DIVIDED OVER THE DECLARATION
How an Enduring Debate Sustains the Vision of America
by David J. Bobb & Tony Williams
A long-range view of the arguments ever since July 4, 1776, about the Declaration of Independence.
Bobb and Williams, teachers and members of the Bill of Rights Institute, open their account with the definitively American critic of American society, Frederick Douglass, and a speech he gave in 1852 joining the Declaration of Independence to the abolitionist cause. Douglass had to face “the gulf between the Declaration’s principles and Americans’ practice of them,” including the maintenance of slavery in a dozen states and territories. The argument carried over into the settlement of the trans-Mississippi West, with Southerners urging the extension of slavery as a “positive good” and Northerners trying to block an expanded slaveholding polity. Along the way, Bobb and Williams look into the contending views of democracy (and numerous other varieties as well) while noting commonalities, including the commitment to government by the people and with the consent of the governed. Much of Bobb and Williams’ text won’t come as news to anyone who’s been through a high school government class, and much reads like a civics survey textbook: “The Declaration of Independence was…instrumental in framing the Constitution and inspiring enslaved people to seek their natural rights in a free society. …During the Cold War, the democratic United States squared off against the totalitarian Soviet Union in an arms race and ideological battle.” What’s more interesting is the authors’ use of statistics to discuss key points of today: The fact that nearly two-thirds of Americans “say that belief in the Declaration’s principles is more important to ‘being American’ than is birthright,” while “91 percent of Republicans and 95 percent of Democrats agree with the statement, ‘Throughout our history, Americans have made incredible achievements and ugly errors,’” though each side believes that the other has a sharply different view.
For those without grounding in the Declaration’s history and meaning, a useful overview.