65 pages • 2-hour read
American Scripture
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Themes
The British Roots of the Declaration of Independence
Though the Declaration of Independence is often presented as representing a radical break with the past, Maier argues that it is better understood as part of a longstanding tradition in British politics. Maier dates the origin of this tradition to the close of England’s Glorious Revolution in 1689, when the English Parliament created the Declaration of Rights. This Declaration laid out the rights belonging to the English people and the specific ways in which—according to Parliament—King James II had violated these rights. The American Declaration of Independence, drafted almost a century later, followed the format of the Declaration of Rights in enumerating the grievances that justified rebellion against the King. What made the Declaration radical and new was not its form or its style but rather its intention: Unlike the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution did not intend to replace the King with another monarch; rather, it was going to reject monarchy altogether and establish a republic.
Maier emphasizes the degree to which the drafters of the Declaration of Independence emulated the English Declaration of Rights of 1689. The same is true of the state and local leaders who drafted similar Declarations pertaining to the territories they governed. Most of these American declarations (some of them were called resolutions) borrowed heavily from the 17th-century document. For Maier, this borrowing illustrates a larger point about the Declaration of Independence as its drafters understood it: The Declaration was not a singular stroke of genius on the part of Thomas Jefferson or any other figure. Instead, it was a collaborative document that drew its authority in part from historical precedent. In declaring their independence from the British crown, the drafters looked to a tradition already established in England.
The English Declaration of Rights made it clear that God didn’t ordain this change to the succession—a majority of Parliament members in the Commons and the Lords ordained it. This document wasn’t the first of its kind in English political history—As Maier explains in Chapter 2, it had its own precedent in the tradition of the petition of right, a petition type that English people had been using for centuries to petition the monarch for redress of grievances. What made the Declaration of Rights unique was that it listed the rights of the people as a whole, not those of an individual or group. In delineating the people’s rights, the Declaration of Rights paved the way for the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration as a Product of Adaptation and Debate
Maier presents the Declaration of Independence as a living document whose meaning has been continually and contentiously revised by new generations of Americans. This view stands in contrast to the prevailing view of the Declaration as a sacred artifact of the past whose meaning is timeless and unchanging—a view she finds exemplified in the museum exhibition described in the book’s introduction.
For Maier, the most important example of this process of revision can be found in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. By quoting the Declaration’s assertion “that all men are created equal,” Lincoln shifts this assertion into a new context and thus expands its scope. Lincoln explicitly expands the promise of equality to include Black men—something Jefferson may not have intended given his status as an enslaver. In this way, Lincoln frames the Declaration as a lens through which to understand the history of American social progress. All the struggles for equality in American history—from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement to feminist movements and movements for LGBTQ+ equality—can be understood as struggles to fulfill the Declaration’s promise of a nation dedicated to the proposition that “all [people] are created equal.”
Maier addresses the common misconception that the Declaration of Independence was mostly or entirely the work of Thomas Jefferson. Though Jefferson wrote the first draft, he did so by adapting historical sources including the 1689 English Declaration of Rights, and the final draft resulted from Congress’s extensive debates over improvements it had to make to the draft declaration. In this way, the making of the Declaration was a collaborative process beginning long before Jefferson sat down to write.
In the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln admired and learned other people’s interpretations of the Declaration’s statement on equality, adapted the interpretations to fit his public speaking style, and then debated opponents using much of his adapted material. Lincoln’s tactic worked in debates; his reinterpretation of the Declaration guided his approach to politics and ultimately, he further sanctified the Declaration when he adapted his reinterpretation into the Gettysburg Address. In this way, he began the remaking of the Declaration.
The Dangers of Sanctifying a Political Document
Maier argues that political documents aren’t naturally sacred; they are foundations for laws, policies, and government structures, and they matter only so long as they serve a political purpose. The present-day sanctification of the Declaration of Independence, in Maier’s view, obscures its real significance as a political document whose meaning is subject to continual, collective revision. Maier’s introduction and epilogue frame the dynamic historiography of the Declaration of Independence within a modern setting: the National Archives’s “shrine,” which she compares to altars she remembers from her Catholic background, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial.
Maier traces the process by which the Declaration gradually transformed from a political document to a quasi-holy relic. This process began in and immediately after the Revolutionary era. Several influential men—especially Thomas Jefferson—made conscious efforts to inflate the Declaration’s contribution to Revolutionary-era politics. As he neared the end of his life, Jefferson embraced his public image as the author of America, and his death on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration’s signing led many to believe that divine providence was involved. In the 19th century, the nation’s expansion and innovations gave Americans the impression that God was on their side; this attitude imbued the Declaration of Independence with holiness, but the largely Protestant population lacked the religious vocabulary to sanctify a holy relic—an aspect of Catholic worship that Protestants specifically repudiated. Therefore, they deployed Catholic language in their worship of the Declaration. The document’s increasingly sacred status in the 19th century proved useful to many public figures in political debates about equal rights. Abraham Lincoln adopted the Declaration’s language in his mission to stop the spread of American enslavement to new states. In doing so, Lincoln sealed the Declaration’s reputation as American scripture. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address transformed the Declaration into a beacon for Americans seeking to “form a more perfect union” by expanding the scope of the phrase “all men are created equal.” By fighting for the rights of Black people and other people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ people, generations of Americans have sought to fulfill the promise America made at its inception.
Maier views this sanctification as a good thing so long as it inspires people to keep building the nation they want to live in. Sanctification is also dangerous, though, if it leads people to believe that the document’s meaning—and therefore the country’s meaning—is settled and unchangeable. To the extent that people imagine Thomas Jefferson as a superhuman figure, or the Revolutionary era as a golden age that can’t be criticized, they deaden public discourse instead of enlivening it. Maier argues that Americans should use the Declaration as a resource for ideas they continue to debate and clarify. They mustn’t become complacent, as if there’s nothing more to settle, but instead they must stay politically active, aware, and engaged. Process and progress are the nation’s goals; Americans should emulate the history of the Declaration by debating the ideas set forth in the document to reach solutions to modern American problems.
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