Imagine that you, and not Jefferson, are in charge of writing the Declaration of Independence. How is it similar, and how is it different?
Here is how I would have written it, with the advantage of over 200 years of hindsight:
- You would, of course, include a long list of grievances with Great Britain, and explain how you tried to resolve them peacefully. Jefferson did that. It constitutes the bulk of the document.
- You would use some form of contract theory to justify the rebellion. Jefferson did that, too, although it is more implicit than explicit.
- You would make it clear that government is a human institution, subject to change at the will of the people, not an arrangement sanctioned by God which cannot, therefore, be revised. Jefferson makes that point pretty emphatically.
- You would make the case that America, due to its unusual origins, cultural diversity, and physical distance from Great Britain, is a separate nation entitled to run its own affairs. Jefferson did not make that point. The Declaration is written as a statement made by individual sovereign states in what might be a temporary alliance, not a manifesto written on behalf of a new, united American nation. In other words, the distinction in the document is subtle, but the clear emphasis is on “states,” not “united.”
- The Declaration talks about natural laws, the “God of nature,” and a “Creator.” Those are emphatically not orthodox Christian terms; they are Deist. I have no issue with that; neither did Jefferson’s compatriots. White Christian nationalists in today’s America would disagree.
- The most enduring and influential statement in the Declaration is that “all men are created equal.” Regardless of its merits, I really don’t see why Jefferson felt compelled to say it, because it isn’t essential to his argument, unless he was just trying to say that the (white) American colonists had the same natural right of self-determination as residents of Great Britain. The Declaration was designed to win hearts and minds in Europe as well as America; the French king was probably less than impressed. One thing is certain; natural equality is hardly a “self-evident” proposition.