil War, neither the North nor the South stopped celebrating the Fourth of July. They disagreed vehemently on the meaning of the Declaration and the Fourth of July, but both held that their interpretations of the Founding tradition were correct. 153 Even though he did not give many public speeches, and seems never to have delivered a Fourth of July oration, John C. Calhouns progression from a nationalist to a Southern supporter generally mirrored that wider progression observed in Charleston and the South. Early in his career, Calhoun was an ardent nationalist. At a dinner given in his honor in 1825, his former

150. Huff, The Eagle and the Vulture, 21-22. 151. Susan-Mary Grant, North over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 200), 32. 152. Grant, North over South, 162. 153. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 87.

Odell 43 U.S. House constituency offered a toast to him, honoring his constant pursuit of Americas honor. In response, Calhoun offered a speech on the importance of understanding and devoting oneself to the preservation and application of the principles of the system of government of the United States, because he was convinced that if the system was preserved in purity and administered with wisdom, it would diffuse the blessings of liberty over the civilized world. 154 Not fifty years have yet passed since the Declaration of Independence, and behold the mighty change! Already, from the St. Lawrence, to Cape Horn, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, not a European flag waves over the continent. The whole is filled by natives free and independent, with governments instructed after our model and governed, I trust, with similar views of policy. But the effect of our example is not confined to our continent. It has passed the Atlantic, and has been deeply felt in Europe. To our revolution that of France may be traced, and, although unfortunate in its termination, it will in its consequences deeply and beneficially affect the condition of the human race. It was a great political phenomenon, occurring at an enlightened and philosophical period of the world, to which thousands of inquiring eyes were directed, watching its rise, progress and results. By it the intelligence of the age was turned to politics, and the science of government was more thoroughly investigated, and is now better understood, than at any other period. These are, however, but the commencement of the consequences of our revolution and system of government! If we but preserve these principles in purity, a new era will arrive in human affairs, far more auspicious than any which has ever preceded; and I trust, gentlemen, [26] that we will all be animated with zeal to contribute to so glorious a result. Our reward will be the consciousness of doing our duty; and an honorable and lasting fame. 155 Remembering the fathers of the country who laid the foundations of our system of government, he offered a toast to the The Congress of [17]76The immortal political architects who first constructed the temple of liberty from the imperishable materials of the Rights of Man. 156

154. Robert L. Meriwether, ed., Papers of John C. Calhoun (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1959), X:25. 155. Meriwether, Papers of Calhoun, X:25-26.

Odell 44

This language rose almost to the height of John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster in its praise of the Declaration and its effects, surprising for the stance Calhoun was to take later in life. In 1828, the Congress of [17]76 had a different lesson for Calhoun, which he offered in a Fourth of July toast: They taught the world how oppression could be successfully resisted[;] may the lesson teach rulers that their only safety is in justice and moderation. In 1830 on a similar occasion, Calhoun warned in a toast of consolidation and disunionthe two extremes of our system; they are both equally dangerous and ought both to be equally the objects of our apprehension. 157 And by 1839, the Fourth of July offered Calhoun the opportunity to toast the Union of the States: He is the most faithful and best friend to the general government, who protects the rights of the States. 158 Incredibly enough, these toasts, which have little context as recorded, provide one of the few ways to judge Calhouns opinion of the Declaration, at least through public speeches. His later writings made very clear his low opinion of the principle of equality, but they appear not to have received oratorical expression until the debate on the Oregon Bill in the Senate in 1848. He charged that if the Union dissolved, historians could trace the cause all the way back to a hypothetical truism, but which, as now expressed and now understood, is the most false and dangerous of all political errors, namely the proposition that all men are born free and equal, which had become an established and incontrovertible truth. 159 He reminded his audience that the Declaration expressed the principle differently, leaving out the born free part, but that did not make it any more true. With the creation of
156. Ibid., 26. 157. Meriwether, Papers of Calhoun, X:208. 158. Ibid., 620. 159. Ross M. Lence, ed., Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun (Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 1992), 565.

