(This essay is the fifth in a series of reflections on the meaning of the Declaration of Independence in honor of its 250th anniversary. The series will run until July 4, 2026.)
I. “We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. . .”
The final section of the Declaration gives answers that would turn into questions of their own. At the end of its argument, the Declaration declares that the Americans are indeed a “We”—the “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.” But the very form of this declaration forces us to ask, what unites these states?
The question boils down to the relation between the one and the many. The Declaration will not settle that old and abiding philosophical problem. But it must deal with it. For it admits not only the plural nature of the United States, but also the representative nature of the document as well. What justifies these “Representatives” to write on behalf of the American people? Why, and how, can so few speak in one voice for so many?
Related to the question about the unity of the states, then, is the issue of whether America as a whole is a democracy or a republic. Does the direct, popular will of the demos rule? Or are we governed by the deliberation of chosen representatives? Should the majority have its way, or should it submit to processes and virtuous persons that temper its will?
By naming its representatives, the America of the Declaration does not pretend to be a pure democracy. This is no government by referendum. If it were, the Declaration might never have happened. General opinion on independence was divided, with neither loyalists nor patriots capturing the majority. And the prospect of pure democracy, whereby all decisions would be made by direct popular vote, would have struck people in 1776 as so infeasible for such a large and populous territory as to be ridiculous.
Yet feasibility is less of an obstacle today. We have already amended our constitution to broaden the franchise. More and more states, including my home state of Louisiana and the nation’s most populous state, California, legislate by constitutional referenda. Our lawmakers and executives already function, from their foreign policies to their fashion choices, according to the carefully calculated whims of public opinion polls. And now we have the technology to facilitate rule by electronic ballot. Nothing is stopping us. In the face of this political momentum and technological possibility, we need to take seriously the Declaration’s emphasis on representation.
What is the virtue of representation? It is not that the representatives assembled in Philadelphia were “experts” in the “field” of politics. Most were well educated, but all were “amateurs.” Politics, by its nature, has no experts. It is an art, not a science, so it cannot rely on exact method. Further, it is an art about people, not things. And people have passions, desires unreasonable as well as reasonable, hopes and fears—none of which can be controlled by other people, though they can be steered. The right steering of people, like the right direction of anything living but only more so, requires constant attention and tender care much more than it requires force. For this reason, politics is only for amateurs, in the old sense of people who do something for the love of it.
At least at a large scale, by contrast, direct democracy is not about people. It is a matter of numbers, the tally of the votes. And the vote is not the essence of democracy. It is a symbol of democracy: a number standing in for a person and his momentary choice. And as we all know, a person’s choices are always limited by the options given to it on the ballot. These options are themselves determined by machinations over which people, as individuals, have little control.
A rule of “direct” democracy, then, is never direct. It is reductive. It reduces people and choices to numbers and binaries. It leaves no room for genuine action, action beyond the casting of a vote.
Representation guarantees that people will be governed by people and not by numbers. It is risky because the representative and the represented are not identical. They can, and will, disagree. Sometimes the opinions or interests of the representatives win out over those of the represented.
That is why trust is crucial in politics generally and in the American context especially. The act of trust which vests political power in a representative is itself an enactment of the American covenant. It is trust which institutes “among Men” a government “to secure these Rights.” The people entrust the upholding of the law, under the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” to human beings who deliberate and act. Representation, then, is the American way of solving the apparent contradiction between rule of law and rule of persons.
Representation bridges the gap between the few and the many. The question inevitably follows: is America a representative democracy or a representative aristocracy? Which really means: how much must representation adhere to the proportion and opinion of the population?
If we are a democracy, then representation must follow the numbers, and representatives must always give voice to their part of the popular will. But if we are a sort of aristocracy, then representation might not necessarily follow numbers: smaller states with smaller populations might have equal representation to ensure the rights of the minority. And representatives will be bound first to the virtues of their own consciences, not merely to the will of their constituents. Which is it?
The Declaration does not answer. The history following the Declaration—the long debates over the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution—prove that it didn’t. The riddle of democracy versus aristocracy is, rather, embedded in the document. So long as we adhere to the Declaration, we will always struggle to answer it. That struggle is proof of fidelity and vitality, not stagnation.
Nonetheless, the following section will give some important guidelines for struggling with the nature of representation. We must read on, a little more slowly.
