hist.g5.f.civ.declaration_of_independence_principles_and_contradictions
Analyze the Declaration of Independence (July 4 1776) — its principles AND its contradictions — using the Founding Contradiction T-chart MG-13
Conduct a close reading of the Declaration of Independence (July 4 1776, principally drafted by Thomas Jefferson with input from Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and the Continental Congress as a whole). PRINCIPLES (LEFT COLUMN of MG-13): 'all men are created equal'; 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights'; 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness'; 'consent of the governed'; 'just powers'; 'right of the People to alter or to abolish'. CONTRADICTIONS (RIGHT COLUMN of MG-13): ~600,000 enslaved African Americans (~1 in 5 colonists) were held in chattel slavery; Jefferson himself enslaved ~175 human beings at the time of writing (and ~600 over his lifetime); women including white women could not vote or own property as married women; Indigenous nations were not parties to the Declaration and their sovereignty was not acknowledged; propertyless white men could not vote in most colonies; Jefferson's early draft included an anti-slave-trade paragraph (blaming King George for the slave trade) but it was REMOVED at the insistence of Southern delegates AND Northern delegates with shipping interests. CRITICAL CONNECTING TEXT: also analyze (a) Phillis Wheatley's 1773 'On Being Brought from Africa to America' (which used Christian-redemption framing strategically); (b) Felix Holbrook's 1773 Petition to the Massachusetts General Court for Freedom (which used 'natural and inalienable right' language THREE YEARS BEFORE Jefferson's Declaration — meaning enslaved African Americans were articulating natural-rights philosophy and applying it to themselves before the white Founders did); (c) Abigail Adams's March 31 1776 'Remember the Ladies' letter to John Adams (explicitly raising women's exclusion). Frame using Adichie 'single story' lens — the Declaration is a real and important text of universal-liberty ideals AND it carried contradictions from the moment of writing. Holding both is the historian's work.
- Analyze the 12-year Road to Revolution 1763-1775 — Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Acts, Boston Massacre, Tea Act and Boston Tea Party, Coercive Acts, First Continental Congress — including Patriot organizing AND Loyalist perspectives
- Center African and African American voice, resistance, humanity, and community-building in colonial America — Equiano, Wheatley, Felix Holbrook, Belinda Sutton, Stono Rebellion, the African American family
- Analyze the American Revolution (1775-1783) from multiple perspectives — Patriots, Loyalists, ~5,000+ Black soldiers on the Patriot side, ~20,000+ enslaved African Americans fleeing to the British under Dunmore's Proclamation, Indigenous nations split, French alliance
- Author and mail a 5-paragraph federal Civic-Action Letter to a US Representative or Senator about a Founding-Era issue that still matters today
- Treating the Declaration as either purely heroic (single-story-of-liberty) or purely cynical (the contradictions invalidate the principles) — the historian's work is to hold BOTH together.
- Missing that 'all men are created equal' was contradicted by chattel slavery for ~1 in 5 colonists AT THE MOMENT OF WRITING.
- Missing Felix Holbrook's 1773 Petition — enslaved African Americans articulated natural-rights philosophy THREE YEARS before the Declaration.
- Missing Abigail Adams's 'Remember the Ladies' letter — women's exclusion was raised explicitly in 1776.
- Missing that the anti-slave-trade paragraph was DELETED from Jefferson's draft at the insistence of both Southern AND Northern delegates.