The Literary Qualities of the Declaration of Independence
By Carl Becker (Page 2)
By Carl Becker (Page 2)
You may not believe:
would find it difficult to say it more concisely; in words more direct, simple, precise, and
appropriate; with less of passionate declamation, of rhetorical magniloquence, or of verbal
ornament. The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence reminds one of Lincoln's
Gettysburg Address in its unimpassioned simplicity of statement. It glitters as much, or as little,
as that famous document.
Logical sequence and structural unity are not always essential to good writing; but the rambling
and discursive method would scarcely be appropriate to a declaration of independence.
Jefferson's declaration, read casually, seems not to possess a high degree of unity. Superficially
considered, it might easily strike one as the result of an uneasy marriage of convenience
between an abstract philosophy of government and certain concrete political grievances. But in
truth the Declaration is built up around a single idea, and its various parts are admirably chosen
and skilfully disposed for the production of a particular effect. The grievances against the king
occupy so much space that one is apt to think of them as the main theme. Such is not the case.
The primary purpose of the Declaration was to convince a candid world that the colonies had a
moral and legal right to separate from Great Britain. This would be difficult to do, however
many and serious their grievances might be, if the candid world was to suppose that the
colonies were politically subordinate to the British government in the ordinary sense. It is
difficult to justify rebellion against established political authority. Accordingly, the idea around
which Jefferson built the Declaration was that the colonists were not rebels against established
political authority, but a free people maintaining long established and imprescriptible rights
against a usurping king. The effect which he wished to produce was to leave a candid world
wondering why the colonies had so long submitted to the oppressions of this king.
The major premise from which this conclusion is derived is that every 'people' has a natural
right to make and unmake its own government; the minor premise is that the Americans are a
'people' in this sense. In establishing themselves in America, the people of the colonies
exercised their natural rights to frame governments suited to their ideas and conditions; but at
the same time they voluntarily retained a union with the people of Great Britain by professing
allegiance to the same king. From this allegiance they might at any time have withdrawn; if they
had not so withdrawn it was because of the advantages of being associated with the people of
Great Britain; if they now proposed to withdraw, it was not because they now any less than
formerly desired to maintain the ancient association, but because the king by repeated and
deliberate actions had endeavored to usurp an absolute authority over them contrary to every
natural right and to long established custom. The minor premise of the argument is easily
overlooked because it is not explicitly stated in the Declaration — at least not in its final form.
To have stated it explicitly would perhaps have been to bring into too glaring a light certain
incongruities between the assumed premise and known historical facts. The role of the list of
grievances against the king is to make the assumed premise emerge, of its own accord as it
were, from a carefully formulated but apparently straightforward statement of concrete
historical events. From the point of view of structural unity, the role which the list of
grievances plays in the Declaration is a subordinate one; its part is to exhibit the historical
circumstances under which the colonists, as a 'free people,' had thrust upon them the high
obligation of defending the imprescriptible rights of all men.
Although occupying a subordinate place in the logical structure, the list of grievances is of the
highest importance in respect to the total effect which the Declaration aims to produce. From
this point of view, the form and substance of these paragraphs constitute not the least masterly
part of the Declaration. It is true, books upon rhetoric warn the candidate for literary honors at
all hazards to avoid monotony; he ought, they say, to seek a pleasing variety by alternating long
and short sentences; and while they consider it correct to develop a single idea in each
paragraph, they consider it inadvisable to make more than one paragraph out of a single
sentence. These are no doubt good rules, for writing in general; but Jefferson violated them all,
perhaps because he was writing something in particular. Of set purpose, throughout this part of
the Declaration, he began each charge against the king with 'he has': 'he has refused his assent';
'he has forbidden his governors'; 'he has refused to pass laws'; ' he has called together
legislative bodies'; 'he has refused for a long time.' As if fearing that the reader might not after
all notice this oft-repeated 'he has,' Jefferson made it still more conspicuous by beginning a
new paragraph with each 'he has.' To perform thus is not to be 'literary' in a genteel sense; but
for the particular purpose of drawing an indictment against the king it served very well indeed.
Nothing could be more effective than these brief, crisp sentences, each one the bare affirmation
of a malevolent act. Keep your mind on the king, Jefferson seems to say; he is the man: 'he
has refused'; 'he has forbidden'; 'he has combined'; 'he has incited'; 'he has
plundered'; 'he has abdicated.' I will say he has.