II. “. . . in General Congress, Assembled. . .”
This is a “General Congress.” It speaks for the whole population, and it treats that population as one whole, one people. Therefore, it enforces the unified will of the people. For this Congress is “Assembled.” It is not self-assembling. The Founders did not gather on their own and then pretend to speak for the whole. They were sent and brought together by authorities beyond themselves.
While it does not use the phrase, the Declaration here speaks, through example, of a “federal” government that unifies and transcends the states, combining their many voices into one. The combination is not the harmony of a duet or a quartet, in which one can still hear the distinct individual voices. It is closer to a large choir, in which so many voices, even with their distinctions, combine that a new, single voice emerges. It is the voice of one, unified people. The “General Congress, Assembled” by the many, is this voice of the American people.
Such an arrangement combines democratic and aristocratic elements. It owes itself to the demos, the people, not to the aristocratic whims of the delegates. Yet its form of representation is not purely popular. For one thing, the representatives are few: there are only fifty-six signing Founders. And if you look at the number of delegates from each state and compare it to their populations, you’ll see a general but hardly exact sense of proportion. Pennsylvania and Virginia are well represented, while Rhode Island has the fewest delegates. But squint a little and you’ll wonder why Massachusetts and New York, comparatively, have so few and Georgia and Delaware so many. None is outright cheated, but some of these states could argue they were slighted. The Founders do not have in mind the mathematical rigor demanded by a strictly proportionate representation.
What matters is the decision of the Congress, assembled by the people, to make this very Declaration. This is not exactly democratic: opinion polls at the time, if they had existed, couldn’t have shown a majority for independence. The Declaration is aristocratic, even if it is meant to be representative. The few speak for the one, as they were assembled from the many.
The struggle to balance the few and the many remains. How then to mediate it? The following clause offers the way:
III. “. . . appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions. . .”
The balance between the will of the few and the will of the many is established by the Will of the Creator of both. Therefore, the representatives must appeal to the judgment—not of their people, not of the British, not even of the “Opinions of Mankind”—but of the “Supreme Judge of the World.” This Judge governs the world by the “Laws of Nature.” He creates all human beings as equals and endows them with “certain unalienable Rights,” and He has allotted each people its “separate and equal Station” in the course of time. Any nation which claims to be based on these “Laws of Nature” must, therefore, be accountable to “Nature’s God.”
These days, many are suspicious of this idea. An appeal to Divine judgment, beyond public or world opinion, seems like an evasion of accountability, an excuse of the few to do what they want. Many suspect the “Supreme Judge” is only the very little judge that whispers in the politician’s conscience. And consciences are often wrong and always can be bought.
These suspicions are too clever. We forget that the alternatives to appealing to the Divine fare no better. Would we rather our representatives appeal to their own reason, emotion, and prudence for judgment? Of course not. That would be to accept aristocracy.
What about accountability to public opinion? To some extent, yes. We assembled them to represent us. But we know that the many can be wrong just as easily as the few. Often enough there isn’t even a majority that could count as the many, only several minorities contending for power. Which of these should the representatives heed? Now it’s back to the prudence of the few, who need to decide which part of the public to align with.
Should the representatives then appeal to the judgment of the world, or maybe of history? I wonder how they’ll manage to arrange a meeting with Mr. Humanity or Mrs. History. These criteria face the same objection. There is no unified opinion of the human race. And the lessons of history are debatable. Rather than providing a standard outside the representatives themselves, appeals to humanity and history end up referring to their own judgment. Perhaps that is why they remain so popular with would-be aristocrats who don’t want to admit their ambition to impose their own will on others.
There is left one rock: appealing to the “Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions.” All that’s left is conscience. Today, we think of conscience as identical with subjective opinion. No one, we believe, can be wrong in expressing what he believes. That’s the opposite of what the Founders are doing by requesting divine judgment. They are offering the substance of their actions up for moral examination by the Highest Authority. By so appealing to God, the representatives acknowledge that everything right about their intentions is beyond themselves. It is not a matter of prudence, cunning, or personal preference. The few and the many are reconciled, then, in mutual, eternal accountability before the Judge Who is “their Creator.”
IV. “. . . do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies. . .”
Now, before the reader starts thinking that the Founders were some kind of theocrats, this very next clause puts that thought to a halt. The Founders do not invest their action with Divine Authority. They place their action before the judgment of Divine Authority. Nor do the Founders act on their own volition or prerogative. They are representatives, and they represent the “Name” and “Authority” of “the good People of these Colonies.” As far as human action goes, the people have the final word. Their work is indeed before the “Supreme Judge.” But it is their work based on their choices.
