I. Activating Prior Knowledge
You have read some of the quotes of the founding fathers and you have learned about some of the philosophical view points of the Enlightenment. As you read the Declaration of Independence, you will see a document that contains many of these beliefs.
II. Setting A Purpose for Reading
While reading the Declaration of Independence, there are several things that you should be looking for within the document. Why did the colonists declare their independence? What are unalienable rights and do they apply to all people? Why are governments formed? What are justice, liberty, and equality? Why are this document and the Constitution of the United States considered to be the two most important documents in American history?
III. Reading the Text (Read, Re-read, and Read Again)
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
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.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
Why is Thomas Jefferson writing The Declaration of Independence?
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. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
What are the three basic rights of man and who bestows these rights? Be sure that you can explain what is meant by these rights. Why are governments created? From whence do governments receive their power?
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
When is it right to overthrow a government? When is it not right to overthrow a government? What should a group do once an old government is overthrown?
--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. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
What has been the “sufferance of these Colonies” and what are they “constrained” to do?
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
How did the king manipulate the legislative systems of the colonies? According to the charges against King George III, did he treat the English citizens in England, the same way that he treated the colonists? Be able to give examples to support your response.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
What is the purpose of the previous lines? In essence, Jefferson is accusing King George III of declaring “martial law.” What is martial law? What evidence supports Jefferson’s claim?
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
What economic hardships are imposed by the king? What judicial hardships are imposed?
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
What happens to governmental power when official groups are absent? What effect does this have on a society? Jefferson suggests that the king has “abdicated” his power in the colonies. How has the king “abdicated” his power? In addition, Jefferson accuses the king of instigating conflict with the colonists. Give an example of how the king was instigating conflict and creating conflict.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
How did the colonists respond to the treatment of the king? How effective was their response? (How was it received?)
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
How must the colonists respond to the mistreatment of the king and the lack of response on the part of the British parliament?
The signers of the Declaration:
New Hampshire - Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts - John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island - Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut - Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York - William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey - Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania - Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware - Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland - Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia - George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina - William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina - Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr.,
Arthur Middleton
Georgia - Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
Signing The Declaration of Independence was an act of treason, punishable by death. John Hancock’s signature is the largest on the document and it is said that the reason he did this was so that Old King George could read it without his spectacles. Why would Hancock and the rest sign their name knowing that it was an act of treason and that if the revolution was unsuccessful, they would most likely die for their crime?
IV. Personal Reflection
Part 1 – Select a philosophical belief from one of the previously studied Enlightenment thinkers and find an example of that belief in The Declaration of Independence. In your response, be sure to give the name of
the philosopher, his belief, and the example from the text.
Part 2 – Pretend for a moment that you were at the signing of The Declaration of Independence. Would you have signed the document? Why or why not? Are there any parts of the document that you would have disagreed? If so, what are they? If you had to chose one line from the document that you consider to be the most powerful, which line is it and why?
Part 3 – Pretend that you are King George and you have just received this document in your daily mail, what is your reaction and response?
V. Peer Reflection
Read one of your classmates response and respond to what they
have written.
Source:
http://teachers.spart5.k12.sc.us/grantdl/?page_id=12
You have read some of the quotes of the founding fathers and you have learned about some of the philosophical view points of the Enlightenment. As you read the Declaration of Independence, you will see a document that contains many of these beliefs.
II. Setting A Purpose for Reading
While reading the Declaration of Independence, there are several things that you should be looking for within the document. Why did the colonists declare their independence? What are unalienable rights and do they apply to all people? Why are governments formed? What are justice, liberty, and equality? Why are this document and the Constitution of the United States considered to be the two most important documents in American history?
III. Reading the Text (Read, Re-read, and Read Again)
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
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.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
Why is Thomas Jefferson writing The Declaration of Independence?
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. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
What are the three basic rights of man and who bestows these rights? Be sure that you can explain what is meant by these rights. Why are governments created? From whence do governments receive their power?
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
When is it right to overthrow a government? When is it not right to overthrow a government? What should a group do once an old government is overthrown?
--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. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
What has been the “sufferance of these Colonies” and what are they “constrained” to do?
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
How did the king manipulate the legislative systems of the colonies? According to the charges against King George III, did he treat the English citizens in England, the same way that he treated the colonists? Be able to give examples to support your response.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
What is the purpose of the previous lines? In essence, Jefferson is accusing King George III of declaring “martial law.” What is martial law? What evidence supports Jefferson’s claim?
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
What economic hardships are imposed by the king? What judicial hardships are imposed?
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
What happens to governmental power when official groups are absent? What effect does this have on a society? Jefferson suggests that the king has “abdicated” his power in the colonies. How has the king “abdicated” his power? In addition, Jefferson accuses the king of instigating conflict with the colonists. Give an example of how the king was instigating conflict and creating conflict.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
How did the colonists respond to the treatment of the king? How effective was their response? (How was it received?)
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
How must the colonists respond to the mistreatment of the king and the lack of response on the part of the British parliament?
The signers of the Declaration:
New Hampshire - Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts - John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island - Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut - Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York - William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey - Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania - Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware - Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland - Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia - George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina - William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina - Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr.,
Arthur Middleton
Georgia - Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Stop! Can you answer these questions? If not, go back and re-read the passage.
Signing The Declaration of Independence was an act of treason, punishable by death. John Hancock’s signature is the largest on the document and it is said that the reason he did this was so that Old King George could read it without his spectacles. Why would Hancock and the rest sign their name knowing that it was an act of treason and that if the revolution was unsuccessful, they would most likely die for their crime?
IV. Personal Reflection
Part 1 – Select a philosophical belief from one of the previously studied Enlightenment thinkers and find an example of that belief in The Declaration of Independence. In your response, be sure to give the name of
the philosopher, his belief, and the example from the text.
Part 2 – Pretend for a moment that you were at the signing of The Declaration of Independence. Would you have signed the document? Why or why not? Are there any parts of the document that you would have disagreed? If so, what are they? If you had to chose one line from the document that you consider to be the most powerful, which line is it and why?
Part 3 – Pretend that you are King George and you have just received this document in your daily mail, what is your reaction and response?
V. Peer Reflection
Read one of your classmates response and respond to what they
have written.
Source:
http://teachers.spart5.k12.sc.us/grantdl/?page_id=12