This panel was convened by the National Archives to explore the original intent of the declaration of independence, including the popular interpretation by 19thcentury abolitionists to focus on the phrase life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is about an hour. This is someone different than what was on your program. Let me tell you the order we will introduce these speakers. First, we will have hotly. She is at the tail end of a guggenheim fellowship. Then she will be followed by the professor from the university of South Carolina. Abigail adams. Third, we will hear from professor eric slaughter, the university of chicago. He is the author of the state as a work of arts the cultural underpinnings of the constitution. And finally you will hear from professor David Armitage from Harvard University who is very well known for his book, the declaration of independence a global history. Everyone will speak for about 10 minutes and we will have questions from the audience. I think we are all set. Thank you. So, thank you to the organizers of the conference, which is terrific. When the delegates of the continental conference assembled, they faced a deepening dilemma. Fighting had been going on for more than a year. Dispute whether the colonists would consent to their own government and taxes that gave it power remained at a standoff. From the first poll of delegates from the 13 holidays only seven supported independence. Others were not yet matured. Congress chose a committee of five men to sway the recalcitrant. Adams, franklin, madison, and jefferson. He knew that this state was dangerous. It was committing treason against the king. It laid out the principles of government opposed to the monarchy. All men were created equal endowed with certain rights this is the original draft, by the way government by the consent of the governed. These meant the government should not be based on heredity and godgiven rights of kings as it had in some measure then. They illustrated why king george iii had become a tyrant. More than two centuries later they still have something to reveal, although the emphasis and placement reveals much about the history we have forgotten. The committee accused the king of 18 acts of terror name. The first seven offenses were related to the form of government. The committee accused the king of 18 acts of tyranny. Repeatedly dismissing elected legislators, the the doing vetoing laws those legislators had passed. Congress deleted this. It read oh, sorry. Here is them delivering it and here is the section. It read he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred right of life, liberty in the persons of a distant people are never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death and their transportation thither. This tactical piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers is the warfare of the Christian King this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished i, he is now inciting those very people to rise in arms amongst us and to purchase at liberty that liberty of which he has deprived them, thus paying off the crimes against the liberty of one people with the crimes he urges them to commit against the lives of another. We therefore charge the king with making unjust into radical wars, making people into slaves. The king supported a market of extra bowl commerce that made people into extra bowl exc reable commerce that made people into things to be bought and sold. He has encouraged those enslaved to kill the new masters. The draft of the original version we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are equal and independent, and from which they draw a rights that are inherent and inalienable, among which is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In the deleted clause, that was extended to africans. Placing these passages at the very end of the list of the kings crime privileges them, emphasizing the connection between tyranny and real slavery. The support for slavery was the ultimate evidence of his black of respect for the rights of anyone and his lack of respect for the rights of anyone and his belief in his absolute power. Jefferson emphasized men, and i think i can make it work here right here jefferson emphasized men in this passage when he referred to those unjustly enslaved, echoing the resounding words at the beginning of the declaration. He deliberately used men when he referred to african people. These are corrections he made in his own hand to send two colleagues. Here is a close up of the word men in that particular passage in the original. Here are the only other words l is capitalized like that in the whole declaration, the United States of america. Here are two copies, both of which have the same emphasis on men when he refers to africans and slaves. You see that when there. He would speak to his emotion. Indicating tracing the word, indicating the emphasis of his thoughts, creating poetry more powerful then anywhere else. His words speak to his emotion. Cruel, violating prostituted in assemblage of horror. He insisted on not only including the excised text in every version he made, but underlining it in black ink as you see here in the letter to madison. On july 1, the day the declaration was first discussed only nine colonies voted to support it. Crucial among those who urged against signing were South Carolinas delegate who wrote to new york on june 29 opposing the declarations principles. Jefferson wrote in anger the clause reprobate in the enslavement of those denizens from africa has been done for the occupants of South Carolina and georgia who wish to continue it. He said though they had few slaves themselves, they have been considerable carrier of them to others. But he knew the states were already firmly in favor of independence. In order to recruit more colonies unanimous consent, not majority rule, carried the day. The principle that promoting slavery was the best evidence of cheering me of england of tyranny was to leave it. It has been seen as evidence of the revolutionaries hypocrisy, not least of which , jefferson himself who owned 176 slaves. Jefferson, it is understood, never meant to challenge slavery and it was ridiculous of him to blame the king for anything that was a holy colonial