by Sandy » Mon Jul 04, 2011 10:17 pm
The Declaration was quite a document for its time. I have a major in history with graduate study in constitutional law and government, but it wasn't until about two years ago that I visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia for the very first time. No class could convey what that twenty minute visit, standing in that narrow hallway between that small legislative chamber and the court room where British law was enforced, taught me. Those men were literally sitting just feet from a room where, had they been caught, they would likely have been sentenced to death for treason, and the government that was represented by that court was in complete military control at the time. There was no context for what they were doing. It was a stab in the dark, literally, and the outcome of it was far from certain. Interpreting their clear intentions by what they wrote, with the overlay of 235 years of history since then, isn't easy. That's why, in that same room, with the hindsight of both a long war for independence, and a failed, loose confederation of independent states until 1789, the document that emerged reflected the need for continued change, amendable and flexible in its interpretation.
Many of the things which emerged in the constitutional government of the United States were reactions, not only to the rule of the British monarchy, but also to those things which hadn't worked out very well in the colonial history of America, either. Religious freedom in 1789 was much further along than it had been in 1776, as was the relationship between government and the economy. Likewise, the failed confederation of the Articles of 1781 factored into the definition of "states rights" and federalism in the constitution.
If you haven't visited Independence Hall, I would highly recommend it.