The Declaration of Independence drafted in 1776 by those we call our “founding fathers,” including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Morris, has survived 250 years as has the country it founded. Both the document and the country set forth aspirations, not realities.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
These carefully drafted words foreshadowed what we were striving to be, not what we were. At the time of drafting, women, native Americans, descendants of Africans, free and enslaved, and even White men without property were not considered the equals of those who penned the document or within the term “all men.” Eleven years later, some of these same men realized the need for a stronger law-based document and the United States Constitution was born with its first 10 amendments, The Bill of Rights. But even that was not enough and through evolution and revolution we kept striving to become the country of our aspirations. It took a civil war and four more amendments to recognize the equality of Black people and women. In the last month of 1865, the 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery and involuntary servitude nationwide. But that was not enough and in 1868, the 14th amendment, often called the birthright amendment, was added to the Constitution stating: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
However, we realized that our aspirations still hadn’t been met and in 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified, prohibiting federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
But these amendments still did not meet the aspirations of the Declaration of Independence and in 1920, the 19th Amendment was added giving women a voice in government.
Words alone did not cement the aspirations. We had to have Congress legislate and courts interpret and still we fell short of those aspirational principles in our foundational documents. Emma Lazarus, the Jewish activist most noted for the words on the Statue of Liberty, wrote in 1883, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” Fannie Lou Hamer and Maya Angelou have restated that same thought in similar words because we still have not fulfilled those aspirations.
Freedom, respect, dignity, and full participation in the democratic process are not partisan ideas; they are the bedrock of our democratic republic. We cannot be the country we say we are until our aspirations become realities. Let us hope that it does not take another 250 years.