institution. The king was not responsible for slavery, it was claimed. It was colonists like jefferson who wanted slaves and bought them. Most did not consider that trade as excreble. Of course, if congress moved it, it did not belong there. But it did belong there. We have dismissed that passage from the declaration with too much ease, and for the wrong reasons. Condemning the king of england for supporting slavery was the logical combination of all of the claims that came earlier in the declaration. The Committee Approved it. The final condemnation of george iii was not just a set of principles or future policy. It was also a claim of history. Virginia placed heavy duties on the importation of slaves, all of which were vetoed by the king. As did other colonies. Indeed given the royal instructions to governors, he ordered them to veto any such duties. We cannot see any such effort. Thus, the royal governor of North Carolina in 18 said it is the kings approval that you do not pass any laws or duties involving negroes. The Continental Congress tried to override the kings protection by punishing fellow colonists. Saying, you will neither import nor purchase any slave, after which, we will discontinue the slave trade and we will neither be concerned with it ourselves nor will we sell our vessels or manufactured to those involved in it. Slavery was born either from a free market nor a government. Imperial and monarchical policies created incentive for colonists to promote slavery for more than a century. These included royal proclamations the cable way land rights to colonists to purchase every slave. 60 acres of land for every slave you bought in virginia. Supporting the slave trade was britain from navy and particular. The deleted clause points to more than a century of monarchical promotion of slavery. Of course, colonial assemblies also helps to promote slavery within the wider empire. Choices emerged in the imperial context of that limited and defined and constrained. Jeffersons hypocrisy was not simply a matter of choice. It was born in the legal system of the empire. Jefferson inherited all of his slaves from his father and fatherinlaw. All of the slaves were also mortgaged, and it was illegal under virginia law to free slaves. If you had to free a slave, you are to be free of debt. According to a law passed that year just as in todays world i can neither sell nor lean a car if there is a lien against it which is to say, if i still oh carpeting this, it really belongs to the bank. This was given more force in virginia by a Chancery Court decision that tells any creditor could seize a person, sell them and keep the money. Even that virginia Court Decision was reinforced by the treaty of paris that ended the American Revolution in 1783. Thereby, they insured this aspect of the revolution was incomplete. Despite the somerset decision of 1772 that challenge the ownership of people, british common law allowed the owning of people and mortgaging those people across the empire. The thing that made the status hereditary was protected by parliament and was ingrained in englands former colonies. Slavery was injured by the same status as the monarchy. Kings were born princes with the right to rule. The child of a subject is born a subject in the child of a slave is born a slave. And they are born with the obligation to obey. This was the logic of hereditary status that had a legal basis in colonial and imperial law that the declaration challenged. America got rid of its king with that declaration, one part of the tyranny, but not slavery, which was its fruit. Even with the overarching system of slavery, jefferson add choices. Of course, he was a hypocrite for not simply overthrowing the principles that people could be proper he and born and born in slaves. I, too am a hypocrite when i say and american policies encourage an overreliance on fossil fuels and that we have a moral responsibility to change our energy usage, and yet i turn on electric lights. My hypocrisy neither invalidates my moral judgment, moore makes them less true. Just as jeffersons observations a moral claims were deeply rooted in the legal and social and Economic System he had inherited and that many others, including those who were in slaves were more problematic and horrified. Slavery remained in some parts of the new nation and even later expanded. Why . I did not write this paper to absolve jefferson from blame. I could not. But to urge us how the policies he and others made, too urges how and why these policies developed and to consider how laws and policies shape our choices today. Most of all, i want to focus attention on those who disagreed with jefferson like rutledge from South Carolina who was terrified by universal liberties. How did they influence policy . The ultimate irony for jefferson and for so many others was that the proclamation of 1775 to which jefferson referred at the end of the deleted clause encouraged many slaves to fight for the british. Subsequently england freed many of them. But jefferson still owed mortgages against those runaways, mortgages that made it more difficult for him to free others. The American Revolution looks different. It but becomes more radical in his principles and potential and yes complete and yet less complete. It was incomplete. It also shows how the compromises set the stage for later conflict. The statement of principles clarified at the beginning of the document became open to misinterpretation without the deleted passage. During the constitutional convention, again, South Carolina and georgia intervened to protect slavery. South carolinas objection is woven into their protection of slavery. On some fundamental level, conceding on slavery again built a contradiction into americas political foundation. Thank you. [applause] [indiscernible] in going to go ahead and start while you are fooling with that. I appreciate the invitation, and especially to read the article of daniel allen called punctuating happiness, which is the basis of the talk. I can tell you it is the biggest compliment of anything i have read, which is it has made me even more ambivalent than i ever was about this declaration of independence. Professor alan establishes that all of the before congress versions of the declaration of