Odell 45 Adam and Eve, Calhoun identified the start of authority and subordination. This principle was inserted in our Declaration of Independence . . . [but] it made no necessary part of our justification in separating from the parent country, and declaring ourselves independent. Breach of our chartered privileges, and lawless encroachment on our acknowledged and well-established rights by the parent country, were the real causes. 160 But this principle had strong hold on the mind of Mr. Jefferson . . . which caused him to take an utterly false view of the subordinate relation of the black to the white race in the South; and to hold, in consequence, that the former, though utterly unqualified to possess liberty, were as fully entitled to both liberty and equality as the latter; and that to deprive them of it was unjust and immoral. 161 Interestingly enough, Calhoun has here made a different argument about the meaning of the Declaration than previous generations. First, he claimed that the equality principle was unnecessary to accomplish the documents primary purpose: the political separation of America from Great Britain. But then, he seemed to acknowledge that Jefferson intended the equality statements of the preamble of the Declaration to have an effect upon the future conduct of America. Thus, for Calhoun, the document had a dual purpose, even if that second was, in Calhouns eyes, false. Prior interpreters who emphasized the documents purpose of separation from England often took no notice of Jeffersons statements on equality. But in this new age of interpretation, in which the equality principle was publicly recognized as integral to the Declaration, and even openly praised, Calhoun was forced to accept the statement as part of the argument that had to be countered.

160. Lence, Union and Liberty, 566. 161. Ibid., 569-570.

Odell 46 Even as the South denied the Declarations control over, and relevance to, the institution of slavery, the North made the statements of equality in the Declaration a centerpiece of the argument against slaverywhether it was an argument for abolition, or merely for preventing the expansion of the institution. 162 One of the most famous Fourth of July orations given by an abolitionist orator was Frederick Douglasss, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? given on July 5, 1852. 163 His rhetoric took no prisonersafter the speech, the citizens of Rochester, New York, had no doubt how Douglass felt about the slave in relation to the Declaration of Independence. This celebration marked the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. 164 Thus, Douglass articulated a basic understanding of the Declaration that harkened all the way back to the 1770s. He recounted to his audience the basic story of the document: the grievances of the king of England and the pursuit of liberty by their fathers. Americans properly celebrated this day, and he urged them to remain true to the saving principles contained in that document. 165 For these men, justice, liberty and humanity were final . . . They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defence. 166 But then Douglass came to the question he addressed for the rest of the oration: Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And could Douglas stand in front of his audience and thank them for the benefits conferred upon

162. Grant, North over South, 32. 163. In 1852, July 4 fell on a Sunday, pushing the celebrations off until Monday. 164. David B. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 109. 165. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass, 111. 166. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass, 112-113.

Odell 47 blacks by the Revolution? Would to God . . . that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! 167 He vehemently reminded his audience that the Fourth of July was a celebration for white citizens only. For rhetorical effect, he even accused them of mocking him, by inviting him into a celebration not meant for him. His comparison of the situation of enslaved blacks to the Jewish captives, who in Psalm 137 lament their Babylonian captors requests for songs of Zion, was apt, for blacks had been participating in Fourth of July celebrations for years. On some plantations in the South, the festivities of July 4 were the major holidays of the yearat which slaves would play patriotic music and sometimes even deliver patriotic Fourth of July orations. 168 For Douglas, himself a free black, the participation of enslaved blacks in a celebration of liberty was the ultimate slap in the face. He claimed that every point that he could argue, America had already conceded. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. 169 Indeed, he appealed to every mans understanding of what was rightand no man, Douglass asserted, could honestly contend that slavery was wrong. Everyone knew it, and Douglass believed he would look ridiculous were he to attempt to set out a logical argument for the proposition. All that was left then, was scorching irony, not convincing argument. 170 For the rest of the speech, Douglass described in detail the horrors of the institution of slavery, taking every opportunity he could to chastise America for not extending liberty to blacks. At one point, he quoted the entire preamble of the Declaration, reminding America that they had declared before the world, and the world understood them to
167. Ibid., 114-115. 168. Applebaum, The Glorious Fourth, 71. 169. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass, 117. 170. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass, 117.

