3.3 Foundational Documents: The Declaration of Independence & Articles of Confederation

Foundational Documents: The Declaration of Independence & Articles of Confederation

Between 1776 and 1787, the United States engaged in one of history's most radical political experiments: translating abstract Enlightenment philosophy into concrete, functioning instruments of governance. This process produced two seminal founding texts—the Declaration of Independence, which dissolved ties with Great Britain and articulated universal human rights, and the Articles of Confederation, America's first national constitution, which balanced the defense of liberty against the practical demands of national unity.

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The Declaration of Independence (1776): Enlightenment Philosophy in Action

By June 1776, armed conflict had raged for over a year. On June 7, Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced a historic resolution in the Second Continental Congress: "Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States."

Congress appointed a Committee of Five to draft a formal justification for separation: Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert Livingston of New York. The committee selected thirty-three-year-old Jefferson as the primary author due to his elegant prose and mastery of political philosophy. Congress debated and edited Jefferson's draft (notably deleting a passage condemning the transatlantic slave trade to placate delegates from South Carolina and Georgia), and officially adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776.

Enlightenment Thinker           Key Concept                Application in Declaration
---------------------           -----------                --------------------------
John Locke (1689)              Natural Rights             "Life, Liberty and the pursuit
                               (Life, Liberty, Property)   of Happiness"

John Locke & Rousseau          Social Contract            Governments derive "just powers
                               & Consent of Governed      from consent of the governed"

Locke's Right of Revolution    Legitimate Rebellion       When government becomes destructive,
                                                          people may "alter or abolish it"

Intellectual & Enlightenment Influences

Jefferson did not invent the principles expressed in the Declaration; rather, as he later wrote, he sought to express the "American mind." He drew predominantly from the European Enlightenment, most notably English philosopher John Locke (Second Treatise of Government, 1689):

1. Natural Rights (Unalienable Rights): Locke argued that human beings in a state of nature possess inherent rights granted by their Creator, which no earthly government can legitimately extinguish. Locke defined these as "life, liberty, and estate (property)." Jefferson famously reframed this triad as "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," broadening the concept beyond material property to encompass human flourishing and individual destiny.
2. Social Contract Theory: Locke and French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that government is not established by divine right, but through a voluntary contract among free citizens. Individuals surrender a portion of their absolute liberty to a sovereign power in exchange for the protection of their natural rights and mutual security.
3. Consent of the Governed: Legitimate political authority resides in the people, not the monarch. Governments derive their "just powers from the consent of the governed." If ruler authority lacks popular consent, it is fundamentally illegitimate.
4. The Right of Revolution: When any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute a new government. This principle transformed rebellion from treason into a moral and constitutional duty.

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Structure of the Declaration of Independence

The Declaration is constructed with rigorous legal and rhetorical logic, comprising four distinct sections:

1. The Preamble

The opening paragraph states why a formal public document is necessary. Jefferson establishes that when a people dissolve their political bonds with another nation, "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." The audience was not merely King George III, but world powers (notably France) whose diplomatic recognition and military aid were desperately needed.

2. Statement of Human Rights (The Philosophical Core)

The second paragraph contains the most celebrated sentences in American political literature:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

While the phrase "all men are created equal" did not legally apply to enslaved African Americans, Native Americans, or women in 1776, it established a radical moral standard that subsequent generations—from abolitionists and suffragists to Civil Rights leaders—wielded to expand the boundaries of American democracy.

3. The 27 Grievances Against King George III

To prove that the British Crown had established "an absolute Tyranny over these States," Jefferson compiled a meticulous indictment of twenty-seven specific violations. Instead of attacking Parliament, the Declaration targeted King George III personally to justify renouncing allegiance to the monarch. Key grievances included:

• Taxation Without Consent: "For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent."
• Denial of Trial by Jury: "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury."
• Militarization & Quartering: "For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us" and keeping standing armies in peacetime without the consent of colonial legislatures.
• Subversion of Representative Government: Dissolving colonial assemblies, refusing assent to wholesome laws, and suspending local self-governance.
• Interference with Commerce: "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world."
• Waging War Against Colonists: Hiring German mercenaries, burning American towns, and inciting indigenous warfare on the frontier.

4. The Formal Resolution of Independence

The concluding section invokes the authority of the Second Continental Congress representing the "good People of these Colonies," solemnly declaring that the united colonies "are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States." The document concludes with the fifty-six signers mutually pledging to each other "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

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The Articles of Confederation (1781–1789): America's First Constitution

Even as Congress declared independence, it recognized the need for a formal national constitution to coordinate wartime operations, secure foreign treaties, and manage western lands. Drafted primarily by Pennsylvania delegate John Dickinson in 1777, the Articles of Confederation were submitted to the states for ratification.