These hard, incisive sentences are all the more effective as an indictment of the king because of
the sharp contrast between them and the paragraphs, immediately preceding and following, in
which Jefferson touches upon the sad state of the colonists. In these paragraphs there is
something in the carefully chosen words, something in the falling cadence of the sentences,
that conveys a mournful, almost a funereal, sense of evils apprehended and long forefended but
now unhappily realized. Consider the phrases which give tone and pitch to the first two
paragraphs: 'when in the course of human events'; 'decent respect to the opinions of mankind';
'all experience hath shewn'; 'suffer while evils are sufferable'; 'forms to which they are
accustomed'; 'patient sufferance of these colonies'; ' no solitary fact to contradict the uniform
tenor of the rest.' Such phrases skilfully disposed have this result, that the opening passages of
the Declaration give one the sense of fateful things impending, of hopes defeated and injuries
sustained with unavailing fortitude. The contrast in manner is accentuated by the fact that
whereas the king is represented as exclusively aggressive, the colonists are represented as
essentially submissive. In this drama the king alone acts — he conspires, incites, plunders; the
colonists have the passive part, never lifting a hand to burn stamps or destroy tea; they suffer
while evils are sufferable. It is a high literary merit of the Declaration that by subtle contrasts
Jefferson contrives to conjure up for us a vision of the virtuous and long-suffering colonists
standing like martyrs to receive on their defenseless heads the ceaseless blows of the tyrant's
hand.
- 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;
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 foundations on such principles, and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety
and happiness.
would find it difficult to say it more concisely; in words more direct, simple, precise, and
appropriate; with less of passionate declamation, of rhetorical magniloquence, or of verbal
ornament. The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence reminds one of Lincoln's
Gettysburg Address in its unimpassioned simplicity of statement. It glitters as much, or as little,
as that famous document.
Logical sequence and structural unity are not always essential to good writing; but the rambling
and discursive method would scarcely be appropriate to a declaration of independence.
Jefferson's declaration, read casually, seems not to possess a high degree of unity. Superficially
considered, it might easily strike one as the result of an uneasy marriage of convenience
between an abstract philosophy of government and certain concrete political grievances. But in
truth the Declaration is built up around a single idea, and its various parts are admirably chosen
and skilfully disposed for the production of a particular effect. The grievances against the king
occupy so much space that one is apt to think of them as the main theme. Such is not the case.
The primary purpose of the Declaration was to convince a candid world that the colonies had a
moral and legal right to separate from Great Britain. This would be difficult to do, however
many and serious their grievances might be, if the candid world was to suppose that the
colonies were politically subordinate to the British government in the ordinary sense. It is
difficult to justify rebellion against established political authority. Accordingly, the idea around
which Jefferson built the Declaration was that the colonists were not rebels against established
political authority, but a free people maintaining long established and imprescriptible rights
against a usurping king. The effect which he wished to produce was to leave a candid world
wondering why the colonies had so long submitted to the oppressions of this king.
The major premise from which this conclusion is derived is that every 'people' has a natural
right to make and unmake its own government; the minor premise is that the Americans are a
'people' in this sense. In establishing themselves in America, the people of the colonies
exercised their natural rights to frame governments suited to their ideas and conditions; but at
the same time they voluntarily retained a union with the people of Great Britain by professing
allegiance to the same king. From this allegiance they might at any time have withdrawn; if they
had not so withdrawn it was because of the advantages of being associated with the people of
Great Britain; if they now proposed to withdraw, it was not because they now any less than
formerly desired to maintain the ancient association, but because the king by repeated and
deliberate actions had endeavored to usurp an absolute authority over them contrary to every
natural right and to long established custom. The minor premise of the argument is easily
overlooked because it is not explicitly stated in the Declaration — at least not in its final form.
To have stated it explicitly would perhaps have been to bring into too glaring a light certain
incongruities between the assumed premise and known historical facts. The role of the list of
grievances against the king is to make the assumed premise emerge, of its own accord as it
were, from a carefully formulated but apparently straightforward statement of concrete
historical events. From the point of view of structural unity, the role which the list of
grievances plays in the Declaration is a subordinate one; its part is to exhibit the historical
circumstances under which the colonists, as a 'free people,' had thrust upon them the high
obligation of defending the imprescriptible rights of all men.
