Who Inspired Thomas Jefferson?
Voicecast Authored and Read
By Mayasonette Lambkiss,
As an episode of the ‘Spacesuit in the Flesh’ officially published
Podcast show for the Hawaii Institute of Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Honolulu, 12/12/2023
Who was Thomas Jefferson, the author of freedom, inspired by crafting the Declaration of Independence? John Locke, The Virginia Declaration of Rights, and his own drafts of the Virginia Constitution are just some of the contemporary documents he used during his two weeks of writing at his desk. But the material the Founding Fathers, especially Jefferson’s used as discussion materials and insightful guides for the establishment of a just government is much broader: the Founding Fathers looked to the Greek democracy, Roman representative system, the Bible, the French Laissez-fair implemented first in Brittain, they looked to Captains of Christian ships and their courts, chain of command, and communication systems for crowd management insights they used, and to people like the famous Ulysses S. Grand, military officer of the Union army who allowed the Southerners to keep their horses to plough and one personal weapon for hunting for their families.
All of these historical experiments to attempt to create an ideal and just government, and great historical figures, are present in the Declaration of Independence in Spirit. The 28 points at the end of the physical document of the Declaration of Independence demonstrating King George III’s dysfunctional governance is probably the most motivating list of sources inspiring change. These inspirations rooted in painful and liberating experiences gave a reason to our founders wanting to see changes implemented that reflected their values. As Thomas Jefferson writes in 1776, “The Declaration of Independence is a proclamation. In it, the 13 American colonies declared that they would no longer view themselves as members of the British Empire.” But, over time many of its points have changed from a collective statement of the exclusive sovereignty to the United States, to a nation defined by its citizen’s shared value systems. It is majorly due to the evolving philosophical influences in the minds of the people, and how they interpret the words within changing historical-political context relevant to their times.
The second paragraph of the Declaration says:
1) “We hold these truths to be self-evident"
This statement strongly reveals that the source of conviction to establish the values incorporated by the following words of the declaration indisputable truths, automatic, and need no explanation. Here is a paragraph I read for you from the Kirkpatrick Signature Series Document on the Declaration of Human Rights:
“During Jefferson’s era, the European model of governance was monarchies. The authority for government by monarchy was known as, The Divine Right of Kings. In other words, the King’s authority was based upon an authority bestowed upon the monarch by the divine or due to God’s intervention.
Since God had chosen the monarch to be the King, or Queen, they were better, or closer to God, and therefore acting with God-given authority to rule. Simply, according to the Divine Right of Kings. The monarch had more powerful rights than the individual and you were certainly not their equal.”
We need to realize, that while the Declaration of Independence was inspired by the Bible to overthrow monarchy, monarchy was inspired by the Bible too, in regard to the crowning of King David, after the unjustified crowning of King Saul’s rule. We need to be very careful about judging historical events out of their Biblical context and giving them absolute interpretations.
Next the Declaration states that
2) “that all men are created equal,”
This concept originated in the European Enlightenment philosophy that emerged before the French Revolution of 1789, causing political and societal changes inspiring the entire then known world to rethink their national governance. Originally it meant that all races of mankind were equal, and not that every individual person is equal to another next to them. It was a rudimentary articulation of what later has become the 13th Amendment and Martin Luther King’s message. None the less, by the early 1800s the statement of “that all men are created equal” became the leading thought inspiring individual equality and the irrevocable right of the individual for life, freedom, and pursuit of happiness, where the so-called ‘irrelevant considerations’ don’t have the opportunity to cause injustice to the individual. Here, we need to give credit to Mortimer Adler for coiling the phrase: ‘irrelevant considerations’ in his work Six Great Ideas, The Domain of Justice, page 190, published in 1984. Today these ‘irrelevant considerations’ are detailed and incorporated in the words of the 5th and 14th Amendments of the Constitution against discrimination and can be read in full length on every job application as well.
Let’s continue with the text of the Declaration:
3) “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,”
Unalienable Rights mean that is inborn, given by God, and these thoughts were inspired by the Bible itself. It really is stating correctly quoted from the Bible, to “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1), meaning that nobody is above the law, or an exception to the law, not by rank, or race, or by any other distinction, those interpretations became two different statements too, over the years. By unalienable rights today we mostly rely on the United Nations interpretation in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights document, which refers to the rights of an individual person, given to them by the right that they were born human, and it is an example of the DHR is influencing the interpretation of the DIUS, because over time the understanding of the original words has changed.
4) that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—
These three points again clarified originally that the new country of the United States had the right to establish itself as a sovereign country, and with all its operational functions to free trade and independence, within its boundaries its citizens held the shared values of respect for the life of the individual, liberty or freedom to choose it’s political affiliations and citizenship activities, but also to pursue happiness in an authentic and innovative way unique to themselves only. Here we encounter the influences of the philosophical ideology of existentialism, in addition to the earlier mentioned philosophy of enlightenment from the French Revolution.
Going on to the text:
5) That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
This point strongly relies on the lessons of the historical past generated by the Greek democratic experiment, the Roman Republic experiment that taught us lessons on the representative system of a republic, but also on the lessons of the suppressive systems of ancient and feudalistic systems. Government had a new definition given during this period learning from humanity’s historical failures, establishing that the legislatures were too overcrowded by the many voices of representatives, and a system had to be established to control them with respect to each other. Today it functions as administration, bureaucracy, government organizations. It was designed to control the chaotic nature of democracy. Democracy and Republic are two different sides of the same coin, and not to be debated as competing systems.
Same thoughts continue in the next phrase:
6) “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”
Governments are established to protect and secure the rights of the people, coordinate the voices of the multitude, and that anyone elected to an office is empowered by the governed to protect democracy. Governments are powerhouses of making democracy an organized mess, without democracy a government becomes dictatorship of any entity or even one person. But also, without a governmental organization democracy is dysfunctional.
And the final phrase of the second chapter of the Declaration really brings this home in its statement:
7) "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 affect their Safety and Happiness.”
This statement speaks for itself, and its implementation may result in riots, political mayhem, civil chaos, but to overthrow its own government is the right of the governed people, its citizens.
In conclusion, let me express the immense emotions the Declaration of the United States Independence evokes inside me, and I am an immigrant. I did choose the United States proudly to be my future country I approve of, and therefore one would consider my love for this document natural. But I sense that to be born and raised as an American Citizen, would include nuances of emotion I probably missed out on and will never experience. Non-the-less, I am inspired by and touched by Madam Elenor Roosevelt not much talked about initiative of using this iconic document as the major inspiration in the writing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the 3 objectives of right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness became the 30 articles of fundamental universal human rights acknowledged by the United Nations. I highly recommend anyone listening to this podcast, to read those 30 articles to themselves, and raise relevant questions, contemplate it according to their own philosophical mindsets, and explain in their own words what it truly means to be a human being, and why we are all here today, and not just some of us.
Aloha
Mayasonette Lambkiss
