As They Meant It

The Declaration of Independence, adopted in July 1776 by delegates of the thirteen American colonies, is often described as a founding document. More precisely, it is a formal statement produced by a group of educated men shaped by the political, religious, and philosophical ideas circulating in the 18th-century Anglo-European world.

This series of pages is not intended to judge these men, nor to glorify them. It is meant to study the philosophical structure and moral reasoning embedded in the Declaration they signed, as understood within the limitations of their era.

The Circumstances

The men who drafted the Declaration were property owners, many of them lawyers, merchants, or landholders, with access to classical and Enlightenment texts. They lived in a world of hierarchy and custom, yet they were also exposed to new ideas: natural law, individual liberty, and the emerging concept of popular sovereignty.

The colonies had been subjects of the British Crown. Their political institutions were shaped by English common law and colonial assemblies, but ultimate authority rested with a distant monarch and Parliament. Tensions had grown over taxation, legislation, and military presence. Appeals for reconciliation had failed.

The Declaration was not the beginning of conflict—it was a response to it.

The Purpose

The document begins with a claim that it is necessary for “one people to dissolve the political bands” that have connected them with another. It then presents a logical argument: certain truths are self-evident, rights are inherent, governments exist to secure those rights, and if they fail to do so, they may be replaced.

The language is formal, declarative, and legalistic in tone. It reflects the writers’ training and the pragmatic aim of the document: to justify the colonies’ separation before the international community, particularly other European powers.

The Intellectual Sources

The Declaration reflects the influence of several schools of thought:

• Natural rights theory, especially from John Locke and other Enlightenment philosophers;

• The classical republican tradition, inherited from Greece and Rome;

• Protestant theology, which emphasized conscience and moral accountability;

• British legal culture, with its emphasis on precedent, charter, and contract.

The drafters did not seek to create a new philosophy, but rather to apply existing ideas to a particular political moment.

The Language

Phrases such as “all men are created equal” and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” have since taken on meanings far beyond their initial context. At the time, they were expressions of political philosophy used to support the claim that the colonies were justified in separating.

Whether or not these phrases were fully understood or consistently applied by their authors is not the concern of this page. What matters here is that the words chosen reflect an intellectual tradition shaped by the circumstances and sensibilities of a specific group of individuals, at a specific point in time.

The Structure of This Series

This series explores the key philosophical assertions made in the Declaration as they may have been understood in their own time. It does not seek to judge the people or events, but to consider the moral and conceptual foundations upon which their claims rested.

Natural Rights — The concept of inherent rights prior to government;

Consent of the Governed — The source of legitimate authority in political society;

Right to Revolt — The moral justification for replacing a government;

Equality in Language — The use and significance of universal language in a particular context.

This is not a page about legacy.

It is a page about origin.

Not about fulfillment, but about formulation.

The Declaration of Independence was not written to explain the world as it should be, but to explain a political act in the language of its time.

Let us read it accordingly.