independence only have a; semicolon after that happiness. Her explanation for that is, has had to do with diacritical marks. That are today and accent would be a direct diacritical mark. It just means it distinguishes but he had these marks that were probably meant to have pauses and it is certainly true there are diacritical marks throughout the declaration. I do not buy that the diacritical marks explanation for why they are there in the dunlap engrossed copy, also called the parchment version. Here is why. There are other places there are other places this is dunlaps broadside in brief copy. You can see he thought that there should be quotation marks the first time. He got rid of them. And all the others were replaced with this space. This one was replaced with some horizontal line. There are a couple of puzzles to that. One, why would they be horizontal rather than vertical . Professor alan says, well, maybe this 1 i think i am understanding you this would is different from the others is being a three stroke diacritical mark, and that might explain why it represented differently from the other day critical marks that got taken out. But i have looked through a small portion of jeffersons rough draft, and there they are. All of them are either one or two. I cant find any three stroke diacritical marks. In professor alans draft of her paper, she gives us another example of three stroke day critical marks. That is the inaugural address. You see at the top, the abbreviation for government. That looks like a three stroke diacritical, but i do not think it is that. I think that third stroke apart from the others is from the previous and of government. I still do not see any examples and jefferson yet of three stroke diacritical marks, so i do not think that is the explanation for why we have a there in both of the matlab version and the dunlap version. I think congress put them there, put that dash there for other reasons, which i will return to at the end. For me, the rate significance of the article is it reminds us what really matters about the second sentence of the declaration of independence, and i do consider it one sentence, even though i think that period may not be there by mistake. It reminds us when we pull phrases like all men are created equal or life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we are kind of putting it out of context. As she pointed out, they are part of the bigger hole. A syllogism and the bottomline of that syllogism is the right to secede. One society in a confederation with another the right to secede. The things that are most famous and popular life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, those are kind of the yada, yada a, yada sections. The bottom line is life secession. That is really what jefferson and the rest of congress were focusing on. They were looking at the changes all on the issue of sovereignty. At what point is it the right of reservation . Danielle put up this slide already. The final version probably this first one was done by jefferson himself. He wrote citizens, eventually, but through hyperspectral imaging, the folks of the library of congress with backwards and found what hear originally wrote was subjects. So, one change jefferson himself made was turning subjects into citizens. He was not the only one. The committee edited this phrase to advance from that subordination, which remained to dissolve the political bands. You see the difference between what i put an orange and what is in red. Our edge, we are admitting we were previously inferior and we are going to declare independence. The red version is saying we have been allies of Great Britain, in the same way the United States is in our of Great Britain today. We are breaking an alliance, not a subordinate relationship. Likewise jefferson had written he had referred to george iii as his present majesty. The same way we might refer to president obama as the president said. If i was referring to the need of to be leader of another state i would say the present Prime Minister of Great Britain. Do you see how the committee changed jeffersons line which admitted that george iii was jeffersons king, to this new version that says george is the king of britain, this other place that has been our ally but never are superior . There are other changes as well as a jefferson had a great idea in writing the acclamation of not mentioning parliament when he is listing all of the bad laws that parliament adopted the taxes and so forth. Does not even mention them. That wonderful line that jefferson has is george iii has combined with others, passing their acts of pretended legislation. I am not a princess, but i pretend to be one with my daughter sometimes. These are pretend laws, not real laws. It is these others, by not naming parliament, by not recognizing them on a piece of paper, youre not recognizing them in International Law either. That was a great idea. Congress got rid of both of those. If you read the declaration of independence the word parliament, even though it is really about parliament, because george iii is almost as much of a figurehead well, he is closer to elizabeth ii then elizabeth the first. Their focus was on sovereignty. They wanted to make it clear theyre only connection to britain has been through the king and now he is the king of Great Britain and no longer the king of america, the focus of sovereignty. With all of that in mind, knowing that second sentence of the declaration of independence is really about the right to secede, i want to propose that we should really refer to the declaration of independence as originally written and was adopted by congress as inordinate of secession. A loaded term, but when we get back to talking about the Confederate Flag i think they will get it down in South Carolina but if you are looking at secession from 1861, i defy you to find an antimonarchical phase phrase in the declaration of independence. Julian boyd said it best when he said the declaration bore no antagonism to the idea of kingship in general. It is only against this king, not against all kings. It was originally, as adopted by congress, and ordinance of secession. But then, and you could really even more than an ordinance of secession, it is breaking an alliance. But