The Organization of the Declaration
 The
Continental Congress appointed a committee
consisting of John Adams, Bejamin Franklin, Roger Sherman,
Robert Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson to draft the
Declaration. All of these men except Franklin were lawyers
or judges by profession, but even Franklin had studied and
written extensively about law. Although Congress gave the
work of drafting the Declaration to a committee, Thomas
Jefferson was the Declaration's principal author. Perhaps
because Jefferson and most of his fellows on the committee
were lawyers, the Declaration is written in the same way
that a judge writes a decision in an important court
case.
The
purpose of a judge's written decision is to resolve a legal
issue, that is, to answer the legal question
presented by the case. The judge's answer is called his
conclusion. For the judge's conclusion to be valid,
it must be supported by an analysis that applies
valid laws, called legal rules, to the facts of the
case. This careful method of legal writing is called
IRAC, short for Issue, Rules, Analysis, and
Conclusion.
The
issue, the legal question the Declaration addresses, is
whether the citizens of the thirteen colonies should
"dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them" to
Britain, and "assume among the Powers of the Earth" a
"separate and equal Station."
The
Founders began the Declaration in the most forceful way
possible, by putting the answer to the question of
independence in the very first sentence. Independence was
not a maybe, it had become necessary. To prove that their
conclusion was valid, after the Declaration's first two
paragraphs the Founders submitted the facts of the case "to
a candid World." The facts consisted of the 27 complaints
against "the present King of Great Britain" we examined on
Page 2 (click if you want to go
back and look at the complaints again). The complaints
demonstrated that the King's actions established a "History
of repeated Injuries and Usurpations" that made him "unfit
to be the Ruler of a free People." The King had violated the
rules that determine what is right and wrong in the
relationship between a free government and its
citizens.
But
what rules did the Founders say established this standard of
right and wrong, and justified our assuming a separate and
equal station?
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The First
Paragraph of the Declaration
When
in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary
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 eqaul Station to which the Laws of Nature and
of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to
the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the
Separation.
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The Final
Sentences of the Declaration's Second
Paragraph
The
History of the present King of Great-Britain is a
History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all
having in direct Object the Establishment of an
absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this,
let Facts be submitted to a candid
World.
The 27 complaints
follow
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The Final Sentence
of the Declaration's Fourth Paragraph
after the 27
complaints
A
Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act
which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler
of a free People.
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