POLS 2301 – The Declaration of Independence is the statement

Second, in your own words (but using proper grammar), in the next three pages, analyze and address the following:

The Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. It announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer under British rule. Furthermore, it announced the formation of a new nation—the United States of America.

The second sentence of the Declaration proclaimed:

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.

With the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson and the Second Continental Congress had represented to the world that the new nation believed that equality of men was so apparent that it was “self-evident”. However, when the Constitution was drafted and then eventually ratified, there was no mention of equality of men anywhere in it. The closest the Constitution comes to referring to equality is in the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868. The Fourteenth Amendment contains a clause stating that “no state shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In other words, the closest the Constitution comes to guaranteeing or advocating equality is the Fourteenth Amendment’s declaration that the states must provide all people equal treatment under the law. Jefferson was referring to political “equality” in the Declaration of Independence and the Congress was referring to the legal system in the Fourteenth Amendment’s mandate that the states do not deny equal protection to persons within their jurisdiction.

Explanation & Answer

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