Odell 48 declare, these principles, and then asking how they could keep blacks in bondage. 171 But that same Declaration that caused Douglass to condemn America, also gave him hope for the future, because of the obvious tendencies of the age. He hoped for the day that liberty would come to the black man, and believed it would come soon. 172 Perhaps the most famous expositor of the meaning of the Declaration was Abraham Lincoln, and it appears that he came to believe in its importance relatively late in his life, most likely in the 1850s. Apparently provoked by the attacks on the Declaration of Calhoun and others, Lincoln made it his mission to defend the Declaration and its relevance to American political life, and he developed his thought in several different speeches. 173 By February 1861, in a speech given at Independence Hall just over a month before his inauguration, Lincoln was able to declare, I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. 174 For him, the principle keeping the nation together was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time . . . It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence. 175 This same theme pervaded all of his rhetoric: the Declaration was meant by its signers to be an expression of timeless political
171. Ibid., 125. 172. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass, 127-129. 173. Maier, 202; Lincoln took special offense to the argument by John Pettit, a senator from Indiana, who in 1854 had argued that the proposition that all men are created equal was actually a self-evident lie. Lincoln mentioned this claim throughout his debates with Douglas. 174. Don E. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1989), I:213. 175. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln, I:213.

Odell 49 principles meant to guide not only the people of 1776, but generations of Americansindeed, men all over the worldyet to be born. His first major examination of the Declaration came in his speech on the KansasNebraska Act, given in 1854 at Peoria, Illinois. Championed through the legislature by Stephen Douglas, the law acknowledged, among other things, the doctrine of popular sovereignty, the right of new territories to decide for themselves whether they would permit the institution of slavery within their borders, repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Lincoln claimed that the supporters of the act masked their covert real zeal for the spread of slavery with popular sovereignty, which professed indifference to the institution.176 The basic defense of popular sovereignty was that it was the ultimate expression of the right of self-government. But Lincoln hated that argument, because the issue actually began one step earlier, with the question of whether or not blacks were men. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that all men are created equal, and therefore, the white man could not continue to govern the negro. Lincoln was troubled that so many ignored the clear language of the Declaration of Independence: that because all men were created equal, governments were tasked to protect mans natural rights with power derived from the consent of the governed. 177 Blacks, Lincoln argued, were men, and so they deserved to govern themselves and not be ruled by others. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln urged his audience, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. 178 Lincoln did note at one point in his speech that he was not contending for the establishment of political and social equality between the

176. Ibid., I:315. 177. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln, I:328. 178. Ibid., I:340.

Odell 50 whites and blacks, potentially strange language for a man who claimed to be motivated almost entirely by the principles of the Declaration. 179 The statement can be explained merely by remembering that, before he was President, Lincoln never advocated for total emancipation, but merely against the expansion of slavery into the territories. 180 Thus, he was not advocating necessarily for raising the black to the political status of white citizens, but he was arguing that the recognition of his moral right to be free required, at the very least, the prevention of the extension of the institution of slavery. Guelzo offered the helpful distinction between natural rights and civil rights. Regardless of his location, the black man possessed the same natural right to freedom as the white man, but in a white mans country, blacks possessed the civil rights eligibility to vote, to serve on juries, in militias, and the likethat the white society wished to grant him. 181 When the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford in March 1857, Lincoln critiqued the decision two months later. He took on Chief Justice Roger Taneys frequent assertions that, as Lincoln put it, Negroes were no part of the people who made, or for whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United States. 182 In other words, Taney had made a common contention that the Declaration did not include blacks in its definition of men, primarily because its signers did not intend it to. But Lincoln argued that, at its signing, the Declaration was held sacred by all, and thought to include all,

179. Ibid., I:329. 180. Thomas L. Krannawitter, Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics of Our Greatest President (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008), 20-21. 181. Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: the Debates that Defined America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 81-82. 182. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln, I:395.