Ratification stalled for four years over conflicting state claims to western lands between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. Landless states like Maryland refused to sign until large states like Virginia ceded their western territory to the national government. In March 1781, Maryland finally signed, and the Articles became the supreme law of the land.

Design Philosophy: A "Firm League of Friendship"

Having just fought against what they perceived as British monarchical despotism, the framers of the Articles were terrified of centralized political power. Consequently, they deliberately constructed a weak, decentralized national government. Article II affirmed that:

"Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."

The national government was not a sovereign federal republic, but a "firm league of friendship" among thirteen independent sovereign states.

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Landmark Achievements of the Confederation Congress

Despite its paralyzing structural limitations, the Confederation Congress established two visionary, enduring pieces of legislation governing the settlement of the public domain in the Old Northwest (the region north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi):

The Land Ordinance of 1785

Before western lands could be settled peacefully, they required systematic surveying. The Land Ordinance of 1785 established a standardized rectangular grid system:

• Land was surveyed into square townships measuring six miles on each side (36 square miles).
• Each township was subdivided into 36 numbered sections, each containing 640 acres (one square mile).
• The federal government sold sections at public auction for a minimum price of $1 per acre, providing vital non-tax revenue for the bankrupt national treasury.
• Crucial Precedent: The revenue generated from the sale of Section 16 in every single township was legally dedicated to establishing and maintaining local public schools. This provision embedded federal support for public education into the geographic expansion of the United States.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established the political blueprint for governing western territories and integrating them into the nation. It solved a classic imperial dilemma: would western territories be exploited as subordinate colonies, or admitted as equal partners?

The ordinance created an orderly, democratic three-stage pathway to statehood:

1. Territorial Stage: An unsettled territory was initially governed by a congressionally appointed governor, secretary, and three judges.
2. Legislative Stage: Once a territory reached 5,000 free adult male residents, it could establish an elected territorial legislature and send a non-voting delegate to Congress.
3. Statehood Stage: When the population reached 60,000 free inhabitants, the territory could draft a republican state constitution and petition Congress for admission into the Union "on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever."

Furthermore, the Northwest Ordinance included monumental civil rights protections:

• Prohibition of Slavery: Article VI explicitly banned slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the entire Northwest Territory: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory." This created a permanent geographic line (the Ohio River) separating free and slave labor territories.
• Bill of Rights Precursors: It guaranteed freedom of religion, habeas corpus, trial by jury, the sanctity of private contracts, and prohibited cruel or unusual punishments.
• Indigenous Land Claims: Declared that "the utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians," though this promise was routinely violated as white settlers moved west.

The Northwest Ordinance established the historic precedent that the American empire would expand not by ruling conquered colonies, but by creating equal, self-governing states.

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Shays' Rebellion (1786–1787): The Breaking Point

Following the Revolutionary War, the United States plunged into a severe economic depression. Cut off from British West Indian trade, American merchants demanded hard currency (gold and silver specie) from retailers, who in turn demanded cash from cash-poor small farmers.

In western Massachusetts, the state legislature was dominated by wealthy Boston mercantile elites. To pay off Massachusetts's state war debts, the legislature levied aggressive property taxes that had to be paid in hard specie rather than paper currency. Indebted farmers who could not pay faced court foreclosures, property seizures, and imprisonment in squalid debtor prisons.

The Armed Uprising

In August 1786, debt-ridden farmers organized resistance under the leadership of Daniel Shays, a decorated Continental Army veteran who had fought at Bunker Hill and Saratoga. Calling themselves "Regulators," hundreds of armed farmers marched on county courthouses in Northampton, Worcester, and Great Barrington, physically shutting down court proceedings to prevent judges from issuing foreclosure judgments.

In January 1787, Shays led 1,200 men in an assault on the federal arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts, intending to seize cannons and muskets to overthrow the state government. The state militia fired grape-shot into the advancing insurgents, killing four and routing the rebellion.

Political Shockwaves & The Call for Constitutional Reform

Although Shays' Rebellion was suppressed, its psychological and political impact was profound:

• Exposing National Impotence: When Massachusetts faced an armed insurrection, the Confederation Congress had been completely powerless to intervene. It possessed neither the funds to pay troops nor the authority to deploy a standing military.
• Panic Among National Elites: George Washington expressed horror from Mount Vernon: "What stronger evidence can be given of the want of energy in our government than these disorders? We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion!" Wealthy creditors and political leaders feared that similar debtor uprisings would erupt throughout the states, threatening private property rights and the rule of law.

Shays' Rebellion catalyzed public opinion. In September 1786, delegates from five states had met at the Annapolis Convention to discuss interstate trade barriers; Alexander Hamilton and James Madison persuaded delegates to call for a broader convention. Shays' Rebellion provided the dramatic impetus needed to convince skeptical states—and a reluctant George Washington—that the Articles of Confederation were fatally defective. In February 1787, the Confederation Congress formally endorsed a convention to meet in Philadelphia "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation."