Has America Lived Up to Its Declaration?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” These ringing words are found in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, proclaimed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776 by the Continental Congress. Several of the men who signed it went on to become the framers of the Constitution of the States.

In the 235 years since that day, the event has been marked by fireworks, parades, family outings and self-satisfied speeches praising America. Although I bow to no one in my love of our country, I think Declaration Day might be better used in examining to what extent we have kept the promise of the Declaration and to what extent we have failed.

To start with, there was a statement in the Declaration that clearly a large number of the signers did not believe: that all men are created equal. Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration, was a slave owner. Washington was a slave owner who even pursued a runaway slave who disappeared in Philadelphia during his presidency, and twice sent his nephew to New Hampshire to recover her and worked out a false deal with her promising to free her on his death--a deal he could not make because she belonged to the estate of Martha’s first husband. (Fortunately, the slave turned the deal down and died 55 years later still a free woman.) Four of the first five presidents were slave holders. Some had guilty consciences about slavery, but none felt compelled to free their slaves during their lifetimes.

Sad to say, America has never really lived by the principal that all men are created equal. “Men” was narrowly interpreted to refer to sex rather than mankind, so half the population was excluded from the vote and had very few rights until the 19th Amendment became part of the Constitution in 1920. (A few states had permitted women to vote earlier.) Although we were taught in school that America is the great “melting pot,” the fact is that successive waves of immigrants were scorned and discriminated against. Think of the Irish, the Slavs, the Italians, the Jews and the Chinese among others. Even today, Hispanics whose families have lived in this country for generations are often described as “wetbacks.”

We tend to think of New England as being the birthplace of American liberty. It is true that the Pilgrims came to America to escape religious persecution, but that did not stop them from persecuting anyone who dissented from their prevailing view. Indeed, the United States does not quite come off as the land of liberty. We have about 4 percent of the world’s population, yet 25 percent of its total prison population. We lead the world in imprisonment. The latest statistics I can find say that 743 out of every 100,000 Americans are in jail. The country with the next highest number? Russia, at 577 out of 100,000. Surely this cannot be because we commit more crimes than any other population, or, for that matter--to speak bluntly--because somewhat more than 40 percent of our prison population is African-American. This is not a problem with our African-American population, but rather a problem with our system of justice. The real miracle is that given the history of slavery and Jim Crow in this country African-Americans commit so few crimes.

The word “liberty” does not merely mean freedom from incarceration. There is no liberty in poverty, in foreclosure, in hunger, in unemployment. There is no liberty if the ownership of mass communications is the exclusive province of the wealthy. Free elections mean little if our population is uneducated and uninformed. For example, how is it possible to cut services to the poor and middle class rather than increasing taxes on the wealthy? In whose interest is that?

The notion that all men are endowed by their Creator with the right to pursue happiness is not evident in our society. We interfere with all sorts of personal rights related to happiness. We force women to bear children they do not want. We prohibit gay people from enjoying the rights and relationships that straight people enjoy. We impose religious dictates, despite a constitutional prohibition, on people who have different views. We prevent the use of drugs which alleviate pain to people who endlessly suffer from pain.

It must be said that despite these criticisms, the United States has made substantial progress toward achieving the goals set forth in the Declaration. We have sacrificed our blood and our treasure to preserve the world from tyranny. Very few of us regret that our ancestors came to this country. Whatever the faults we have with our country, there is no other place we or, seemingly, the rest of the world, would prefer to live.

In my view, we should all celebrate America on July 4, but we should work a lot harder on making it better.