This is no small matter. The Declaration is not just a theoretical statement. It announces a political separation and a cause of war. The Declaration will set in motion the deaths of thousands. Children will spend the rest of their Christmases without their fathers, through no fault of their own. The people, no less than their delegates, and no less than the abusive Crown, are responsible for these consequences.
The “appeal to the Supreme Judge of the World” must be read in this light. The appeal, as such, does not presume the “Rectitude of our Intentions.” It does not assume that “God is on our side.” To the contrary, it admits the American cause may be unjust. The Americans cannot truly know they are right. At the same time, they recognize that they have a “duty” to act.
The contradiction cannot be solved, except by the One Who transcends politics. This One is “Nature’s God,” and He judges the world as He governs it. The God of Nature is also the God of History. Whether the Americans will prevail in securing independence, they admit, will depend on whether their cause is as just as they believe it to be. But they cannot know, because they are participants in history and not history’s guide and judge. Thus they will only know the “Rectitude of our Intentions” once the “Supreme Judge of the World” grants American independence through the course of history.
That judgment started with independence, but it has not yet finished. For history did not end on September 3, 1783, with the Peace of Paris. Indeed, it was only still beginning for America. It is always still beginning, still to be decided, because we, like the Founders, are participants in history and not its judges. We are not at the end but in the middle. We face the same judgment, and so we must make the same appeal. And this means that determining “the Rectitude of our Intentions” is still pressing on us as a historical task. The Declaration’s philosophy of history binds us; we cannot escape. Therefore we, just as much as the signatories, are responsible for the following Declaration:
V. “. . . solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES. . .”
A declaration is a strange thing. The philosopher J.L. Austin was fascinated by the fact that some sentences do things as much as they describe them. To borrow an example, “I now pronounce you man and wife” does not simply describe a situation but enacts it. Austin called these kinds of sentences “speech-acts.” The Declaration is one such speech-act. Here the Founders “solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be. . . ”
But Austin, or at least most of Austin’s readers, err in too-often concluding that speech-acts are only acts. The Declaration does not make that mistake. It publishes the fact that these United Colonies are, and it declares that they “of Right ought to be.” Description comes first and then is supplemented by prescription. The is takes priority over the ought, even as both combine into one declaration.
This isn’t a trivial question of grammar. If the speech-act is merely an act, then it depends ultimately on the will of the speaker. A declaration of that sort would resemble the manifestos of other modern revolutionaries. It would be a revolt in the name of what ought to be, but isn’t presently the case—against what actually is.
But by resting the ought on the is, this Declaration acts in conformity to reality, not in opposition to it. It reflects deference as much as resistance. Independence is a fact, not a mere aspiration. The Declaration declares that the time has come to recognize that this is so. Fidelity to reality gives the grounds to declare the change which in fact has already come on its own: “of Right” these “are” no longer “Colonies,” but “ought to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES.”
“Right” is where are and ought to be coincide. This coincidence is the foundation for this climax of the Declaration.
The American people now belong to free and independent states. They are no longer colonists but citizens of states. They ought to be so, but they also are so. Sometimes read as a precursor to modern anti-colonial movement, the Declaration actually warns against premature action. There can be no justified independence before the accomplished fact of a genuine people.
Alas, now the challenge of interpretation really begins. We thought the question of the few and the many was difficult. But that was only a prelude to the problem that follows: The one people belongs to “FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES”—free and independent of what? of Britain? of each other? of both? How can there be one people, united in one “General Congress” yet consisting of independent states? How can there be a United States? The grammar of it all is almost impossible to get right.
The question about the relation between the one people and the many states is perhaps the gravest question in America’s history. It is the question of federalism. As we face it in the Declaration, we do not have any subsequent context, whether the Constitution or the Civil War or any other part of later history, to help us answer. All we have is what has been exposited from the Declaration thus far.
Do we not yet have an answer? I think we do. But I will not be hasty. we should let the Declaration continue to press the problem, so that we can be sure to appreciate the difficulty:
VI. “. . . that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”
This set of clauses boggles the mind. It first “dissolves” the “Political Bands” between the United States and Great Britain. Simple enough, and consistent with the first sentence of the Declaration.
