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From the Declaration of Independence (currently located at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.):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, --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 effect their Safety and Happiness. To what extent does the political philosophy behind the Declaration differ from previous conceptions of organized government? How is the view of "divine right of kings", as presented by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), different from the view of the Founding Fathers?
The Declaration of Independence removed the king as mediator between God and the masses. It was a bold new egalitarian approach that diluted sovereignty down to the common people where it had never been before. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 diluted the sovereignty somewhat as Parliament assumed the role of the sovereign, but the House of Commons still ministered to a king representing his interests disproportionately over the will of the masses. Additionally, the king still held considerable influence over his ministers which perpetuated the court ideology of the Tories who remained the sycophants of the nobility. The Declaration did away with nobility….noblesse oblige…..and the imposition of the will of the One. It was a radical departure from all other notions of balanced government, and is still evolving to this day.
I’d agree with what Don said. The Declaration of Indpendence wasn’t just our way of saying “we’re not part of England anymore.” It was a declaration of man’s independence from the suffocating paradigms that preceeded it.
It's instructive that the Founding generation were all intimately familiar with the Crown and the concept that all sovreignty rested in it, yet roundly rejected an Ameican King or even titles of nobility. That says something. It says that they were fully committed to the experiment of self-government, freedom, responsibilty, self-reliance, and constitutional restraints on power. They wanted nothing to do with the old ways, even though they all could have benefitted immensely from the royal institutions or their American equivalents if they so chose.DonaldBaker wrote:The Declaration of Independence removed the king as mediator between God and the masses. It was a bold new egalitarian approach that diluted sovereignty down to the common people where it had never been before.
Sounds like the natural progression after the Great Awakening. 😀
I think you've seen my other site, Great-Awakening.com, where I talk about that:
Rather than believing that God's will was necessarily interpreted by the monarch or his bishops, the colonists viewed themselves as more capable of performing the task. The chain of authority no longer ran from God to ruler to people, but from God to people to ruler. The children of revivalism later echoed this radicalism and popular self-righteousness in the American Revolution, when self-assertion turned against the tyrannical ways of George III.
I believe the relationship of events between the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution (via the GA) is evident.Yes the influence is very noticeable, but not from the children of the revivals. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent, Samuel Davies, and Theordore Frelinghuysen might not have all approved of independence. Most of them I suspect (because of their devotion to Calvinism) would have been loyalists being the more conservative minded ideologically. The real radicals politically would have been Charles Chauncy, Ezra Stiles, Timothy Dwight, and Jonathan Mayhew who were either critics of enthusiastic religion or were traditionalists in other ways. James Davenport and Isaac Backus, however, fit neither mold. Edwards loved British society and made friends with George Whitefield and Isaac Watts. The connection to see, though, is the ideological rhetoric that was crafted during the Great Awakening later used in a political way. The fight for religious tolerance and tithing to Standing Order churces by dissenting sects, created the skeleton for the arguments colonials used in refusing to pay taxes without representation. All I’m saying is that the Great Awakening evoked subtle changes in political thinking, but the primary figures of the revivals might have been just as likely to be loyalists as patriots. Perhaps the French and Indian War did more to accelerate the maturation of the Awakening’s influence than anything else. But that is another thread for another day. 😉
DonaldBaker wrote:Yes the influence is very noticeable, but not from the children of the revivals. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent, Samuel Davies, and Theordore Frelinghuysen might not have all approved of independence. Most of them I suspect (because of their devotion to Calvinism) would have been loyalists being the more conservative minded ideologically.
Then how would you reconcile this with the severing from the Church of England? It seems that the "children of the revivals" that you mentioned are merely children - literally, because I believe they'd be in the next generation - of the likes of the Wesley brothers who founded the Methodist church circa 1703 in England. It seems that Whitefield, Edwards, et al would have at least been open to political rebellion, even if not bloody revolution. Speaking of the Wesley brothers, this gives me an idea for a thread on another Great Awakening comparison I'll post in the GA topic.
