Penguin Guide to the United States Constitution: A Fully Annotated Declaration of Independence (3 page)

Clearly, the American colonists were not innocent and unwilling victims of British attempts to impose the institution of slavery upon them. And of course Jefferson’s own history as a slaveholder—he owned at least one hundred, and perhaps as many as two hundred, slaves at the time he wrote those lines—raises doubts about the consistency, if not the sincerity, of his indictment of British complicity in the slave trade. As things turned out, Jefferson’s statement of principle, if that is what it was, did not survive the drafting committee’s review. As Jefferson recalled, his condemnation of the slave trade “was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it.”

Having presented its bill of indictment, the Declaration reminds its intended audience that the colonists had done everything possible to seek a peaceful resolution of their grievances, only to be rebuffed by further encroachments on their liberty. And, once again taking aim at George III, it notes that a ruler who is so deaf to the legitimate pleas of his people is nothing other than a tyrant, “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” Nor was it the king alone who had turned a deaf ear to the colonists’ pleas. The Americans had warned their “British brethren” of the injustices committed upon them, but the British people as well seemed “deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity.” Reluctantly, the Americans were forced to the conclusion that “we must . . . hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.” This severance of the kinship between the British subjects of the king and the people of America represented yet another step toward an irrevocable separation between mother country and colonies.

GEORGIA
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

 

NORTH CAROLINA
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn

 

SOUTH CAROLINA
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

 

MASSACHUSETTS
John Hancock

 

MARYLAND
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of
Carrollton

 

VIRGINIA
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot
Lee
Carter Braxton

 

PENNSYLVANIA
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross

 

DELAWARE
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

 

NEW YORK
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris

 

NEW JERSEY
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

 

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple

 

MASSACHUSETTS
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry

 

RHODE ISLAND
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery

 

CONNECTICUT
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott

 

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Matthew Thornton

As the Declaration reaches its conclusion, it asserts for the first time that the contemplated action is one taken by the representatives of the “united States of America.” And then comes the operative sentence of the Declaration of Independence: “that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States,” that they no longer have any allegiance or obligation to the British Crown or the British nation. Implicit in the final two sentences of the document is a promise whose means of fulfillment was at that moment very much unknown. The “United Colonies” were not only declaring their independence but stating their intention, as independent and
united
states, to carry out a war against one of the world’s most formidable military powers, to negotiate a successful peace, to make alliances with other nations, to promote commerce, “and do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.” The Americans intended not only to form independent states but also to find ways in which those independent states could unite in common cause. And to fulfill their commitment to that common cause, the Americans, in the final line of the Declaration of Independence, pledged “to each other, our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The preamble to the Constitution is a statement of aspiration—a promise to Americans about the things that the new federal government intended to achieve for “We the People of the United States.” Some of the specific objects of government stated in the preamble—the establishment of justice, insuring the peaceful operation of society, and providing for the common defense—had long been understood to be the primary responsibilities of any government. The promises to promote the general welfare and to “secure the Blessings of Liberty” are more open-ended, suggesting that the government’s responsibilities extend not merely to providing essential services but also to benevolent oversight of the polity. Although the words of the preamble do not carry the force of law, they have had substantial rhetorical power over the life of the Constitution.

It is no accident that the first article of the Constitution deals with the structure and powers of the Congress, for virtually all of those who took part in the drafting of the Constitution considered the legislative branch to be the most important and, rightfully, the most powerful of the three branches of government.

There was broad agreement among the framers of the Constitution that the Congress should consist of a bicameral legislature. The House of Representatives, the “lower house,” was conceived to be the “great repository” of the people of the nation at large, while the Senate, “the upper house,” was to be composed of only the most knowledgeable, well-educated, and virtuous, who could be relied upon to act as a moderating influence on the whims of the people at large.