AMERICAN STUDIES
The Declaration of Independence
• overall the Declaration
of Independence was,
and is the single
greatest United States
document.
• it provided freedom
from Great Britain’s
oppressive rule.
The Meeting of the Continental
Congress
• September 1774:
– 55 men arrived in the city of
Philadelphia.
• aim: to establish a political
body to represent American
interests and challenge
British control.
• the new organization was
called the Continental
Congress
May 10, 1776
• the Continental Congress
adopted a resolution that urged
the states to form their own
independent governments to
replace the defunct royal
governments.
• opinion remained divided over
wisdom of having congress itself
make a statement of
independence
Richard Henry Lee
• June 7, 1776:
– Richard Henry Lee proposed
resolution to Congress,
stating:
• “these United Colonies are,
and of right ought to be,
free and independent
States.”
• 6th president of Congress
1784-1785
June 11, 1776: Congress chooses a committee of 5: Ben Franklin
(PA), John Adams (MA), Roger Sherman (CN), Robert R. Livingston
(NY), Thomas Jefferson (VA, chairman, principle writer).
Thomas Jefferson
• born on April 13, 1743 in Virginia
to a wealthy family.
• was very well educated
• was unanimously chosen by the
Committee of Five to prepare a
draft of the Declaration alone
• believed in the separation of
church and state.
• believed that the colonies had
the right to overthrow a
tyrannical government.
Document never called
“The Declaration of Independence”
____________________________
• Committee submitted Declaration to Congress on
June 28- “A Declaration by the Representatives of the
United States of America, in General Congress
Assembled”
• Document printed as “The Unanimous Declaration of
the 13 United States of America”
The signing
• Lee’s resolution passed on
July 2
• Draft of Declaration
approved on July 4
• Declaration printed on
parchment and on Aug. 2
• remaining members signed
later
• some never sign.
The Thirteen Colonies of America
The declaration of independence on life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness
• “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to assume among the
powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which
the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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.”
assumptions
All men are created equal.
• “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
Men are given by god certain unalienable rights.
• “They are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are
Life, liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
We have the right by god to declare our independence from England.
• “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God
entitle them…
Governments derive their authority from the consent of the people.
• “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed.”
When a government abuses its power, the people have the right to overthrow it.
• “That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of
the People to alter or to abolish it…
The colonies tried repeatedly to compromise with King George, but he has been a tyrant.
• “Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which
constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
…and what happened afterwards
• 5 signers were captured by the British as traitors, and
tortured before they died.
• 12 had their homes ransacked and burned.
• 2 lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army, another
had two sons captured.
• 9 of the 56 fought and died from wounds or the
hardships of the Revolutionary War
• what kind of men were they?
– 24 were lawyers and jurists
– 11 were merchants
– 9 were farmers and large plantation owners, men of
means, well educated
The American Constitution 1787
It broke the US into two parties:
• federalists
• anti-federalists
Divided into 2:
• 7 articles: rights of government
• 27 amendments: rights of the individual
No one holds “too much” power
• Legislative branch makes the laws
• Executive branch carries out the laws
• Judicial branch interprets the law
The federal
government
(Federalist)
Legislative br.
House of
Representatives
Senate
committee
committee
sub-committee
sub-committee
Executive br.
Judicial br.
President
Supreme court
Vice-president
Cabinet of
advisors
Court of appeal
District courts
US Bankruptcy
the function of the arts
To mediate between America’s:
• newness and classicism
• radicalism and traditionalism
• democracy and high religious principles
turning points
From Neoclassicism (1730s) to Romanticism (1790s)
• the age of reason is replaced by the age of the imagination
• the role of the poet in society is to show others what is
beyond the reality that everyone could see
• the world can only be understood in terms of faith, feeling
and things that go beyond reality
• emphasis on the inner space
From romanticism to transcendentalism
• the age of the imagination is enhanced by belief in nature and
its relation to intuition
• focus on individualism, spiritual values, and the role and
function of intuition
American Renaissance (1836-1861)
Forms of expression (akin to the Elizabethan age)
• the poem
• the questing travel tale
• the essay (introspection)
• the novel (less social than in Europe)
• the modern short story (skepticism)
Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne
Melville, Whitman, Poe
pre-civil war context
• antislavery movement 1840s
• abolitionism
• feminism 1840s (Margaret Fuller)
Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical
dualism. But in fact they are perpetually passing into one another.
Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly
masculine man, no purely feminine woman.
Only the dreamer shall understand realities, though in truth
his dreaming must be not out of proportion to his waking.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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•
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1803-1882
Unitarian minister
Poet and essayist
Founded the
Transcendental Club
• Popular lecturer
• Banned from Harvard for 40
years following his Divinity
School address
• Supporter of abolitionism
Henry David Thoreau
• 1817-1862
• Schoolteacher, essayist,
poet
• Most famous for Walden
and Civil Disobedience
• Influenced environmental
movement
• Supporter of abolitionism
Herman Melville
• 1819 – 1891
• essayist and poet (now hailed
as the best American novelist)
• his early novels were popular,
but his popularity declined
later in his life.
• was nearly forgotten by the
time of his death
• his masterpiece is Moby-Dick which was largely considered a
failure during his lifetime
• was "rediscovered" in the 20th
century
Nathaniel Hawthorne
• 1804-1864
• Writes moral
allegories inspired by
the Puritan ideology
• Interested in evil,
sin, guilt, and in how
nature contributes to
either enhancing or
eradicating them.
Hawthorne:
Young Goodman Brown (1835)
Setting:
• The Puritan age
• the forest: dark dangerous, alienating, a place
for secretes and hidden meanings, the forest
is more natural
• the village: ‘cheerful’, ‘pious’, ‘sincere’ 
hypocrisy  the village is artificial
symbolism
• Faith’s pink ribbons:
– are a sign of innocence in the village, and a sign of
depravation in the woods
• the staff
– a symbol of power when in the hands of a priest
 ref. to Aaron
– a symbol of deceit: a serpent when in the hands of
a sorcerer
character
Young Goodman Brown
• innocent
• simple-minded
• satisfied with his life and with following the
community’s injunctions
The elderly Brown
• has been around
• fearless
• a father figure
themes
• tale of sin and guilt
• complexities of isolation
• haunting need for the community of the
human heart
• moral theme but in tension with itself,
disputing itself
• discovers ambiguity between imagination and
reality
imagery
• unstable allegory  offers readable meanings
• symbolic ambiguity: the difficulty of reading a
sign
– the staff, the fire, the ribbons
context
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Puritanism
Biblical exegesis (Hermeneutics)
Salem witchcraft trials
two-fold critique
– critique of transcendentalism
– critique of religion