The theory of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
Aristotle explains that human beings make laws because of our ability to speak, to “declare” as it were. The Declaration of Independence opens with a declaration of universal principles. All people are created equal. God gives us rights that we can’t give away or have taken away. Among those rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Government exists not to grant rights, but to secure rights. The legitimate government gets its power from the governed. James Madison says in Federalist Paper 51 that if men were angels, no government would be necessary. But if the government interferes with the rights it was instituted to protect, the governed have the right to alter or abolish their government and form a new one that secures God-given rights. However, that should only be done in the most extreme of circumstances. People are more likely to put up with wrongdoing for as long as possible than to do what is necessary to correct or stop it. It is the right and duty of people to throw off a government’s shackles that have engaged in a despotic usurpation of power.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution should both be understood as revolutionary documents. There is a false belief that the Declaration of Independence is a revolutionary document. At the same time, those people see the Constitution as a more conservative document rather than a radical one. That is not true. Both are radical documents because of their purpose and uniqueness.
While the Constitution is not a godless document, the Declaration of Independence is overtly theistic. God appears four times in the Declaration of Independence. It speaks of the laws of nature and of nature’s God. It talks about how people are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. The Second Continental Congress appealed to God as the supreme judge of the world for their intentions’ rectitude. And at the end of it, the signers pledged to each other their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence. In these four instances, God appears in the Declaration of Independence as the supreme legislator, judge, executive, and creator.
The primary purpose of the Constitution is not to limit the government, but to empower it. However, it seeks to empower the government by granting it divided authority so that the American government would not become an authoritarian reminder of what the pilgrims left behind 156 years earlier. The Declaration of Independence argues that the king violated the principles of separation of powers, representation, and an independent judiciary. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants the federal government power to provide for the national defense. A read-through of the Constitution will clarify that there are no constitutional provisions for things like managing American public education or establishing a national healthcare system. That’s because the proper government was not viewed by the founders as a provider of these things. It is the guardian of the opportunity to pursue happiness. This would include things like having good health and a good education. But it is not the government’s duty or responsibility to provide happiness itself, just the opportunity for it.
In Federalist Paper 63, James Madison argues that the United States is the first purely representative government in history. We are not a democracy. In a democracy, mob rule results in the tyranny of the majority. We are not an aristocracy, where an established elite runs everything. We are a representative republic. Power is vested in the people and exercised by representatives we elect to represent us. Again, as the Declaration of Independence reminds us, all legitimate human authority stems from the people governed by it.
