by Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho
Sometime in 1975 I heard a guest on National Public Radio say that Theodore Roosevelt condemned Thomas Paine as “that dirty little atheist.” My curiosity was piqued because I assumed that the founders were Christians of one denomination or another.
I then decided to celebrate the 1976 Bicentennial by researching our founders’ religious views. I attended the Bicentennial on Philosophy in New York City, and my paper “Religious Liberalism and the Founding Fathers” was published in a book entitled “Two Centuries of Philosophy in America.” See nfgier.com/religious-liberalism for more.
As we celebrate our 250th birthday this year, I plan to write more on various topics, and my task today is to present a progressive view of the Declaration of Independence.
Paleo Conservatives such as Rod Dreher, J. D. Vance, and Doug Wilson believe that the European Enlightenment was a mistake, but in their rejection of these thinkers, they betray the “woke” foundations of our nation.
In my article “The Founders were Woke, Why aren’t You?” (nfgier.com/?s=woke), I traced the evolution of progressive ideas beginning with the Buddha’s rejection of the Hindu caste system and Jesus’ gospel to the poor, then the Greek and Roman writers, and finally to the philosophers of the Enlightenment.
Our founders were avid students of the Enlightenment, and they were determined to establish a secular republic, which was not only dedicated to a “more perfect union” free from one religion dominating another, but also a future where all people, without exception, could pursue “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Declaration is aspirational in intent and the Constitution with its provision for amendment is a living document. Those left behind in 1776—women and Blacks—eventually gained their rights. In his “I Have a Dream” speech Martin Luther King declared that the founders “signed a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.”
Englishman John Locke was a prominent Enlightenment philosopher who gave us our tripartite system of government with Congress, the Courts, and the President checking each other. Jefferson, however, made one significant change in Locke’s inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property.
In substituting happiness for property Jefferson was drawing on the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s concept of “eudaimonia,” usually translated as “happiness,” but best rendered, as Christopher Armitage does, as “human flourishing and the ability to live a full life on your own terms.” For Jefferson this was more important than economic gain.
In 1785, Jefferson wrote to James Madison that “the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate the natural rights” of the common person. He proposed that the poor pay no taxes, and he believed that the wealthy should be taxed “in geometrical progression.”
The Declaration of Independence is a grand statement of political philosophy, and when Jefferson writes “all men,” he means all persons regardless of citizenship or country of origin. To say that human beings are “illegal” is an offense to their natural being in the world. Their acts may sometimes be illegal, but they retain basic rights before the law.
I was inspired to write this column by Christopher Armitage, who challenges us to take Jefferson’s word “life” seriously. “If life is an unalienable right, and governments exist to secure these rights, then a government that lets people die of treatable illness when it has the means to save them fails the most basic obligation the founders laid out.”
Armitage urges us to take the word “liberty” seriously as well. He writes that “if liberty means freedom from coercion, it has to include the coercion of an employer who holds your healthcare hostage (or) who can fire you for organizing.”
If liberty means freedom from coercion, then that also means that a woman cannot be forced to carry a fetus, that, according to common law of early America, has yet to “stir in the mother’s womb” (starting at about 14 weeks). “Quickening” as a cut-off point for legal abortions was still recognized by many American courts until 1909. For more see bit.ly/4cSCBfQ.
What about Jefferson’s odd phrase “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” which does not sound like the biblical deity at all? That’s because English and American deists are the clear source of this phrase. For more see bit.ly/4p9fuAK.
Jefferson’s mention of “Creator” does not necessarily indicate the God of the Bible. Deists believed that God created the world, but the laws of nature are sufficient for all knowledge. They of course rejected the idea of any divine intervention or divine scripture.
Deist Thomas Paine believed that God’s “word” is nature itself. Many early American thinkers were religious progressives as well.
UI emeritus professor Gier taught philosophy and religion for 31 years. Email him at ngier006∂gmail.com.