Discussion questions (answer one). Be sure to relate your answer to the passages in Readings on Citizenship Download Readings on Citizenship(pp. 24-26).
The Declaration of Independence states that it is “self-evident that all men are created equal.” Throughout American history, every step toward greater equality and human dignity — civil rights, women’s suffrage, the labor movement etc. — has been in the name of that principle. But is it really true to depend on such an abstract notion? “Self-evident truths” belong in geometry more than in human life, don’t they? Couldn’t we find a better basis for human dignity in something else? Maybe social evolution? Or a consensus about our “core values” as a society, and “who we are” as a people? Or maybe just compassion and an ability to feel other people’s pain?
Abigail Adams seemed think that the principles of the Declaration of Independence applied just as much to women as it did to men — not as subjects rebelling against the British crown, but in relation to their husbands. Men, it turned out, were just as corrupted by their social power as public officials are by political power. So what kind of new relationship does she introduce between men and women? Why is it actually good for men and their “tyrannical” nature? How does that relationship shape a people’s ability to be free and self-governing? And is she right?
The Declaration of Independence claims that people have the right to “alter or abolish” their government if it fails to protect their natural God-given rights — i.e. the right of revolution. For this reason, after hearing about Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts, Thomas Jefferson claimed: “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical” (Letter to James Madison, January 20, 1787). The American Revolution of 1776, he thought, was only the first: Americans of the future should have more revolutions of their own. So is that true? Are revolutions really necessary for liberty? If so, how frequently should we have one? Or if Jefferson is wrong — if the goal is stability, peace and prosperity — what is the point of that passage in the Declaration of Independence?
