PROFESSOR SUSAN MANNING'S LECTURE

Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

The Poetry of the American Revolution

Lecture Notes:

(James Barry, The Phoenix or the Resurrection of Freedom, 1776-1808)

Selected Bibliography

1. Bailyn, Bernard. The ideological origins of the American Revolution. Enl. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992.
2. Becker, Carl Lotus. The Declaration of independence, a study in the history of political ideas, New York, Harcourt, Brace [c1922]
3. Koch, Adrienne. The philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1964.
4. Malone, Dumas. The story of the Declaration of independence. Bicentennial ed. New York : Oxford University Press, 1975.
5. Wills, Garry. Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of independence. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Useful websites:

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/:

comprehensive coverage, including text, background, links, & a long excerpt from Jefferson’s biography describing the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration and Congress’s adoption of the document. ‘Related information’ link gives resources to explain some of the factors leading the US to declare independence from Britain.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trt001.html:

text of Jefferson’s draft, with facsimile reproduction of the document, and useful links

http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall//charters_of_freedom/declaration/declaration.html:

-- a transcription of the Declaration with the names of the signatories appended, and more links

http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/documents/frame_ih198172.htm

-- Thomas Jefferson online: archives, documents, links, contexts.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/

-- images and background; precursors of the Declaration.

Samuel Johnson, Taxation No Tyranny: for a complete scanned text of this pamphlet, see

http://www.samueljohnson.com/tnt.html

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Revolution, n.

I.

1. a. Astr. The action or fact, on the part of celestial bodies, of moving round in an orbit or circular course; the apparent movement of the sun, stars, etc., round the earth.
   b. The time in which a planet or other heavenly body completes a full circuit or course.

2. a. The return or recurrence of a point or period of time; the lapse of a certain time. by revolution, in due course of time.
   b. A cycle, or recurrent period of time; an epoch. Obs.

3. a. A turn or twist; a bend or winding. Obs.
   b. The action of turning something. Obs

4. a. The action, on the part of a thing or person, of turning or whirling round, or of moving round some point.
   b. esp. Movement round an axis or centre; rotation.
   c. A single act of rotation round a centre.

II.

5. a. The action of turning over in discourse or talk; discussion. Obs. Rare.
   b. The action of turning over in the mind; consideration, reflection. Obs.
   c. An idea, opinion, notion. Obs. rare^-1.

III.

6. a. Alteration, change, mutation. Rare.
   b. An instance of great change or alteration in affairs or in some particular thing.
   c. Geol. A major mountain-building episode, esp. one extending over a whole continent or occurring at the close of a geological era.

7. a. A complete overthrow of the established government in any county or state by whose who were previously subject to it; a forcible substitution of a new ruler or form of government.
   b. Without article.
   c. In the Marxist doctrine of social evolution, the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat leading in time to the downfall of capitalism and to its replacement by communism; also continuing, continuous, uninterrupted revolution, designating the concept of permanent revolution (cf. PERMANENT a. 1d).

8. Eng. Hist. a. The overthrow of the Rump Parliament in 1660, which resulted in the restoration of the monarchy. Obs.
   b. The expulsion in 1688 of the Stuart dynasty under James II, and the transfer of sovereignty to William and Mary.

9. French. Hist. The overthrow of the monarchy, and establishment of republican government in 1789-95.
   
   
10. Amer. Hist. The overthrow if British supremacy by the War of Independence in 1775-81.
    
    
11. Russian Hist. The revolutionary activity of different factions in Russia during 1917 which resulted in the overthrow of the existing regime and the establishment of socialist state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Cf. Russian Revolution s.v. RUSSIAN a. 2e.

Dates:

1765: British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, the first direct tax levied on the colonies by Great Britain. Patrick Henry speaks against it in the Virginia House of Burgesses; the Stamp Act Congress meets in New York & adopts the Declaration of Rights and Grievances. The Sons of Liberty formed.

1766: Parliament repeals Stamp Act, but passes the Declaratory Act, asserting its authority to enact colonial laws

1767: Townshend Acts levy import duties on the colonies

1768: British troops sent to Boston

1770: Establishment of Lord North’s ministry; Townshend duties repealed, with exception of tax on tea. Boston massacre; increasing unrest over the next couple of years

1773: Boston Tea Party in response to the Tea Act asserts colonists’ refusal to be taxed

1774: Parliament passes Coercive Acts to punish colonists (the ‘Intolerable Acts’). First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia. Thomas Paine arrives in America

1775: Battle of Lexington and Concord; beginning of the American Revolution. Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia; George Washington becomes Commander-in-Chief of the continental army

1776: Paine’s Common Sense published (January): a Connecticut reader enthuses, ‘You have declared the sentiments of millions. Your production may justly be compared to a land-flood that sweeps all before it. We were blind, but on reading these enlightening words the scales have fallen from our eyes.’ Jefferson drafts the Declaration of Independence, and presents it to Congress in June; revised version signed 4 July.

Quotations:

. ... we have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.... The birth-day of a new world is at hand, and a race of men perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the events of a few months. (Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776)

When forced ... to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms to plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular or previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Henry Lee, 1825)

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ... To prove this let facts be submitted to a candid world for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood. ... we appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, as well as to the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which were likely to interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity ... These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce for ever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavour to forget our former love for them ... (Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, 1776)

“Mr. James McPherson, to whom the world is so much indebted for the elegant collection, arrangement, and translation of Ossian’s poems. These pieces have been and will, I think, during my life, continue to be to me the sources of daily pleasures. The tender and the sublime emotions of the mind were never before so wrought up by the human hand. I am not ashamed to own that I think this rude bard of the North the greatest poet that has ever existed. Merely for the pleasure of reading his works, I am become desirous of learning the language in which he sung, and of possessing his songs in their original form.” (Jefferson, to Charles McPherson in 1773, Jefferson, Writings, 1984)

“When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney &c.” (Jefferson, to Henry Lee, 1825, Jefferson, Writings, 1984)

“In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.” (Thomas Paine, ‘Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs’, Common Sense, 1976)

“But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the – and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.” (Thomas Paine, ‘Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs,’ Common Sense, 1976)

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