Understanding Independence:
The Declaration of
Independence and its legacy
The Declaration of Independence
“We hold these Truths to be selfevident, 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.”
What was “independence”?
Who was “independent”?
Who was “equal”?
What was “independence”?
Goals for today:
• Show how “independence” and
“equality” changed in meaning
during last 200 years
What was “independence”?
Goals for today:
• Show how different groups of
Americans made claims to
“independence” and “equality”
using the Declaration of
Independence
What was “independence”?
Groups Examined:
1) Ordinary white men
2) Slaves/African Americans
3) Women
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
Revolutionary-era Americans had very
specific ideas of who was
“independent” and “equal” when it
came to citizenship and political rights
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
Ideas came from European debates
about ideology of “republicanism”
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
What was republicanism?
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
Republicanism was a set of ideas
about what it took to create a healthy
republic
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
Republicanism was a set of ideas
about what it took to create a healthy
republic
Based on lessons of failed past
republics (Greek, Roman)
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
Why had past republics failed?
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
Why had past republics failed?
Concentrations of wealth and political
power
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
Healthy republic required citizens to
be politically equal and independent
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
Healthy republic required citizens to
be politically equal and independent
BUT: to be politically “independent”
one had to be economically
“independent”
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
What did it mean to be economically
independent?
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
What did it mean to be economically
independent?
Own property and especially LAND
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
Who was NOT economically
independent (“dependent”)?
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
Who was NOT economically
independent (“dependent”)?
• Children, women, slaves, men
without land and property
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
• Dependents considered a threat to
the republic: they would vote as
parents, owners, husbands,
employers, etc. directed
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
• Would lead to corruption: wealthy
men dominating politics through
control of dependents
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
In colonial period, voting rights linked
to land ownership (property)
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
In colonial period, voting rights linked
to land ownership (property)
• 2/3 to 3/4 of white families owned
land
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
In colonial period, voting rights linked
to land ownership (property)
• 2/3 to 3/4 of white families owned
land
• 50-75% of adult white males could
vote
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
New Revolutionary governments
continued linking citizenship and
voting rights to economic
independence
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
Wealth standard for voters, even
higher standard for political leaders
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
• Property requirements for office
holding
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
• Property requirements for office
holding
• In many new states, only
wealthiest 10 percent could hold
office
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
• Property requirements for voting
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
• Property requirements for voting
• Lower requirements than colonial
period, so expanded voting
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
• Property requirements for voting
• Lower requirements than colonial
period, so expanded voting
• PA dropped property requirements
altogether
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
• Most white men could vote
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
• Most white men could vote
• Black male property owners could
vote in most northern states
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
• Most white men could vote
• Black male property owners could
vote in most northern states
• Single women/ widows with
enough property could vote in NJ
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
The disenfranchised:
• Propertyless white men
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
The disenfranchised:
• Propertyless white men
• All slaves
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
The disenfranchised:
• Propertyless white men
• All slaves
• Most Free Blacks
“Independence” for
Revolutionary Generation
The disenfranchised:
• Propertyless white men
• All slaves
• Most Free Blacks
• Nearly all women
C19: White Man’s Democracy
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• In Jacksonian period,
“independence” changed:
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• Now to be independent, one had
to be a white man
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• White men used Declaration of
Independence as a way to claim
equality among white men
regardless of wealth
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• New push was related, in part, to
the growing wealth inequality of
the 19th century in countryside and
cities with industrialization and
the rise of capitalism
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• In many places, a majority of white
men were landless (even on the
frontier)
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• Led to universal white manhood
suffrage
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• Led to universal white manhood
suffrage
• Elimination of property
requirements to vote in most
states
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• At the same time, state
constitutions were rewritten to bar
voting by everyone who was not a
white man
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• New Jersey eliminated voting for
propertied single women and
widows
• Other states rewrote constitutions
to specify only men could vote
(even though women never had
voted)
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• Constitutions banned Black voters
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• By 1840, 93 percent of free
northern black adult males
could not vote
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• By 1858, free blacks were eligible
to vote in just four northern states:
NH, ME, MA, and VT (small black
populations)
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• At the same time, states and cities
passed segregation and vagrancy
laws to make free Blacks less
independent
• New western states tried to ban
Black in-migration
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• Declaration was also used by
White farmers and workers to
express their grievances over
growing inequality
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• Raised idea of economic
independence and economic
equality as important to saving the
democratic republic
C19: White Man’s Democracy
• Used against land speculators,
landlords, bankers,
manufacturers/factory owners,
railroad companies
African Americans and the Declaration
African Americans and the Declaration
The Declaration was used by African
Americans as a weapon against
slavery and to gain rights for free
Blacks
African Americans and the Declaration
Before Emancipation Proclamation,
most African Americans refused to
celebrate July 4th: celebrated July 5th
as a protest against slavery
African Americans and the Declaration
Peter Osbourne, July 5, 1832: “Fellow
Citizens—On account of the misfortune
of our color, our fourth of July comes on
the fifth; but I hope and trust that when
the Declaration of Independence is fully
executed which declares that all men,
without respect to person, were born
free and equal, we may then have our
fourth of July on the fourth.”
African Americans and the Declaration
Declaration frequently invoked by
abolitionists pushing for an end to
slavery.
African Americans and the Declaration
Frederick Douglass, 1846: “I do speak
against an American institution—that
institution is American slavery. But I love
the Declaration of Independence, I believe
it contains a true doctrine—"that all men
are born equal." It is, however, because
they do not carry out this principle that I
am here to speak.”
African Americans and the Declaration
Declaration also used to demonstrate
hypocrisy of “all men are created
equal” for segregation, voting rights,
employment discrimination, etc
African Americans and the Declaration
Black Americans used it frequently in
the 19th-20th century
African Americans and the Declaration
One of the ways of trying to rally
white support during the Civil Rights
Movement of the 1950s and 60s
African Americans and the Declaration
MLK, “I have a dream” speech:
“When the architects of our republic wrote the
magnificent words of the Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence, they were signing a
promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as
well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable
rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is
obvious today that America has defaulted on this
promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are
concerned.”
Women and the Declaration
Women tied the Declaration of
Independence to push for
“independence” and “equality”
Women and the Declaration
First clear attempt was Seneca Falls
Convention of 1848
Women and the Declaration
“Declaration of Sentiments”:
“We hold these truths to be selfevident: that all men and women are
created equal; that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happines”
Women and the Declaration
“Declaration of Sentiments”:
Modeled on Declaration of
Independence but substituted tyranny
of men for the king
Women and the Declaration
“Declaration of Sentiments”:
“The history of mankind is a history of
repeated injuries and usurpations on
the part of man toward woman,
having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute tyranny
over her.”
Women and the Declaration
Suffragists of late 19th and early 20th
century also relied on Declaration
Women and the Declaration
Declaration of the Rights of Women
by National Woman Suffrage
Association, July 4, 1876
Susan B. Anthony
Women and the Declaration
Declaration of the Rights of Women
“And now, at the close of a hundred years, as the hour
hand of the great clock that marks the centuries points
to 1876, we declare our faith in the principles of selfgovernment; our full equality with man in natural
rights; that woman was made first for her own
happiness, with the absolute right to herself—to all the
opportunities and advantages life affords, for her
complete development; and we deny that dogma of
the centuries, incorporated in the codes of all
nations—that woman was made for man—her best
interests, in all cases, to be sacrificed to his will.”