then they turned it into something different. Some of you may have read the wonderful book on the declaration which stresses that before it was adopted before progress declared end of Congress Declared independence, there had been 90 other declarations of independence at the local and provincial level. There are fascinating things going on in the spring of 1770 six. Ordinary people demanding independence. But they were demanding something more important more than independence and i want to stress that. They were demanding a more a gala terry and government. People were saying, envisioning what it was going to be liked afterward. We want to elect our governors in ways that had not been done before. We want the governor to not have a veto power. We want to get rid of the property requirement for voting. People are in visioning a more democratic system and i would describe the spring of 1776 as a spring of great expectation, of people expecting something a lot better. There are petitions from evangelicals seeking religious liberty, a greater separation between church and state as their later ally sometime ally Thomas Jefferson would say. Abigail adams wrote her famous remember the ladies letter. People are expecting Something Better even before the declaration is written, and of course that continues after the declaration is written. Then there is something that eric talks about called the rewrite. Elizabeth cady stanton reinterpreting the declaration of independence. Giving it new meaning. These people turn it into a charter of freedom. No longer in order of secession, but a charter of freedom. That would be the universal declaration of human rights. Eleanor roosevelt, who helped write it, is holding onto. They turned it into a different document. If you think that is farfetched, let me give you an example of another charter freedoms in front of this building. I like putting the constitution that we signed on 1787 up on the screen for my students and asking what are your favorite clauses, and freedom of speech comes up, gun rights is coming up less and less maybe. There is a kid in the back of the room usually with piercings who wants to remind us about unlawful search and seizure. Freedom of the press, freedom of religion. These are the things that people like the most about the constitution that was signed and none of them is in that document. Not in the document Congress Passed out to be states. Those are added in the bill of rights and then we get the 14th amendment, the 19th amendment everyone can vote, no matter their gender. Americans changed the meaning of the constitution, turning it into a charter of freedom. Lets go back to the declaration and then wrap up. It was no more a gala terry and. It is no more a gala terry and then the constitution being antislavery. Neither document uses the word slave, but they are all about slavery. And not even antiminorca goal. Her work and tied monarchical. Her work raises the question that it is a liberation document in a completely different scents. One that is pregnant with significance for the modern day. And that is, as she points out she argues that the declaration by connecting, by wanting to connect life, liberty, and happiness with governments among men to secure these rights, that by connecting those, she is making what i would call an anti, antigovernment statement. That is, she is arguing that you need government to secure those rights. I want to review refute that with Something Else she says and start off by pointing out that the notion of the government as the protector of the palace, i think that is a 20th century notion. The brown versus the board of education decision. Federal decisions that made us a freer country. But in the 18th century, people did not make that association. The government was who you call then if you were a white person and there was a slave revolt or you wanted to take land from indians. The government was kind of the shears that the rich used to fleece the poor. I want to make another argument about this. Oh yeah i usually do not agree with the National Review but they are arguing, and i am not agreeing with them but they are arguing, they understand the significance of what the professor saying. Government is necessary to preserve freedom. That is bad for them. While everyone else was celebrating this amazing discovery, they of course, were poohpoohing. But if we take away this notion that government is there to protect freedom, and even thomas would not go that far, but if we think about that for a different reason ok, two minutes. If that dash is there to stress the phrase that comes before us. John adams is really into the idea of happiness. James otis had been promoting the phrase for more than a decade, life, liberty, and property. We all know the declaration changes that into life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Maybe a pause there was to stress the word happiness. Or maybe the pause was to stress that whole phrase life liberty which i cheated about being together, but that whole phrase inc. Together. That may be with some kind of pause after happiness, what ever it leads to, is he really focusing on the individuals natural right life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. At this is what i was saying about making the more ambivalent about the declaration. On one hand, the notion of the second sentence is a syllogism convinces me more than ever that the declaration is an ordinance of secession. On the other hand, by drawing attention to that phrase, life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, i think congress intended to add emphasis on that phrase the jefferson himself did not intend. This is how it is a liberation document. It is a document about individual rights in the way that congress chose to emphasize those individual rights i am pausing because my notes say pause. That technique was emphasized by pausing. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much. It is a great honor to be talking about the declaration of independence in this building. I want to thank Danielle Allan for that honor. What does the declaration of independence actually declare. For most americans it is embodied by what is typically seen in the second paragraph we hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are crated equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness period. But that is not how most americans would of seen the declaration. Scholars have taught us to see a very different declaration and it may be now that the divide between scholarship and public understanding is that an alltime high. Pauline maier recovered the grassroots of the document. She also showed in her pulitzer prizewinning book that many in and out of congress in 1776 did not see it as the founding text we all are. David armitage revealed in his study the international meaning and global history as the entirety of these second paragraph was little more than a minor premise. Few at the time discussed these words, instead focusing on the long list of charges against king george iii or the final section, the declaration that the colonies are free and independent states. Those words about sovereignty remained the most knowledgeable on the parchment of the declaration and are in pewter with far more importance than the rights embodied in the second paragraph. Now we learn the most famous sentence in american his reis not a sentence at all. In an American History is not a sentence at all. It is important to ask how we have come to partition the tex t as we have . Who put a period there . How did we go from there declaration to our declaration . With the help of newly digitized 18thcentury american newspapers and publications we can now more precisely trays how people wrote about the declaration in his own time and begin to tell a more new want story about how and who gave us the declaration we know. While most observers at the time were focused on other parts of the document, one set of people took this is the most important statement opponents of slavery. To be sure, revolutionary era abolitionists were a minority of readers, but years later it would be there reading that transformed it into a founding document of domestic politics. They partitioned the text in such a way that lincoln at gettysburg or Martin Luther king jr. Saw the text as having created the nation committed to the proposition that all men are created equal. The what now seems hard to believe, the declaration of independence was probably not consider the most important document congress commissioned in the summer of 1776. Other committees drafted alliances for other nations which would be crucial for a successful war and the articles of confederation, the first attempt at creating a centralized government. These documents required more legislative care and attention that the declaration, which was more concerned with resolving connections than building them. The text was reproduced in a flurry of printings in newspapers. We have now seen many of them on our screen. But many in and out of congress did not see the text as a text we commonly take it to be, and once it was signed, it largely disappeared from public notice. For many years, even the parchment copy languished in the state department, rolled up and out of sight. But one group of americans were did determined to keep part of it before the public. The declarations rhetoric of freedom, a quality, and rights injured a world where slavery was a reality for a fifth of the population. The first newspaper notice printed in philadelphia by benjamin pound on july 2, 1776 that congress had declared the colonies free and independent states was right next to a runaway notice offering the reward for the return of a slave named ishmael. Rarely did they come together so poignantly as they did here. For members of the small antislavery movement, the language of the declaration must have arrived as a blessing. And National Document signed by some of america for leading citizens and a claim that all men are created each will. Almost immediately, it seemed that antislavery activist incorporated those words into their arguments against slavery. Paynes was of mixed race haynes was of mixed race. He called himself and the lotto. A mulatto. Further thoughts on the illegality of slave keeping together with a humble address to such as are concerned in the practice. Theyre in on edited prose on the title page, he cited the words of congress we hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal that they are endowed with their creator with certain unalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Period. He may have been among the very first to use a period. Other similar uses of the phrase did see print. In a sermon given in 70 and 78 a white antislavery minister from hanover, new jersey asked his listeners, how unjust, how in human for an american to violate this right . Thats in your a quaker from pennsylvania that same year a quicker from pennsylvania suggested the rights present in the declaration while simultaneously maintaining slavery risked divine punishment during wartime. David cooper from new jersey address to the rulers of america that is the congress and Continental Congress on the inconsistency of slavery in a land of liberty. Using the second paragraph to hold them to account. Could congress be asked on the other side of the page, could congress have truly meant only the rights of white men and not of all men . Invoking the language of the declaration became a powerful part of abolitionist rhetoric. A search for the phrase all men created equal reveals majority of citations were by opponents of the slave trade. They cornered the market on the citation of that phrase. Abolitionist societies in pennsylvania in 1788 and in maryland in 1791 and in new jersey in 1793 all worked to put it in the constitution of their organizations. Even though the constitution itself deny congress the power to prohibit the migration and importation of slaves. And long before abolition became a potent Political Force in america, the language became the linchpin of the move away from slavery. In writing it, jefferson and congress built on intellectual foundations from john locke and others and follow the sweeping virginias bill of rights, a draft of which circulated in 1776 and enumerated the natural rights of life and liberty and the right to pursue happiness. In massachusetts, the constitution adopted in 1780 began with a declaration of rights, which began that all men