Declaration Of Natural Law For Eternity Essay

, Research Paper

Declaration of Natural Law for Eternity”… equal in certain inalienable rights among which arelife, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness This they said, and this meant.” (Lincoln). In June 1976 Congress appointed a committee of Five to draft a statement to the world presenting the colonies case for independence. The committee consisted of John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert R. Livingston of New York and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. The committee assigned Jefferson the task of writing the original document. After minor alterations were subsequently made by Franklin and Adams, the document was submitted to Congress. Jefferson later said: “it was intended to be an expression of the American mind”. Through the two centuries that the Declaration of Independence has been in existence it has seen many different interpretations, and it probably will see many more. The document is one of the most important pieces that based this country and hence the principles we stand for today. We have to agree that the ideals and message of the Declaration of Independence is eternal and unchangeable. Any other view makes the country a shaky leaf floating on a wavy ocean, making it possible to turn this country into a tyranical state, because of the lack of set ideas. We can see that different ideas are prevalent in interpretation of Declaration of Independence. For the purposes of this paper I have divided the different views into two main categories: First the people who hold the Declaration of Independence to be in the past with a different meaning or not clear to understand, and second the interpretations that give a universal, eternal meaning to the text. Many people in high positions that have had the responsibility to interpret the Declaration of Independence have not done it justice. They have given false meanings to this document. These personal interpretations based on prejudice and political ties have had tremendous impacts in Politics of these united states and also the behavior of the people who make this nation. People like Chief Justice Taney, Justice T. Marshall, Judge Douglas, and others through their false interpretations have helped keep prejudices, and feelings that might have not lasted so long. They have pushed the natural evolution of this great nation back by their actions. We can see a sample of different views that seem to be more in accord with the founders in the writings of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas. By carefully dissecting the different views, we can come to the conclusion that it seems more plausible to hold the interpretation of Lincoln and F. Douglas as more logical. One of the important interpretations was made by Justice Taney in the case of Dred Scot V. Sanford. To Judge Taney convention is man made, and what ever the law makes it to be. He wanted to say that slaves do not have any rights other than the ones given to them by the government. Therefore the words “All men are created equal ” to him did not mean all humans. He saw the slaves excluded since they were not full citizens when the Declaration of Independence was written. He writes, “The words people of the United States and citizens are synonymous terms, … They both describe the political body … sovereign people “. Judge Taney saw as his duty to ” inquire who, at that time, were recognized as the people or the citizens of a State, whose rights and liberties had been outraged by the English Government”. He then argues that Africans were not recognized because they were just property, and “… the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken”. Negroes were seen as a separate class of persons and they were not intended to be understood as included in the meaning of the words of the framers. Taney writes that the above is evident since they added the “right to import slaves until the year 1808″, and maintained the right of property of the slaves, ” by delivering up to him any slave who may have escaped from his service”. Abraham Lincoln in his speech at Springfield , Illinois replies to the Dred Scott ruling. He indicates that first of all the blacks were very much part of the people who made the Declaration of Independence. “Judge Curtis in his deserting opinion, shows that in five of the then thirteen states, …, free Negroes were voters. Therefore the Dred Scott case was based on false assumptions. Also regarding Justice Taney s comment that the public held a lower opinion of blacks compared with today Lincoln says: “Chief Justice does not directly assert, but plainly assumes, as a fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favorable now than it was in the days of the revolution. This assumption is a mistake… Their ultimate destiny has never appeared so hopeless as in the last three or four years. In the two of the five States-… -that gave the free Negro the right of voting, the right has since been taken away, and in a third … it has been greatly abridged. It is greatly incorrect to say or assume, that the public estimate of the negro is more favorable now than it was at the origin of the government”. In addition, Taney himself agrees that ” … language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human family, but he and judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to include Negroes, by the fact that they did not at once, ac