Some people would say, “Well, obviously, we are celebrating America’s independence from Great Britain.” And certainly, that is part of the answer. But the Continental Congress had already voted for independence from Great Britain on July 2, 1776. In fact, on July 3, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife Abigail, saying that July 2, 1776 should be “the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America . . . to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, Illuminations from one End of the Continent to the other from this time forward forever more.” So, what exactly are we celebrating on July 4?
What we celebrate on July 4 is not merely our declaration of independence from Great Britain. On July 4, 1776, the fifty-six delegates agreed upon the final draft of the Declaration of Independence. Yes, it declared America’s independence from Great Britain. But that was only one paragraph of the entire document. This document did not delineate a new system of government. Rather, it spent the majority of the document laying out the reason why the colonies ought to be independent, ought to resist tyranny, and ought to form a new government. The Declaration begins, “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” This document was more a declaration of causes for independence, rather than simply a declaration of independence. From the words that follow in the Declaration, we find two principles that form the authority, foundation, and reason for the independence we are celebrating on the 4th of July.
Before we look at the principles themselves, we must understand that the Founders considered these principles to be self-evident truths. After the introductory statement, the very first words are, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” By self-evident, the Founders did not mean obvious to everyone. They were not obvious to much of the world at that time. By “self-evident,” they meant objective and transcendent. Objective truths are self-existing facts that do not require outside justification. They are not relative to fluctuating feelings, changing times, or mercurial cultures. They are true for all people, at all times, in all places. Transcendent truths exist outside of the limits of any human institution or human experience. In other words, some things are just true—not because a king or a majority says so—but because the Creator said so. These “self-evident” truths cannot be created; they can only be discovered and put into practice. And that is what the Declaration of Independence did. Without the existence and acknowledgement of these self-evident truths, there could be no justification for independence.
With this in mind, the first principle, or “self-evident truth,” of the Declaration is that our Common Creator makes all men equal. The Declaration states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” By “created equal,” the Founders meant that no one is born with a natural right to rule or an obligation to be ruled. The Founders were inspired by John Locke who wrote, “there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection . . .”[1] If all men were equal before God, the Founders believed that they should also be equal under the law. According to the Founders, this was a fact, not an opinion, which Great Britain must acknowledge and practice in the law. This principle of natural equality, which can only come from a Common Creator, was not just an ideal—it was the driving force behind the American Revolution and the Constitution that was to come. As Newt Gingrich put it in his book, A Nation Like No Other, “No nation had ever before embraced human equality and God-given rights as its fundamental organizing principle.”[2] The Declaration assumed that the natural equality of all people demanded their political equality under the law.
The second principle of the Declaration is that all people possess God-given rights which government is obligated to protect. As the first sentence of the second paragraph continues, “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Since all people are created equal in value, it follows that they are also naturally equal in rights. These rights are not created by government, but are given by our Creator. Since these rights do not belong to the government, the government has no authority to take them away from anyone. The primary purpose of government is not to create rights, but to protect pre-existing rights. Governments derive their authority and “just powers from the consent of the governed.” When the government violates the consent of the governed, when it fails to protect natural rights, then that government has undermined its own authority. As one minister, named Gad Hitchcock, put it in a sermon in 1774, “Rulers . . . are ordained of God, and clothed with authority by men.”[3] God ordained government and government rulers, but He did not ordain a specific system of government or type of ruler. Since no one is naturally born to rule or be ruled, the authority to rule is given by the people to the ruler they choose. Any law, lawmaker, or law-enforcer that violates the natural rights of any individual is illegitimate. The accusations against King George III that followed were built on this foundational principle that all people possess God-given rights which government is instituted to protect.
Not only was the Declaration useful in gaining our independence from Great Britain, but it has been even more useful since that day. The Founders also intended for the Declaration of Independence to be a guiding star that would allow future generations to navigate new challenges. In his response to the Dred Scott decision, Abraham Lincoln noted that the writers of the Declaration “meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.” These two Declaration principles have indeed pushed America toward greater liberty for more people than any other nation on earth. Continuing in that speech, Lincoln said, “The assertion that ‘all men are created equal’ was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, nor for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.” And the Declaration has served as a stumbling block to those who have perverted liberty. The Declaration was the stumbling block of slavery and Jim Crowism. It was the Declaration that Martin Luther King, Jr. appealed to during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. May it be a stumbling block to those who wish to inhibit liberty in America today.
As we have seen, the Declaration of Independence has been the defining document of America’s story. The story of America is the struggle to live up to its two foundational principles. As the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass said in his famous 4th of July speech in 1852, “I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.” The cost of standing by those principles was seen in the 620,000 American deaths in the Civil War. That cost was seen in two World Wars, in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, in the stand against Communism in 1980s, and the fight against terrorism more recently. Since these principles are transcendent, they carry the gravitas that man-made laws and fashionable opinions do not. Surely, these two principles codified in the Declaration of Independence are worth fighting for and worth celebrating every 4th of July. As John Adams said in that same letter to his wife on July 3, 1776, “I am well aware of the Toil, and Blood, and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the Gloom, I can see the Rays of light and glory; I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means, and that posterity will triumph.” May we take up the mantle of struggling closer toward these Declaration principles.
These two principles—that all people are created equal, and that all people possess God-given rights—gave the Founders authority to declare independence from Great Britain. Without these foundational principles, there would have been no independence then. Without them, there can be no liberty and justice for all in America today. Liberty, in and of itself, is a fragile thing. What makes liberty strong is the foundation upon which it rests. That foundation is the Declaration’s two transcendent principles which no king, no law, and no majority opinion can touch. If we lose our commitment to the Declaration’s two principles, we will lose our foundation for independence. If the foundation for our independence is dissolved, then our very independence will dissolve as well. If we forget what made us free in the first place, we will not long be free.
Essentially, on the 4th of July we celebrate a commitment. It’s a commitment—not to a certain political ideology, particular code of law, nor even a particular mode of government—but to these two principles found in the Declaration of Independence. So, this 4th of July celebrate independence with all the pomp, parade, and fireworks that John Adams would have wanted. But do not forget that we are celebrating more than our independence. We are celebrating the reason for that independence. We are celebrating the authority and foundation upon which our liberty rests. We must be vigilant to protect and promote those principles which make our independence and liberty possible!
[1] John Locke. Second Treatise of Government, Edited by C.B. McPherson, (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1980), 12.
[2] Newt Gingrich. A Nation Like No Other, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2011), 19.
[3] Gad Hitchcock. “An Election Sermon,” 1774, in The U.S. Constitution: A Reader, (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 2012), 93.