Although occupying a subordinate place in the logical structure, the list of grievances is of the
highest importance in respect to the total effect which the Declaration aims to produce. From
this point of view, the form and substance of these paragraphs constitute not the least masterly
part of the Declaration. It is true, books upon rhetoric warn the candidate for literary honors at
all hazards to avoid monotony; he ought, they say, to seek a pleasing variety by alternating long
and short sentences; and while they consider it correct to develop a single idea in each
paragraph, they consider it inadvisable to make more than one paragraph out of a single
sentence. These are no doubt good rules, for writing in general; but Jefferson violated them all,
perhaps because he was writing something in particular. Of set purpose, throughout this part of
the Declaration, he began each charge against the king with 'he has': 'he has refused his assent';
'he has forbidden his governors'; 'he has refused to pass laws'; ' he has called together
legislative bodies'; 'he has refused for a long time.' As if fearing that the reader might not after
all notice this oft-repeated 'he has,' Jefferson made it still more conspicuous by beginning a
new paragraph with each 'he has.' To perform thus is not to be 'literary' in a genteel sense; but
for the particular purpose of drawing an indictment against the king it served very well indeed.
Nothing could be more effective than these brief, crisp sentences, each one the bare affirmation
of a malevolent act. Keep your mind on the king, Jefferson seems to say; he is the man: 'he
has refused'; 'he has forbidden'; 'he has combined'; 'he has incited'; 'he has
plundered'; 'he has abdicated.' I will say he has.
These hard, incisive sentences are all the more effective as an indictment of the king because of
the sharp contrast between them and the paragraphs, immediately preceding and following, in
which Jefferson touches upon the sad state of the colonists. In these paragraphs there is
something in the carefully chosen words, something in the falling cadence of the sentences,
that conveys a mournful, almost a funereal, sense of evils apprehended and long forefended but
now unhappily realized. Consider the phrases which give tone and pitch to the first two
paragraphs: 'when in the course of human events'; 'decent respect to the opinions of mankind';
'all experience hath shewn'; 'suffer while evils are sufferable'; 'forms to which they are
accustomed'; 'patient sufferance of these colonies'; ' no solitary fact to contradict the uniform
tenor of the rest.' Such phrases skilfully disposed have this result, that the opening passages of
the Declaration give one the sense of fateful things impending, of hopes defeated and injuries
sustained with unavailing fortitude. The contrast in manner is accentuated by the fact that
whereas the king is represented as exclusively aggressive, the colonists are represented as
essentially submissive. In this drama the king alone acts — he conspires, incites, plunders; the
colonists have the passive part, never lifting a hand to burn stamps or destroy tea; they suffer
while evils are sufferable. It is a high literary merit of the Declaration that by subtle contrasts
Jefferson contrives to conjure up for us a vision of the virtuous and long-suffering colonists
standing like martyrs to receive on their defenseless heads the ceaseless blows of the tyrant's
hand.
Like many men with a sense for style, Jefferson, although much given to polishing and
correcting his own manuscripts, did not always welcome changes which others might make.
Congress discussed his draft for three successive days. What uncomplimentary remarks the
members may have made is not known; but it is known that in the end certain paragraphs were
greatly changed and others omitted altogether. These 'depredations' — so he speaks of them—
Jefferson did not enjoy: but we may easily console ourselves for his discomfiture since it
moved the humane Franklin to tell him a story. Writing in 1818, Jefferson says:
Jefferson's colleagues were not so ruthless as the friends of John Thompson; and on the whole
it must be said that Congress left the Declaration better than it found it. The few verbal
changes that were made improved the phraseology, I am inclined to think, in every case.
Where Jefferson wrote: "He has erected a multitude of new offices by a self-assumed power,
and sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our people and eat out their substance," Congress
cut out the phrase, "by a self-assumed power." Again, Jefferson's sentence, "He has abdicated
government here, withdrawing his governors, and declaring us out of his allegiance and
protection," Congress changed to read, "He has abdicated government here by declaring us out
of his protection and waging war against us." Is not the phraseology of Congress, in both
cases, more incisive, and does it not thus add something to that very effect which Jefferson
himself wished to produce?
