Knapsack: Preparing for the 2026 celebration of our nation's founding warrants reflection
Todd Kleismit and his merry minions have been hard at work for a while, and rightfully so, getting us to think about what got started in 1776. It all warrants some deeper reflection this year, let alone next.
It all went into motion June 7, 1776, when Richard Henry Lee introduced before the Continental Congress a resolution 'that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states.' They appointed a Committee of Five to write an announcement explaining the reasons for declaring independence: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston and the primary drafter, Thomas Jefferson.
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The delegates in Philadelphia had an idea of what they wanted to do, but they needed a clear set of arguments for why they could, in a world where monarchs and moguls held tight to the reins of power.
Jefferson's intent in his initial draft was to establish the right of the United States of America to take a place 'among the powers of the earth' as a free and independent nation. The Declaration immediately points to 'the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,' setting up a case in which it could be said 'Nature's God' had established a basis of truth beneath their rationale for independence from Great Britain.
To that end, they affirm: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident.' Before we get to those truths, let's look at how they are known: by being 'self-evident.' Jefferson appeals to the potential reader of this declaration, and how any reasonable person might agree that it's beyond obvious '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.'
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Here's what's interesting. How self-evident is it that all of us are created equal? You could make a case from experience that it's evident some of us start with advantages, and it's been argued that this is the state of nature. But if a reader is tempted to go there, Jefferson has set you up to be tripped by a return to 'Nature's God,' pointing out that each soul is 'endowed by their creator with certain … rights.'
In 1776, it was an open question, just as it is to many today: does every human person, even all life, have an essence which is attached to or intrinsic within or endowed with an equal right to just treatment? In 1776, the vote was to affirm this somewhat radical concept, and it turns out the world was ready to affirm it in many locations around the globe (even if it's still up for debate in many quarters).
Those equally endowed rights, under law and in the light of heaven? They would be life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is no natural cannon fodder or appropriate victim class. Life is a right. So is liberty, and Jefferson's own vexed and mixed record on slavery is complicated by how he tried to put a criticism of slavery in his declaration, but they were all removed by the time of final passage. A failure of nerve, a lack of consistency, which we also remember, and continue to wrestle with.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller and preacher in central Ohio; he's been thinking about the 250th anniversary of 1776 for a while now, and you'll hear more about it. Tell him what you think an unalienable right is at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Knapsack: Reflecting on the Declaration of Independence
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