Amercian History - the Declaration of Independence

Kevin Bagwell

Mrs. Topper

History

September 25, 2015

The Declaration of Independence

        Thomas Jefferson was one of the few men who wrote the Declaration of Independence.  He wrote a rough draught of the document; which was revised by members of the committee.  Now, Jefferson got most of his ideas from John Locke’s Political Theory; the theory that state should be guided by natural law.  In Locke’s theory, he had the idea that people did not have the right to; harm one another physically, damage one’s property, conflict with a person’s liberty and natural rights, and finally bring harm to one’s possessions.  All in all, Locke believed that all people were created equal and independent.  Just like John Locke, Thomas Jefferson believed in natural rights that all people are born with.  This idea helped Thomas Jefferson greatly when writing his part of the Declaration of independence.

        In my personal opinion I believe that we, as a country do not live up to the true core reasoning of the Declaration of Independence.  Why?  Because we still don’t live up to the ideal Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit to Happiness.  Also, the idea that “all men are created equal” is still a major problem in our country.  People are still either racist or biased towards one another in our country.  That is just one of the few problems.  People have just forgotten what the Declaration of Independence really stands for.  For some people it is just a document that forged our nation’s rights.  The people don’t realize that WE shape this country, and that everyone must do their part to help mold the nation our Forefathers had envisioned; the nation they made so many sacrifices for.  With that, our laziness has allowed our government to take hold over us.  We are now afraid of our own government.  Our Founding Fathers did not perceive that our own government would become what they were originally seeking to escape.  We let our government become too powerful, and at any moment, if it chose to, they could seize everything we have and move to Martial Law.  Now again, I seriously doubt we have lived up to the full expectations our Forefathers had when creating the Declaration of Independence.  

        The Declaration of Independence was not actually intended to resolve slavery or equality.  The resolutions of equality or slavery were in the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution.  The Declaration of Independence would have included a resolution to equality if Thomas Jefferson’s omitted passage would have actually stayed within the actual document.  The reason behind it’s exclusion from the document was apparently due to the fact that a few of the delegates were involved in slave trades at that current time.  If it were not for these slave trading delegates, then Jefferson’s passage would have been possibly added to the Declaration of Independence.