Every year, my neighborhood has a Fourth of July parade. The kids decorate their bikes and we walk around the block waving flags and blasting patriotic music on a boombox. And every year I’m tempted to buy myself a periwig, breeches, waistcoat and coat — the whole 18th-century ensemble — and read the Declaration of Independence before the parade starts. I think it would work as long as I kept to the Declaration’s first couple of graphs and the rousing conclusion about pledging lives, fortunes and sacred honor, but the litany of grievances against King George III might test my audience’s patience — certainly the kids would get restless, though jugglers might help, maybe fire-eaters. And I have no idea how a few of my more modernly sensitive neighbors would react to the bit about “merciless Indian savages.”
If asked to discuss the Declaration of Independence, I suspect most Americans would immediately mention the phrases “all men are created equal” and “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and pretty much be stumped to go beyond them. Some might add “We the people” to the mix, confusing the Constitution with the Declaration; a few might even throw out “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” jumping ahead 87 years to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. This conflation of phrases is forgivable. The Declaration, the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address are each founding documents in their own way: The Declaration introduces our basic ideals, the Constitution establishes our government’s legal framework, and the Gettysburg Address announces that the Civil War shall lead us toward “a new birth of freedom,” a rebirth that redefined our nation in ways we still struggle to understand.
The power of the Declaration is not limited to its “self-evident” truths and “unalienable Rights.” I admire the fact that it exists as a tribute to reasoned argument. It is the Founders’ acknowledgment that “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind” demanded that they carefully explain to the world why they wanted to break with Britain and form their own government. It wasn’t for “light and transient causes” that they sought independence; they weren’t motivated by a mere fit of anti-government pique, as someone of the era might describe it. Independence was declared after “patient sufferance” and repeated neglect from a king and a Parliament “deaf to the voice of justice.” Oh, sure, some of the Declaration might be a little self-serving and “too much like scolding,” as John Adams described parts of it (Adams also regretted the removal of a section about slavery from the Declaration), but among all the things the Fourth stands for, it stands for a group of men gathered to debate and revise 1,300 words. Independence was not a given in July 1776: Many Americans were initially skeptical of declaring it. But those words sealed the deal. The least we can do is read them. No wig or breeches necessary. You don’t even need a parade.