Today is the 250th anniversary of the signing of The Declaration of Independence. Traditionally, we treat that as the founding of the United States of America. Some might argue a more appropriate date would be the ratification of The Constitution on March 4th 1789, but nobody gets work off for that one. And I don’t hear anybody shooting off fireworks for The Articles of Confederation, ratified March 1, 1781.
In this post, I hope to look back on the founding ideals of the USA, looking at where we’ve succeeded, where we’ve fallen short, and what’s to be done to continue the fight for these ideals.
The Declaration of Independence is a beautiful document, filled with lofty ideals about the rights of all men and their entitlement to live free from tyranny. Sadly, very few of its writers and signatories internalized its message. A scant 2 of them were morally opposed to slavery: John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. A wonderful document largely written by people totally oblivious to the ramifications its message should have held for themselves… that’s not an auspicious start.
Going forward, we have The Constitution, ratified on March 3rd 1789, setting out a framework for a government divided into 3 branches, each with checks and balances for robustness. Also important to note is the sovereignty reserved to the states, another safety-feature against the dangers of centralized power. But what about the rights of man?
On December 15th, 1791, the Bill of Rights is finally ratified. It’s here that we really start to take some of those ideals from The Declaration of Independence and give them real, legal backing. It’s welcome progress. However, with slavery rampant and anybody other than white males locked out of power, The Declaration’s ideals are still terribly far from realized.
Finally, in the aftermath of the civil war, we start to see major progress. On December 6th, 1865, they finished ratifying the 13th Amendment. This abolished most forms of slavery (in cowardice, an exception is made for prison labor). Scarcely five years later, the 15th Amendment is ratified, guaranteeing the right to vote for male citizens of any race or color. On paper anyway.
The 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18th, 1920, granting women the right to vote. Finally. At this point, we were finally starting to seriously aspire to those ideals from The Declaration of Independence. Finally, the vast majority of citizens had the legal right to vote. But there still remained much work.
The 23rd Amendment, ratified March 3rd, 1961, gave some representation to the citizens of Washington D.C. in presidential elections. It was a far cry from statehood and legislative representation, but it was still a step forward.
Remember when, in talking about voting rights, I hedged it with terms like “on paper”. Unfortunately, there were still wicked practices like poll taxes, designed to screw poor Americans and black Americans out of their right to vote. On January 23rd, 1964, the 24th Amendment abolished them in federal elections. And the courts would then interpret this to also abolish them in state elections. You see that? We’re aspiring more towards those ideals.
The last major expansion of voting rights came in the background of the awful times of the Vietnam War. Despite the country being willing to forcefully send 18 year-olds off to die in its crazy, evil war, they didn’t even get to vote in the matter. That changed with the ratification of the 26th Amendment on July 1st, 1971. From that point on, election laws could no longer set age minimums over 18.
So, is it done? Have we achieved the ideals of The Declaration of Independence? Are all the right of man fulfilled? Good Heavens, no. No, we still have so much work ahead of us. The fight for democracy continues. There are still threats to people’s right to vote in America. There’s plenty of wicked legislative trickery and maneuvering to minimize Americans’ voices. Rights, including ones explicitly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, are under assault.
And the fight for democracy goes well beyond the United States of America. The world is full of countries that call themselves democracies without satisfying all (or any) of the requirements. I’ll talk more about those requirements another time.
As long as there’s even a single human being out there being denied a voice, or denied any of their other fundamental, God-given rights, there remains work for those who truly support liberty and who truly carry the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. 250 years later, The Declaration of Independence still echoes across the world.