are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential, and in alienable right including life, liberty, safety, and happiness. The Massachusetts State Court the glared slavery unconstitutional in massachusetts, forestalling difficult political wrangling with a direct legislative solution for emancipation. Vermonts declaration of rights in the constitution of 1777 opens with similar language, but follows these abstractions with a specific prohibition on slavery. It is important to note that all of the rights declarations partitioned the claims of equality and rights from the enumerated, but separate claim that government was the tool for securing those rights. It is also significant that antislavery writers chose to highlight the rights rather than the remedy of revolution. Perhaps they simply wished to promote emancipation and avoid the specter of slave revolt. At as the war ended legislators prefaced with a direct citation of the claims of the rights in the declaration, and by 1792 when an almanac maker, an africanamerican quoted the invaluable doctrine that all men are created equal, then secretary of state Thomas Jefferson abolitionists have been working for a decade and a half to use the declaration of independence. Many americans began to dwell on the centrality of the second paragraph for better or perhaps for worse. The South Carolina senator john c. Calhoun described it as an unnecessary error, his words. He said it was now germinating and beginning to produce a poisonous brood. Abram lincoln acknowledged that the claim that all men are created equal was of no practical use in dissolving ties with britain, but he sought a future use. Frederick douglass a great about the importance of the phrase, but saw things differently. America, he said, falls to the task. To a slaves in hers, he explained, the shouts of liberty and equality to a slaves years, he explained the shouts of liberty and equality were nothing but hollow mockery. By the time Southern States begin seceding from the union issuing secession notices Many Americans that taken the interpretation that calvin dreaded, lincoln long for, and Frederick Douglass found hypocritical. A radical commitment to rights that most bit streamers and early readers could not have it have anticipated. Most would have seen it as a document of radical egalitarianism through we see it so now is a product of their effort and is the challenge of generations to live up to those words. Earlier actions transform the declaration. They used the declaration to make antislavery arguments. In in doing so, they helped partition the text. Perhaps we wanted the best soundbite from that text, or just as likely, they wanted to avoid having their readers associate the violent revolt with the plight of the slaves. Thank you. [applause] let me reiterate these thinks the other speakers have given to danielle thanks the other speakers have given to danielle for convening us here, and let me extend my inks also to danielle for the provocation of this, her remarkable on the declaration and the successful articles that are the basis of many of our discussions. I want to begin with a quotation from the beginning of her book. She says, i am trying to draw different circles of readers together the levers of democracy, whether at home or abroad. Are we not all democrats . Do we not all need to understand what it means to be part of a democratic polity . The answer to that question is yes, but the interesting and productive tensions in that statement, the lovers of democracy at home or abroad, whether we think of the meaning or the meanings of the declaration of independence. As danielle points out very movingly throughout her book, deliberation is at the very foundation of democracy, but we must also remember, deliberation demands accepting different understandings with those whom we deliberate in the conversations that take place and surround a different understandings and in the case of different texts like the declaration of independence, we do not just have different understandings, but different understandings based on divergent readings. I think this is especially true when the fundamental text under discussion is indissoluble tied to a specific national tradition, even to a National Identity, as the u. S. Declaration of independence obviously is. And again, at the very end, the time has come to bring back to life our National Commitment to equality. It is time to let the declaration once again be hours and the implicit question in my remarks now are who are we . Might that not actually be in contention with our National Commitment . As you may have guessed already, i am not american. I am going through the naturalization process at the moment. I may not become an american as a result of the provocation of my remarks. I deliver this talk with some trepidation. A democratic reading has taken place on a translational scale and increasingly on a global one. The declaration could be celebrated by the hyundai are in hungarian patriot as the noblest, happiest page and mankinds history. I have argued elsewhere that the declaration of independence in veriest forms in 1776 was the product of a global moment in the 18th century. And Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress were well aware of that international audience, as we know from the phrases in the document about the opinions of mankind or a candid world, or in fact it was the audience of the powers of the earth that they most needed to sway if they were in fact to achieve independence that might run counterfactual if the continental argument had been defeated at the battle of saratoga would we be reading the declaration of independence now . Is its rhetorical power in some sense derived from that very fact . We need to think about how the American Forces one and how the founding document became the founding document. I just slipped into an eraror which i try to work against talking about americans and 1776 but there were no americans in 1776. The transition to create americans was a lengthy and long drawn out process. Perhaps as many historians point out, something which comes to any resolution after the civil war, in fact. The italian patriot massimo said we have made italy and now we must make italians. I can imagine Thomas Jefferson and others