Understanding the issue of equality as stipulated in the declaration of independence

Recognition of the principle of political equality, not ethnicity or heritage, is what makes Americans. Unfortunately, throughout American history legal theorists have often denied the significance of the Declaration as law.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; Declaration of Independencemost ethical theorists have treated rights as something that must be derived… Historical development The expression human rights is relatively new, having come into everyday parlance only since World War IIthe founding of the United Nations inand the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in It replaced the phrase natural rights, which fell into disfavour in the 19th century in part because the concept of natural law to which it was intimately linked had become controversial with the rise of legal positivism.

Legal positivism rejected the theory, long espoused by the Roman Catholic Churchthat law must be moral to be law. The term human rights also replaced the later phrase the rights of Man, which was not universally understood to include the rights of women. Origins in ancient Greece and Rome Most students of human rights trace the origins of the concept of human rights to ancient Greece and Romewhere it was closely tied to the doctrines of the Stoicswho held that human conduct should be judged according to, and brought into harmony with, the law of nature.

According to the Roman jurist Ulpianfor example, natural law was that which nature, not the state, assures to all human beings, Roman citizens or not.

Historical development

It was not until after the Middle Ageshowever, that natural law became associated with natural rights. Thomas Aquinasthese doctrines recognized the legitimacy of slavery and serfdom and, in so doing, excluded perhaps the most important ideas of human rights as they are understood today—freedom or liberty and equality.

The conception of human rights as natural rights as opposed to a classical natural order of obligation was made possible by certain basic societal changes, which took place gradually beginning with the decline of European feudalism from about the 13th century and continuing through the Renaissance to the Peace of Westphalia During this period, resistance to religious intolerance and political and economic bondage; the evident failure of rulers to meet their obligations under natural law; and the unprecedented commitment to individual expression and worldly experience that was characteristic of the Renaissance all combined to shift the conception of natural law from duties to rights.

The intellectual—and especially the scientific—achievements of the 17th century including the materialism of Hobbesthe rationalism of Descartes and Leibnizthe pantheism of Spinozaand the empiricism of Bacon and Locke encouraged a distinctly modern belief in natural law and universal order and, during the 18th century—the so-called Age of Enlightenmentinspired by a growing confidence in human reason and in the perfectibility of human affairs—led to the more comprehensive expression of this belief.

The Influence Of The Declaration Of Independence Through History | FindLaw

Particularly important were the writings of Locke, arguably the most important natural-law theorist of modern times, and the works of the 18th-century thinkers known as the philosophes, who, centred mainly in Paris, included MontesquieuVoltaireand Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The philosophes, building on Locke and others and embracing many and varied currents of thought with a common supreme faith in reason, vigorously attacked religious and scientific dogmatism, intolerance, censorshipand social and economic restraints.

Not surprisingly, this liberal intellectual ferment exerted a profound influence in the Western world of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Together with the Glorious Revolution in England and the resulting Bill of Rights, it provided the rationale for the wave of revolutionary agitation that swept the West, most notably in North America and France.

Thomas Jeffersonwho had studied Locke and Montesquieu, gave poetic eloquence to the plain prose of the 17th century in the Declaration of Independence proclaimed by the 13 American colonies on July 4, 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.

It was, indeed, the failure of rulers to respect the principles of freedom and equality that was responsible for this development.

American Independence and the Promise of Equality : We're History

In the first place, because it was frequently associated with religious orthodoxy, the doctrine of natural rights became less attractive to philosophical and political liberals. Additionally, because they were conceived in essentially absolutist terms, natural rights were increasingly considered to conflict with one another.

Most importantly, the doctrine of natural rights came under powerful philosophical and political attack from both the right and the left. In England, for example, conservative political thinkers such as Edmund Burke and David Hume united with liberals such as Jeremy Bentham to condemn the doctrine, the former out of fear that public affirmation of natural rights would lead to social upheaval, the latter out of concern lest declarations and proclamations of natural rights substitute for effective legislation.

Agreeing with Bentham, Hume insisted that natural law and natural rights are unreal metaphysical phenomena. This assault upon natural law and natural rights intensified and broadened during the 19th and early 20th centuries. John Stuart Milldespite his vigorous defense of liberty, proclaimed that rights ultimately are founded on utility.

WITH THIS RESOLUTE WILL

And the logical positivists of the early 20th century insisted that the only truth is that which can be established by verifiable experience and that therefore ethical pronouncements are not cognitively significant.

Indeed, under the influence of 19th-century German idealism and parallel expressions of rising European nationalismthere were some—the Marxistsfor example—who, though not rejecting individual rights altogether, maintained that rights, from whatever source derived, belong to communities or whole societies and nations preeminently.

The persistence of the notion Although the heyday of natural rights proved short, the idea of rights nonetheless endured.

Preamble to the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence states the principles on which our government, and our identity as Americans, are based. Unlike the other founding documents, the Declaration . In France, "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen "adopted by the Constituent Assembly of the French revolution, to August 26, , enroll in its first article the idea that" men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only on the common equality ". the Declaration of Independence, namely, that all men are created equal. It follows from this principle that all just tosms of rule must be based on the consent of the governed. Lincoln constantly returned to the Declaration as both the I’oundation of the Constitution and the basis on which to attack slavery.

The abolition of slaverythe implementation of factory legislation, the rise of popular education and trade unionismthe universal suffrage movement—these and other examples of 19th-century reformist impulses afford ample evidence that the idea was not to be extinguished, even if its a priori derivation had become a matter of general skepticism.

But it was not until the rise and fall of Nazi Germany that the idea of human rights truly came into its own. Many of the gruesome atrocities committed by the Nazi regime had been officially authorized by Nazi laws and decrees, and this fact convinced many that law and morality cannot be grounded in any purely idealist or utilitarian or other consequentialist doctrine.

Certain actions, according to this view, are absolutely wrong, no matter what the circumstances; human beings are entitled to simple respect, at least. Today the vast majority of legal scholars and philosophers—particularly in the liberal West—agree that every human being has, at least in theory, some basic rights.The expression human rights is relatively new, having come into everyday parlance only since World War II, the founding of the United Nations in , and the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in One big issue was the criticism of the British slave trade which was removed from the Declaration of Independence in response to the threat of the Southern slave holding members of the Continental Congress to not sign the Declaration of Independence.

Sep 02,  · Watch video · Still, it was he who was given the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence, which would become the foremost statement of human liberty and equality ever written. According to an account.

In fact, the Declaration of Independence is a precedent to the U.S. Constitution and, as such, an understanding of the Declaration is vital to interpreting the Constitution. Back Issue Bundle. Signing of the Declaration of Independence by Armand Dumaresq, The Declaration of Independence gave birth to what is known today as the United States of America.

The document is symbolic of American democracy and one of the free charters of freedom. the Declaration of Independence, namely, that all men are created equal. It follows from this principle that all just tosms of rule must be based on the consent of the governed.

Lincoln constantly returned to the Declaration as both the I’oundation of the Constitution and the basis on which to attack slavery.