Chapter 6 page 5

THE AMERICAN ENGLISH EXPRESS Chapter 6 page 5

The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America

The document continues:

· Now let us tackle the phrase:

“that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”

Who is “they”? ‘They’ refers to ‘all men’ or ‘all humans’.

What does ‘endowed’ mean? Look it up! It means ‘gifted’ as in ‘having received the gift of’. Once again, it is God, the Creator, who has given all men these rights

‘Certain’ in this usage, means ‘specific’ and not the usual meaning of ‘sure’. Look it up!

What does “unalienable” mean?

This word contains the smaller word ‘alien’, which means foreign. These days we hear about ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ aliens, meaning people who were not born in the United States but in foreign countries: foreigners or aliens. The term ‘alien’ is also used to refer to things that originate off of the planet earth. In this sense, the word ‘unalienable’ (these days spelled ‘inalienable’, look it up!) means ‘inseparable’ or ‘cannot be taken away from something without changing it completely’.

“Unalienable” means ‘undeniable’. These rights are part of the condition of being human. Human beings cannot be denied these rights by other human beings because God has given these rights to all people. Once again, the appeal (and the argument) is to the authority of God.

· Now the rights: “that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

What is meant by “Life” or ‘right to life’? You may have heard that phrase used by pro-life advocates (anti-abortionists) as opposed to ‘a woman’s right to choose’.

In this case, it means very simply that people have a right to be alive. They cannot be killed or neglected. They have the right to live.

And they have the right to ‘Liberty’, which most students answer means ‘freedom’. In this case, liberty means that people have the right to live the way they choose to. People get to choose how they live.

And they have the right to ‘the pursuit of Happiness’. What can that be?

In one of the early drafts, this phrase was ‘the right to property’. At the time, however, few of the residents of the colonies owned property (land, slaves, and material goods). Thus, the phrase was changed to ‘pursuit of Happiness’ because this included everybody!

In the Bill of Rights, however, you may recall, the phrase used was “life, liberty and property.”

Today we speak of ‘quality of life’ and this perhaps is the closest modern equivalent to ‘pursuit of Happiness’. The authors of the Declaration were saying that everyone has the right to live they way they choose and to seek out that which makes them happy.

The document continues:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

· What does ‘secure’ mean? Look it up! It means ‘to make safe’, ‘protect’ or ‘to keep safe’.

· The phrase ‘to secure these rights’ means ‘to make sure that these rights are protected’.

Protecting the rights of the citizens from abuses by the government was the whole idea here!

· What does ‘institute’ mean? Look it up! It means to ‘establish’ or ‘create’.

· Why are governments created? “To secure these rights”. (Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness)

In other words, the purpose of government is to protect the rights of the people. Notice, it is not to maintain the power of the ruling class of aristocracy or to enrich or make the King happy.

· What does ‘deriving’ mean? To derive means to ‘originate’ or ‘arise’ or ‘come’ from. ‘Deriving’ means ‘getting from’ or ‘coming from’.

· What does the word ‘just’ mean here?

It does not mean ‘simply’ or ‘merely’ or ‘only’ which are some of the most common uses of the word. Here ‘just’ relates to the word ‘justice’ which means what is right, moral and correct. Sometimes students say it means what is ‘fair’.

· ‘Their just powers” means that the citizenry recognizes that the government has the power to enforce its laws, and indicates that the citizens will obey these laws because they are just.

· Where do these ‘just powers’ come from (from where are they derived)? The answer is ‘from the consent of the governed’.

· What does ‘consent’ mean? It means permission or approval.

· Who are ‘the governed’? The governors are the people of the government who exercise decision-making power. The governed are those people for whom the government makes decisions. The governed are the citizens.

Therefore, ‘from the consent of the governed’, means that the power of government comes from the permission of the citizens.

This is the truest sense of revolution: to turn upside down. The power in the traditional monarchy (kingship) rests in the top: in the hands of the King. Here, the Declaration states that the only reason for a government is to protect the rights of the people and that the legitimacy or legality of the government comes from the permission of the people.

· What about the next clause: ‘That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends’?

‘That whenever’ indicates that this is a conditional sentence: it addresses a situation that might happen. (Of course, in this case, the colonists are really saying that this is the actual situation they face, not just a possibility.)

‘any Form of Government’ means any government

‘destructive of’ means ‘unhelpful to’ or ‘damaging’

‘these ends’ means the ‘ends’ or goals of the government. What is the goal or purpose of government? It is to protect the rights of the citizens to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.

The clause means that ‘whenever a specific government is not operating (acting) to protect the rights of the citizens’.

Here, Jefferson is once again describing the situation the colonists find themselves in and is offering a justification (a reason) for the revolutionary acts.