The
Declaration
of
Independence
• Stamp Act of 1763- protested the act and cited the following prohibition
• against taxation without consent
-”No scurage [tax]…shall be imposed…unless by common counsel…”
-They got these words from The Magna Carta, written in 1215
(550 years earlier!)
• American resistance forced the British Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act
in 1766, but more taxes succeeded this….The American Revolution brewed
and so the framers created The Declaration of Independence, adopted by the
Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, in which the colonies declared their
freedom from British rule!
Uncovering The
Declaration of
Independence
Magna Carta= Inspiration
• English charter issued in 1215 that directly
challenged the monarch’s authority
• Required King John of England to proclaim
certain liberties, and accept that his will was not
arbitrary
• The first document forced onto an English King by a
group of subjects in an attempt to limit his powers by
law and protect their privileges
• Led to Constitutional Law in the English speaking
world
• Became more of a symbol as years passed
Five Sections: an overview
(mark as we discuss)
1.) The Intro: This is the opening paragraph; a single sentence beginning
with "We the People..." It is sometime erroneously referred to as the
Preamble, probably because the opening paragraph of the US
Constitution is referred to as the Preamble to the Constitution.
2.) The preamble: a preamble is a preliminary statement, especially the
introduction to a formal document that serves to explain its purpose. In
this instance, Jefferson used the preamble to discuss the basic rights of
man. The second paragraph, which begins with "We hold theses truths to
be self-evident. The Preamble sets the logic al argument that people
have rights, that people form governments to secure those rights and
when a government becomes destructive of those rights, the people have
a right and a duty to throw off that government.
- Also divided into 5 propositions (we will mark together)
3.) List of grievances against King George III/The Indictment of King
George III: A grievance is (a) an actual/supposed circumstance regarded
as a just cause for complaint and (b) a complaint or protestation based
on a circumstance. The list of wrongs the King has done to show the
ways in which the King has abused the rights of the colonists.
Five Sections: An overview
4.) Formal declaration of war/ The Denunciation of the
British people: A statement announcing not only the
separation of colonial government from British
government, but colonial people from British people. In
this section, colonists pledged their “lives, fortunes,
and sacred honor.”
5.) Conclusion: The Declaration of Independence from
the King and his British peoples is the only logical
conclusion to be taken from the above.
Terms to know…
• Diction- word choice
• Antecedent- noun to which the pronoun refers (I did not see John
because he…) “he” is the PN antecedent referring to John.
• Parallel syntax- the repetition of. words, phrases, and clauses, used
in a concise manner, to emphasize a point."
• Cumulative sentence-An independent clause followed by a series of
subordinate constructions that gather details about a person, place,
event, or idea. (aka “loose”)
• Periodic sentence-A sentence in which the main clause or its
predicate is withheld until the end; for example, Despite heavy winds
and nearly impenetrable ground fog, the plane
• Anaphora-The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the
beginning of several successive verses, clauses, or paragraphs; for
example, "We shall fight on the beaches ...
• Connotations- the associated or secondary meaning of a word or
expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning
Terms to Know…
• Loaded diction- language with profound
connotations, employed to evoke an emotional
response from the reader
• Parallel structure- when the same pattern of
words is used to show that two or more ideas
have the same level of importance
• Three Aristotelian appeals
– Ethos= ethical appeal (morality, trust)
– Pathos= emotional appeal (feelings, emotion)
– Logos= logical appeal (facts, stats)