Читать книгу American Democracy in Context - Joseph A. Pika - Страница 64

In May 1776, only four months after the publication of Common Sense, the Virginia House of Burgesses instructed its delegates to the Second Continental Congress to propose independence—making Virginia the first of the colonies to call for such a resolution. That same month, the Continental Congress urged colonies to adopt constitutions in anticipation of impending independence and statehood. Then, on June 7, Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee proposed before the Continental Congress “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”¹⁹ To implement Lee’s resolution, the Continental Congress created a committee consisting of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman to prepare what would eventually become the American Declaration of Independence.

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,²⁰ that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.

In writing these words, Jefferson drew upon John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1689). Locke believed that people enjoy certain natural rights, including “life, liberty, and property,” that cannot be taken away without their consent. Through a social contract, people come together in a society under a government whose authority they agree to obey. If, however, a government deprives them of their natural rights without their consent, the social contract is broken, and the people have a right to rebel and replace that government with one that will honor the terms of the social contract. This concept of a social contract led the newly independent states, and eventually the new federal government, to adopt written constitutions. These constitutions served as contracts spelling out the powers of government and the rights of the people.

Declaration of Independence A statement written by Thomas Jefferson and approved by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, that asserted the independence of the American colonies from Great Britain.

social contract The idea, drawn from the writings of John Locke and others, that government is accountable to the people and bound to protect the natural rights of its citizens. If the government breaks this contract, the people have the right to rebel and replace the government with one that will enforce it.

In making his case for rebellion in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson listed a specific set of grievances against Britain. In doing so, he did not even mention Parliament but rather took aim exclusively at King George III: “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” Jefferson listed 27 specific grievances and, finally, declared that

these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved.

Popular uprisings, such as the Yellow Vest movement in France, which calls for economic justice for the working class, illustrate citizens claiming a broken social contract in the contemporary world.

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Meanwhile, some delegates to the Continental Congress thought it premature to declare independence. South Carolina and Pennsylvania opposed independence in a preliminary vote on July 1, and New York abstained because its delegates did not have clear instructions from home about how to vote. (Each colony had a single vote in Congress determined by a majority vote of the delegates from that colony.) In an attempt to secure unanimity among the colonies, Congress delayed the final vote on Lee’s resolution until the next day. The tactic worked. South Carolina reversed its vote and, as the result of strategic abstentions by two of its delegates, Pennsylvania now voted 3–2 in favor of independence instead of 4–3 against it. New York still abstained, but the New York Provincial Congress formally voted to support independence a few days later. Congress approved the final language of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and the first public reading of the Declaration took place four days later in Philadelphia. The next day, July 9, George Washington ordered that the Declaration be read to members of the Continental Army in New York.

Independence had been declared, but the Revolutionary War dragged on for five years. The official peace accord, in which Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States, was not signed until 1782.