The Declaration and Democratic Writing

Model UN  -- to whom do people owe allegiance?

 For next time, read Allen through ch. 45.

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

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

Example from the recall campaign

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.”

"to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them"

Spinoza -- TJ himself was a Deist. Locke: "The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges everyone, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life,health, liberty or possessions."

•  King’s concept of natural law
•  Compare and contrast to Jefferson? – Editors added more God -- why?

 a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

• Address to the whole world (France, in particular)
• Impel (Allen, pp. 115-116) – to be pushed