Aside from merely verbal changes, Congress rewrote the final paragraph, cut out the greater
part of the paragraph next to the last, and omitted altogether the last of Jefferson's charges
against the king. The final paragraph as it stands is certainly much stronger than in its original
form. The Declaration was greatly strengthened by using, for the renunciation of allegiance,
the very phraseology of the resolution of July 2, by which Congress had officially decreed that
independence which it was the function of the Declaration to justify. It was no doubt for this
reason mainly that Congress rewrote the paragraph; but the revision had in addition the merit of
giving to the final paragraph, what such a paragraph especially needed, greater directness and
assurance. In its final form, the Declaration closes with the air of accepting the issue with
confident decision.
correcting his own manuscripts, did not always welcome changes which others might make.
Congress discussed his draft for three successive days. What uncomplimentary remarks the
members may have made is not known; but it is known that in the end certain paragraphs were
greatly changed and others omitted altogether. These 'depredations' — so he speaks of them—
Jefferson did not enjoy: but we may easily console ourselves for his discomfiture since it
moved the humane Franklin to tell him a story. Writing in 1818, Jefferson says:
- I was sitting by Dr. Franklin, who perceived that I was not insensible to
these mutilations. 'I have made it a rule,' said he,' whenever in my power,
to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public
body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I
was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprentice Hatter,
having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first
concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. He
composed it in these words: 'John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats
for ready money,' with a figure of a hat subjoined. But he thought he
would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he shewed it
to thought the word 'hatter' tautologous, because followed by the words
'makes hats' which shew he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next
observed that the word 'makes' might as well be omitted, because his
customers would not care who made the hats. If good and to their mind,
they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he
thought the words 'for ready money' were useless as it was not the custom
of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay.
They were parted with, and the inscription now stood 'John Thompson
sells hats.' 'Sells hats' says his next friend? Why nobody will expect you to
give them away. What then is the use of that word? It was stricken out, and
'hats' followed it, the rather, as there was one painted on the board. So his
inscription was reduced ultimately to 'John Thompson' with the figure of a
hat subjoined.'
Jefferson's colleagues were not so ruthless as the friends of John Thompson; and on the whole
it must be said that Congress left the Declaration better than it found it. The few verbal
changes that were made improved the phraseology, I am inclined to think, in every case.
Where Jefferson wrote: "He has erected a multitude of new offices by a self-assumed power,
and sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our people and eat out their substance," Congress
cut out the phrase, "by a self-assumed power." Again, Jefferson's sentence, "He has abdicated
government here, withdrawing his governors, and declaring us out of his allegiance and
protection," Congress changed to read, "He has abdicated government here by declaring us out
of his protection and waging war against us." Is not the phraseology of Congress, in both
cases, more incisive, and does it not thus add something to that very effect which Jefferson
himself wished to produce?
Aside from merely verbal changes, Congress rewrote the final paragraph, cut out the greater
part of the paragraph next to the last, and omitted altogether the last of Jefferson's charges
against the king. The final paragraph as it stands is certainly much stronger than in its original
form. The Declaration was greatly strengthened by using, for the renunciation of allegiance,
the very phraseology of the resolution of July 2, by which Congress had officially decreed that
independence which it was the function of the Declaration to justify. It was no doubt for this
reason mainly that Congress rewrote the paragraph; but the revision had in addition the merit of
giving to the final paragraph, what such a paragraph especially needed, greater directness and
assurance. In its final form, the Declaration closes with the air of accepting the issue with
confident decision.
| Thanks for telling your friends about us -- www.FamilyBooksandCDs.com |
| Copyright © 2004-2008 Family Books and CDs – All Rights Reserved. |
Family Books and CDs
The Declaration of Independence
Home
Books, Study Aids
Books
Study Aids
Audio CDs
Children's Stories
Baby Lullabies
Gift Ideas
Baby Shower Gifts
Christmas Gifts
Birthday Gifts
For Parents
Articles
Parent Resources
Free Downloads
Coloring Pages
Children's Stories
Coloring Books
Fun & Games
Christmas Stories
Christmas Carols
About Us
Books, Study Aids
Books
Study Aids
Audio CDs
Children's Stories
Baby Lullabies
Gift Ideas
Baby Shower Gifts
Christmas Gifts
Birthday Gifts
For Parents
Articles
Parent Resources
Free Downloads
Coloring Pages
Children's Stories
Coloring Books
Fun & Games
Christmas Stories
Christmas Carols
About Us