But it does not here call the United States “one People” as that first sentence would seem to demand. Rather, it takes great care to distinguish the one “State of Great-Britain” from the plural “Free and Independent States” of America. The distinction stresses the division, not only between America and Britain, but also between the States of America themselves.
How can that division be squared with the “one People” of the Declaration’s first sentence? It seems it cannot.
There are several ways to go from here, but all of them threaten to prove that the Declaration is a broken compass. The needle is spinning and wherever it points, we cannot judge from it how we are to find the American people. Are we now lost in the woods?
I think we can get back on track, but not if we look for a political way through the thicket. The Declaration’s description of what the States may do does not offer that kind of solution. As “Free and Independent States,” they may do all the things that independent political entities may each, respectively, do: commit war and peace, trade and tax, and so on. The plainest reading suggests these are states free and independent of each other and of Great Britain.
The reader might try once again to take comfort in the fact that later history has helped point the way. We wrote the Articles of Confederation, and then we wrote the Constitution to fix the Articles’ problems, and then we fought the Civil War to fix the Constitution’s problems. History, perhaps, has resolved the direction in the direction of national unity.
But none of this history was inevitable, at least not according to the logic of the Declaration. The Articles of Confederation had just as much backing from the Declaration as the Constitution. It was a matter of choice, and no small amount of force, that we replaced the Articles with the Constitution. Likewise, the force of iron and not of argument won the Civil War for the Union. I know full well how morally sensitive these issues are, so let me clarify at once that all these outcomes may well be the right ones. I am glad the Union won the Civil War, and I am thankful for the Constitution. Nonetheless, I cannot, as a matter of political logic, claim that the Articles of the Confederation were untrue to the Declaration while the Constitution was true. The Articles may well have been truer. Who knows? Contingent events, and not the Declaration, settled the thorny issue of federalism and states’ rights.
If the Declaration is read for itself, then it is clear that it does not give a political answer to the question of federalism. It is ambiguous enough to allow a unified-nation reading or a federation-of-states reading. Either choice would involve some question-begging. And neither choice can be said to have been proven correct, not even the one that history has, thus far, decided. For history is not yet finished, and America’s fate is not yet determined.
All we have before us is the Declaration. And it does not give us the easy answer we want. We want there to be some perfect system that brings all exceptions into agreement, accounts for all vulnerabilities, denies all contingencies. We want that, without realizing that that would amount to a kind of totalitarianism.
The Declaration gives a better answer. For it does not give us a political answer at all. The real answer, I argue, lies in its final sentence:
VII. “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
To answer the political question of the one and the many, the Declaration must give the final word to that which is beyond politics: faith and love. The Declaration concludes with a common theology, and a theology of community.
Earlier in these meditations, I briefly described the God of the Declaration as a God of Love, Who in Love desires the loving communion of creatures with their Creator. It is now time to state that claim more strongly: Love is the end of politics.
Love—at once the goal toward which politics moves and the limit that puts politics to an end—requires faith. Faith is “firm reliance.” The Founders avow, “for the support of this Declaration,” their “firm reliance on the Protection of divine Providence.” Though it was implied earlier, the term Providence is used here for the first time. The vindication of Love, and thereby “the support of this Declaration”—the stability of the American people as one people—depend upon Divine Providence.
What is the “divine Providence” in which the Founders put their faith? The Declaration has called God by four names: “Nature’s God,” the “Creator,” “the Supreme Judge of the world,” and now “divine Providence.” The first name is general, while the rest denote the three actions whereby this Nature’s God relates to the world.
Nature’s God is the “Creator.” He has created, and creates, all things of Nature. The wind which blows where it wills, the foxes with their holes, the birds who do not sow or reap, the lilies which neither toil nor spin. The bison which once grazed upon the plains of this country like a blanket on a sleeping child. The redwoods standing watch over the coast, guarding the continent as the winds pass through them from the West. The swamps in the South lying in the summer humidity as a silent canopy that serves as theater for the buzz of insects and the call of the mockingbird and, maybe, of the Lord God Bird who haunts the shadows still. The desert canyons, the northern isles. All of this—and us. The Creator has created all of us, equally, and therefore we are equal. He has endowed us with “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Yet this endowment was not just an arbitrary whim. The Creator has created this world according to the “Laws of Nature,” intending but not impelling all His creatures to find their good in obedience to these laws, and to their Creator. Some creatures do better than others. We do worst, and yet best, of all. Often, we fail to follow these laws. And yet we can discover these laws as laws, learn and know and receive both the law and the Lawgiver. And so we can glorify the “Laws of Nature” and “Nature’s God” as no other creature can.