Odell 51 but that belief had changed in order to accommodate slavery. 183 Lincoln detested this change. I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, he announced, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. But they were equal in the unalienable rights that they possessedThis they said, and this meant. But, They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon themThey meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening it influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that all men are created equal was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. 184 By contrast, Douglas argued that vindicating the character, motives and conduct of the signers of the Declaration required understanding the statements of equality and natural rights as referring only to white men. Moreover, Douglas appealed to the earliest understanding of the document, contending that the Declaration was adopted for the purpose of justifying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown, and dissolving their connection with the mother country. 185 The Declaration, therefore, did not carry a moral mandate of equality, but was essentially a document confined by history.

183. Ibid., I:396. 184. Ibid., I:398-399. 185. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln, I:399.

Odell 52 Lincoln castigated Douglas for making a mere wreckmangled ruin of the Declaration, and he laid into Douglass interpretation. I had thought the Declaration contemplated the progressive improvement in the condition of all men everywhere; but no, it was adopted merely to announce independence from Britain. Why, that object having been effected some eighty years ago, the Declaration is of no practical use nowmere rubbishold wadding left to rot on the battle-field after the victory is won. 186 Lincoln hated the thought that the Declaration, with its description of the equality of and rights of all men, might not be relevant to the present day, so he argued strenuously for its applicability to all times and for all people. In the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858, a set of seven debates conducted in various locations throughout Illinois in their contest for a seat in the U.S. Senate, both Lincoln and Douglas reiterated these positions, but often in stronger terms. In the very first debate, August 23, 1858, Douglas explained that he believe that the government of the United States was made on the white basismade by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and he announced his support for confining citizenship to only white men. 187 He mocked Lincoln for believing in black equality, for he believed that the Almighty[never] intended the negro to be the equal of the white man. 188 As he explained in the third debate on September 15, Douglas advanced some of these arguments in order to attempt to make the signers consistent with themselves. After all, each of the thirteen colonies was a slave-holding colony, and many who signed the document owned slaves but did not emancipate them. If they had truly believed that equality was a natural right, Douglas argued, they were bound, as honest

186. Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln, I:400. 187. Edwin Erle Sparks, The LincolnDouglas Debates of 1858 (Springfield: Trustees of the illinois State Historical Library, 1908), 95. 188. Sparks, LincolnDouglas Debates, 96.

Odell 53 men, to free their slaves. Instead of doing so, with uplifted eyes to Heaven they implored the divine blessing upon them, during the seven years bloody war they had to fight to maintain that Declaration, never dreaming that they were violating the divine law by still holding the negroes in bondage and depriving them of equality. 189 For Douglas, the principle of equality was not the foundation of the American system of government. If we wish to preserve our institutions in their purity, and transmit them unimpaired to our latest posterity, we must preserve with religious good faith that great principle of self-government which guarantees to each and every State, old and new, the right to make just such constitutions as they desire, and come into the Union with their own constitution, and not one palmed upon them. 190 Lincoln began by defending himself against several of Douglass charges, reminding the audience that he had no desire to give blacks perfect equality with whites, and that he did not wish to interfere with slavery where it existed, but he did hold that, Notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence,the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. 191 As he had done in 1857, Lincoln expressed his opinion that the world was moving forward towards liberty, quoting Henry Clay: Those who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation mustgo back to the era of our liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon that thunders its annually joyous return; they must blot out the moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty! 192

189. Sparks, LincolnDouglas Debates, 225-226. 190. Ibid., 228. 191. Ibid., 102. 192. Ibid., 361.

Odell 54 The most famous articulation of Lincolns theory of the Declaration is, of course, the Gettysburg Address, and it had all the features gleaned from his other speeches. Beginning with a date, Fourscore and seven years ago, that identified the Declaration as the true founding of the nation, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 193 Lincolns identification of the beginning of the nation with the issuance of the Declaration drove home his point that the Declaration was a statement of founding principles, of which, as he explained time and again, equality was the most important. Moreover, the address provided an excellent example of Lincolns idea of the documents command for future action. In the case of the Civil War, the Declaration required continuing dedication to the struggle for the freedom of black slaves. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work to which the dead at Gettysburg gave their lives, the great task remaining, the cause, so that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedomand that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 194 For Lincoln, the Declaration promised equality to whites and blacks in the freedom of selfgovernment, but the attainment of it required that America rededicate herself to the principles contained therein. In 1992, Gary Wills published a controversial book, Lincoln at Gettysburg, in which he argued that, in the address, Lincoln turned the whole messy struggle in the particulars into a battle of abstract ideas. Lincoln meant to win the Civil War in ideological terms, and at Gettysburg, he sought to win the battle for the mind. Wills noted that manyboth at the time

193. Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 263. 194. Ibid.