saying the same thing in 1776 after the declaration. We have made america, now we must make americans. For this reason, i agree with eric and woody that the declaration of independence was primarily intended as an ordinance of secession. Indeed for practical purposes, the opening and closing paragraphs of the declaration of independence were the operative parts of the argument. They said all men are created equal was of no practical use in the separation of great written but it was placed in that the operation in the declaration for future use. Those who supported slavery downplayed that. Its convincing in terms of the reworking of the meaning of that paragraph but of its salience which is the central message of the document but that was a long, drawnout and much contested process. In this regard, if we think about the primary object of the declaration of independence, not socalled, there was less at stake in historical terms in 1776 between the two readings of the second paragraph either as 3or 5 selfevident truths. There is this example from the british National Archives. It was being picked up by military and political officials. They were being sent back to whitehall. Many things were printed about the activities in the colonies. However, its notable i sensed last week looking at everything printed by john dem lamp dunlap in 1776 and how he used his punctuation and one of many examples were not sure he really distinguishes between a period and a dash so i can give you three instances where you have a period and then a dash an both cases have the same meaning. This could have been produced by dunlap at a successive date. He reset it from the velllum copy we have not two dashes as in the original broadside that one single long dash perhaps with a period or not. To put a question around the significant of dunlap puzzle practices. I want to turn to 3 other sets of evidence or pieces of evidence for bodies of evidence to consider different understandings of the declaration in 1776 subsequent to the immediate responses and then to the translations, the first translations, then briefly to other declarations of independence since then. How did the textual tradition go beyond the United States shed light on the readings of the second paragraph . The first here is from the First Response by the exiled british governor of massachusetts, thomas hutchinson. A wrote in london in the summer of 1776. s version is somewhat hybrid. When he prints the second paragraph, he has a comma not a period or a dash after life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He gives us the sentence as one single sentence without ambiguity. Yet when he comes to analyze the meaning of that sentence, he dissociates the claims to that phrase from the right of resistance and attacks each of them equally. That is also the case and even more clearly in the official British Government response to the declaration. It was usually attributed to the young lawyer, john linden. The first 120 pages are by him. The specific political philosophy which we know is by jerry met Jeremy Benson when he comes to deal with the second paragraph. He separates the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from the government. He has a philosophical immolation of the second paragraph. He says these americans, people on the other side of the water who call them at first, they sent the dont understand. They simply dont understand. Each one of those things has to be abridged for government to take part. He turns the syllogism on his head. They dont perceive that anything that could be called government in any instance exercises at the expense of one or another of those rights. Its evidence about how this was read at the time. What about the evidence of the early translation . First translations german in philadelphia published on july 9, 1776 shortly after the dunlap and the other printing published both as a broadside and in the german language newspaper in philadelphia on that day as well as you will see. It separates the first clause from the rest with a periopd so possibly following the town but the first translation was widely circulated. It sees the second paragraph by dividing the first three rights. If we go then to the tradition of the french translations which begins in the summer of 17 96, here are a couple of instances from slightly later the french tradition is bifurcated. We get the serial and the syllogistic readings here. It was published in paris in 1778 and sponsored by benjamin franklin. Used Public Diplomacy on behalf of the United States. The last two clauses are dependent on the earlier one and separated only by a comma in the french version. However, a few years later, the equally widely distributed but also semiopen show french translation in 1783 gives them a. A full gives them a. A full stop. This was published in 1790 in a twovolume history of the American Revolution and its aftermath. This is a propaganda work published in the context of the result of the austrian netherlands ruler. You can see their own declaration of independence in 1790 based on the american one which reproduced what they called act. They take the translation not from the french which has the syllogistic version but probably the later french version. That is the version printed in the first spanish translation. This does not appear until 1811. It appears in philadelphia. This is a kind of handbook of revolution which is produced in spanish in philadelphia to be circulated in the spanishamerican colonies including a whole battery of documents including the federal constitution and the articles of confederation as well as the declaration of independence. Here again, we get the serial rather than the syllogistic version. We can be pretty sure this is the version that would have circulated in spanish america during the breakup of the reorganization of the spanish colonies in the early heart of the 19th century. Than we come to one of the interesting problems, i will end with this. In the success of declarations of independence, after 1776 and especially after the early 19th century outside the u. S. , almost no attention is paid to the second paragraph of the u. S. Declaration particularly in the sense that almost no quotations are used whether in the form