This is our calling. And since we are called by the Lawgiver, we are responsible. And who else would be fit to judge us but the One Who created the laws? The One Who made the “Laws of Nature” is then the “Supreme Judge of the World” that is ordered by these laws. The Judge holds all to account, according to the measure of each. Human beings, He has endowed with right of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” and He will judge them accordingly. He will judge both governments and peoples revolting against governments, according to how well they “secure these Rights.” And He will judge most severely any who turn to tyranny and “absolute Despotism.”
This judgment is, as Lincoln later insisted, “true and righteous altogether.” It is not arbitrary. The Judge arbitrates by the Laws which intend the Happiness of their subjects. Their enforcement is not destructive of freedom, only of license. The dialectic of giving and receiving laws, obeying and disobeying, judging and being judged by the Lawgiver—this is the basis of our freedom. For it gives us the time and place to choose. To choose to follow our flourishing, and to face the consequences of our choices.
Finally, the Lawgiver and the Supreme Judge is the Provider. Not only does Nature’s God give us laws and hold us accountable to these laws. He acts on our behalf. He aids us in our obedience to the “Laws of Nature.” This is “divine Providence.” Because He is a good and lawful Creator, intending the happiness of His creatures, He will intercede for His creatures. He will act in history, mysteriously and inexplicably, in ways ordinary and extraordinary.
Such action goes beyond the law, beyond judgment. It is an expression of God’s loving concern. That is why readers who describe the Declaration’s theology as “deist” are wrong. The God of the Declaration creates, judges, and acts for the good of His creatures.
The Founders have a “firm Reliance” on the protection of this Providence. They do not appeal to the unimpeachable quality of their own judgment or actions. They can’t know whether they are right or whether they’ll succeed. They rely on Providence because they trust in a God Who will act for their good, because that good was the intention of their creation.
This is the faith of the Founders—of the few, of the many, and of the one American people. The unity of America has a “firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence.” Its unity is not political but, first, theological. It must be so. For the “course of human Events” has led to the establishment of this people, the “We” who “hold these Truths to be self-evident.” All “these Truths” have their foundation in “Nature’s God.” But the verity of these truths and the existence of the people who recognize them cannot be taken for granted. If the people continue, and if their unity persists, it will be because Providence continues to protect them.
But who’s to say this is right? Is God on our side? Is that all this flowery language is claiming? No. The Declaration is humbler than our suspicions give it credit for, even and especially when it is at its most theological. The Declaration relies upon, without claiming to speak for, Divine Providence. It impresses upon its readers the hope to be on God’s side, without the certainty that it is. It leaves us American readers today with the question of whether we want to be on the side of Nature’s God.
Leave aside what God thinks of us, for the moment. What do we think of God? As one people, how could we answer that question? Do we want to be on the side of the God described in this document? Can we take on the responsibilities as well as the promises that come with such a “firm Reliance” upon this God?
These questions are hard. Their stakes are high. But the questions of federalism and representation lead to this American faith. I can’t put it any other way. I do not put it in the form of any rigid creed. But it is striking that the Declaration claims that American unity is founded, in great part, upon the lawful, good intention of a Creator Who has made all human beings equal, Who judges the world by how well it strives to attain the unalienable rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and Who acts in history on behalf of all creatures pursuing the good that their Creator intends for the creation.
Once again, the Founders couldn’t know whether all this is true—and neither do we. You put your faith in someone or something because you find them worthy of venturing the risk. Nature’s God is good enough to trust. The “self-evident” truths are worthy to hold. Why? Reasons can be given but ultimately no reason is sufficient. Reason must eventually give way to desire—to wanting one’s good in the good of the other. Love, in a word. Love is the end intended by Providence, the fulfillment of the relation between the Creator and the creation. They want to be with each other. They found themselves on finding each other lovely. As Augustine said: republics are founded on their loves.
If America is the place where the people holds “these Truths to be self-evident,” then it is not just a place with a creed. This people holds these truths, not just because they think they’re right to do so, but because they love the others whose place and goodness and happiness they share. The mutual holding, then, is not just a creed, not an assent to propositions. Nor is it a simple contract. It is a covenant. A covenant is a pledge where faith is put to the purpose of love.
The Declaration of Independence ends with such a pledge. America begins with it:
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
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