Living History, Writing, and the Declaration

Toward the end of class on Wednesday, Nicole Jonassen will come in for a brief presentation on Model UN.  The UN raises the question: to whom do people owe allegiance?

This book is not just about the Declaration, but about political writing in general.

 "The past is never dead. It's not even past,"  -- William Faulkner

Two hundred and forty-six years have passed since 1776.  In one way, that seems like a long time.  In another, it's not.  If you measure a lifetime at 70 years, then barely three and a half lifetimes have passed since the Declaration.

In the weeks ahead, we shall talk about the Civil War, which cast a shadow well into the 20th century.  A CMC professor named Orme Phelps was the son of a Civil War veteran.  As I mentioned last week, I knew him when he was an emeritus professor.

In 1938, FDR addressed veterans of Gettysburg.  (Do the math:  there were still people alive who fought in the battle.)  Notice his words in the context of contemporary debates about Confederate monuments.



A 1956 TV quiz show featured a purported eyewitness to the Lincoln assassination:

A TEXT WITHOUT A CONTEXT IS A PRETEXT

"Yet if the Declaration resembles a wedding, it bears an even closer kinship to divorce" (p. 94 of hardcover)

Annotated Declaration

Examples of democratic/group writing

• The Constitution
• Presidential speeches
• Supreme Court opinions
• Congressional markup

Functions of writing

• Performance
• Record-setting: memoranda
• Persuasion

Framing

To repeat: Allen on maxims and soundbites: "Here some more Latin is useful. The words `implicit' and `explicit' come from plicare, which means “to fold,” as when you fold your clothes."

• Back to Auden: "All I have is a voice/To undo the folded lie."
  
• The deleted passage on the slave trade:
• "MEN" -- a clue to Jefferson's meaning
• Its deletion is a clue to the politics of the time
• The significance of omissions: compare 2018 SOTU (at 9:25) with 2020 SOTU (at 2:15)

"The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America"

• Why states instead of colonies.
• Other examples of name changes: countries, historical figures, fictional characters.

 `When in the course of human events Latin cursus, meaning "flow" --a tide e-ventus "outcome"it becomes necessary .."

• Why course?
• “The course can be altered – with strenuous effort” (Allen, p. 111)

" for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with another and to assume, among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station"

• What is a “nation”? Shared cultural life, having or wanting their own government.
• What holds us together?
• What is a “station”? (Allen, p. 119) -- Latin for “stand.”