Odell 55 and in subsequent yearsaccused Lincoln of having altered the Constitution from within, of having revolutionized the Revolution, giving people a new past to live with that would change their future indefinitely. 195 Specifically, by identifying the founding of the nation with the Declaration, Lincoln, had not only placed it in a new light as a matter of founding law, but put its central proposition, equality, in a newly favored position as a principle of the Constitution. 196 From the time of the signing of the Declaration in 1776, the document had been understood as exactly that: a statement of the causes for, and a justification of, the renunciation by the American colonies of the authority of Great Britain. With this understanding, the most important part of the document, and that most likely to be referred to in the orations of the time, was the second section, the list of the grievances of the colonies against the king. In this context, the preamble of the document was understood as a statement of natural rights, the violation of which justified this particular exercise of the right of revolution. Indeed, the Declaration was emphatically not a bill of rightsthat is, a statement of fundamental rights that government must honor and protect. 197 This could probably be correctly labeled the original intent of the document. What should amaze is how far from that intent the modern understanding has shifted, in a large part due to Lincolns interpretive efforts, and in part because he won the war. In the years of the Federalist-Republican controversies, a form of the modern understanding competed with this original understanding for primacy. The outcome of the War of 1812, and the resulting collapse of the Federalist Party, which essentially advocated for the original understanding, automatically chose the winner of the debate. For the next half decade, the Republican notion of the document as a statement of the founding principles of America that held out a promise
195. Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 38. 196. Ibid., 145. 197. Maier, American Scripture, 164.

Odell 56 needing to be fulfilled dominated the understanding of the Declaration. With this interpretation now politically acceptable, various groups promoting social causes began to appropriate the Declaration for their own use to give their cause a legitimacy unable to be conferred by any other American document. But the original understanding received a form of revival in the 1820s as a result of the burgeoning sectional crisis. Both sides considered themselves as remaining faithful to the signers of the Declaration and the traditions of the Founding Fathers, but the South argued that the statement of equality in the Declaration was at the very least superfluous, at best not required to declare independence, and at worst, a complete falsehood. The North, on the other hand, fought against the institution of slavery in a variety of forms, but perhaps most important was its invocation of the equality principle as expressed in the Declaration as the guide for future conduct. And again, the outcome of a war decided this dispute, again in favor of understanding the document as a statement of timeless principles meant to guide future generations. Indeed, this is perhaps the most significant feature of the modern interpretation of the Declaration, and the uses to which it is put: every cause sees in the Declaration the expression of an unfulfilled promise of equality for some group of people, and because of the mandate in the Declaration that group must receive it in order to be true to the Founding. But, as Maier observed, The Declaration of Independence was, in fact, a peculiar document to be cited by those who championed the cause of equality. Not only did its reference to mens equal creation concern people in a state of nature before government was established, but the documents original function was to end the previous regime, not to lay down principles guide and limit its successor. 198 Maier further observed that the descendants of the revolutionaries who authored the document required a document that could guide the nation, a document that the founding fathers had failed to supply. Therefore:
198. Maier, American Scripture, 192.

Odell 57 They made one, pouring old wine into an old vessel manufactured for another purpose, creating a testament whose continuing usefulness depended not on the faithfulness with which it described the intentions of the signers but on its capacity to convince and inspire living Americans. 199 It seems, then, that Lincoln did effect a revolution at Gettysburg. He ensured that a particular understanding of the Declaration and the founding of the nation became wrapped up in the Union cause. With the Union victory, and the stigma of the association of the historical view with the cause of slavery, ensured that the original understanding of the Declaration met its death.

199. Maier, American Scripture, 208.

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