of the serial or syllogistic version. It dropped out of the later tradition of declarations of independence. If you look at formal declarations of independence which lead to the creation of what we might tank of has states in the contemporary form, there at least 120 declarations of independence that have been issued around the world since 7076 1776. I will show you the two ive discovered which will make any reference to the second paragraph of the u. S. Declaration. There are a great many other declarations of independence in 1790 issued by other substate communities in spanish america as well. My sense is that they pay no attention to the second paragraph when they use the declaration as the best test is the basis of their declaration. As the basis for their declaration. We know there was one version of the haitian declaration pattern after jeffersons declaration as it was called later. The version that was finally published and recently turned up in the british National Archives for similar reasons, this makes no reference to the u. S. Declaration. If we go into the 19th century we have referred to the audit ordinances of secession. The texas declaration of independence declared independence from mexico to join the United States and mays and makes references to the u. S. Declaration but does not lay out a particular reading one way or the other of the second sentence. It reformulate the argument into an argument from a distance but not directly related to that iteration or enumeration of individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The South Carolina ordinance of secession is just like that and draws a veil over the second paragraph. Something they wish to ignore or obvious reasons. The only 19thcentury exception to the rule that the declaration do not refer to outside the u. S. Is the library and declaration of independence of 1847. For obvious reasons, this is a community under the protection of the United States. Their declaration like their constitution is closely modeled on the u. S. Founding document. However, the liberian declaration of independence does speak about its recognition in all in alienable rights which is life in a liberty, and the right to acquire, possess, and defend property which is important. These men were formally owned as property. They dont talk about a right of [indiscernible] it was very important to keep the individual liberty far apart from the specter of slave resistance for africanamerican resistance. The only other major declaration of independence invokes the second paragraph of the u. S. Declaration is the ho chi minh vietnamese declaration of independence of 1945. I think it was in his First Campaign for president that obama was asked about an important moment in his childhood and he remembered the time when his grandmother read him the opening lines of the declaration of independence, all men are created equal etc. Why was his grandmother reading him the chinese declaration . They were not the opening lines of the u. S. Declaration. Barely opening lines of the chinese declaration. They are the opening lines of the chinese declaration. He had an osss agent in hanoi to check the text. He says it means all the peoples on earth are equal from birth and all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and be free. The important expansion of those individual rights in the second paragraph are in the context of decolonization. The pattern of not referring to the second paragraph promises continued throughout the 20th century. The most extreme example is the unilateral declaration in 1965 by the white minority government of Southern Rhodesia against the british parliament. It was a remarkable declaration and ends with god save the queen. This is a revolt against the parliament and in favor of monarchy. As we now learn from eric nelson, the royalist revolution, we might inc. About the American Revolution in those terms as well which were primarily against parliament and of the king. The evidence of the spread of the declaration of independence and its imitation and its translation is that the second paragraph was of relatively little and in some ways even marginal importance for the understanding of the declaration. The central meaning outside the United States was rather like the dog that did not bark in the night. Sherlock holmes as an interchange with a boneheaded inspector, inspector gregory. Does the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime . Let us call this the case of the dogma that did not bark in the night. The absence of the second paragraph of the declaration whether its serial or syllogistic is an important mystery. I think its very significant in which thinking about the democratic promises of the declaration of independence is it the case that the declaration of independence is so closely tied to National Identity of the United States that it cannot be turned into a universal document . Or can its promises be somehow detached from its place within a national myth, or National Archive in such a way that its promises can be revealed enacted, and opened up for all of the worlds people. I would turn to my opening question when we talk about our declaration, who exactly are we and how do we work against the place of the National Mythology in order to turn it into an international, global universal document of pregnant and everexpanding promises . Thank you very much. [applause] that was an incredible amount of information and very well stated by all of our panelists. We are a little behind schedule. I will take control and create some liberty for lunch for you all. If you have questions for our excellent panel, we will figure a way to work the men to the subsequent events. My apologies to our panelists for missing the opportunity here but we will break for lunch and convene back at 1 30 p. M. If our next panel could be here at 1 15 p. M. That would be helpful and well stay on track. That was a fantastic wonderful series of presentations, thank you all very much. [applause] you are watching American History tv 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan three. Follow us on twitter. For information on our schedule of upcoming programs and to keep up with the latest history news. Each week, American History tvs reel america