Our Declaration

Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality is a close reading of the Declaration of Independence published in 2014. Its author, Danielle Allen, is a classicist and political philosopher. Earlier in her career she received a prestigious “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation. She is currently a professor at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Study. In this work Allen combines personal narrative, academic training, and rigorous analysis of the Declaration’s wording and structure to argue that the text is fundamentally about the equality of all people. She insists that while most political philosophers treat equality and freedom as in competition—and most politicians focus only on the Declaration’s claims about freedom—a more complete and gradual reading reveals that equality is central. The text belongs to all of us, and the book is Allen’s effort to ensure that we reclaim it. At some moments Allen takes on the role of a memoirist, while drawing extensively on her training in political philosophy to unpack the Declaration and its claims about humanity. While she sometimes relies on historical accounts and sources, Allen relies primarily on the Declaration itself—making her work historically informed but ensuring it spans multiple genres and academic disciplines.

Allen’s interest in the Declaration is intensely personal. In the Prologue she argues that neglecting equality in favor of freedom is harmful to our political life. Later, she establishes that her own interest in questions of equality and freedom dates back to her childhood and dominates her life as a scholar. She brought this background to her teaching career and worked with underprivileged students in Chicago while teaching traditional undergraduates during the day. It was then she discovered that the Declaration of Independence is rarely read and often misunderstood.

Allen then moves from the personal to the historical. Specifically, the events in the 13 colonies that drove delegates to the Continental Congress to become increasingly convinced they needed independence from Britain. Allen argues that Jefferson, frequently credited as the text’s sole author, should be understood as one of a group of contributors. John Adams and Richard Henry Lee were equally devoted to independence, and spent much time talking and writing with each other about how to set up new governments and convince citizens that independence was both a right and a necessity. Jefferson wrote a draft of the Declaration, but others edited his words. The Declaration, then, is an example of what Allen calls “democratic writing”—words produced by a group to carry out a collective project. Editing and constant dialogue were fundamental to the Declaration’s production. Independence was not one act but a constant series of conversations and arguments.

Next, Allen moves on to a slow reading of the Declaration and its structure. In many ways this is a process of demystification, and Allen frequently relies on metaphor to explain how the Declaration works and what it says about human life. While Americans consider it to be almost sacred, Allen argues the Declaration is a memo—a piece of writing that announces a change in the world and defends the change as reasonable. Its language about separating from Britain is reminiscent of both marriage and divorce. The colonists announce separation from Britain, enumerate the reasons why the king is intolerable to them, and declare themselves pledged to one another.

In her sentence-by-sentence reading of the Declaration, Allen focuses on the colonists, and people in general, as political actors and participants in history who judged “the course of human events” and determined they need a new government. In carrying out this work, they created new institutions and a sense of community—the basis for existing as states in their own right. Allen’s view of equality is not equal power, or equal ability, but equal capacity to participate in shared institutions. She also considers whether the Declaration requires belief in a particular kind of God. In the end she argues that reason alone is sufficient for humans to recognize one another’s equality and independence. Similarly, humans have an innate capacity to access politics and secure their happiness, and it does not matter whether this capacity comes from God or nature—only that we recognize what sets human beings apart from animals.

One of the key aspects of Allen’s argument is her reading of the famous section of the Declaration about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” For Allen, these assertions function like the parts of a logical statement and prove that the right to happiness is the right all people have to participate in government and overthrow it when it fails to meet their needs. This was a radical departure for the time period, since most governments rested on the divine right of kings. This right to revolution was used sparingly, Jefferson argues, because most people are reluctant to pursue change until it is absolutely necessary.

Allen also provides a new interpretation of the Declaration’s lesser-known section, the grievances against King George III. She insists that it does not matter whether we are trained historians able to evaluate the claims or not. The list has a different function: It tells us how tyranny works, and how governments should function instead. George III was a tyrant because he did not protect the rule of law or the rights of his citizens to physical safety. He, unlike the members of the Continental Congress, did not seek or allow the free exchange of ideas—a reciprocity essential to functioning government. The grievances, like the Declaration, are an example of democratic writing: they were based at least in part on letters from ordinary citizens about their experience with royal officials.

Allen grapples not only with questions of religion and political philosophy but also morality and truth. The Declaration, however weighty its claims about equality, was written by slave-owners. Allen argues that humans make judgments and shape their lives based on ideas but also in response to their environments. The gap between ideals and reality often drives historical change. Just as people are slow to change their governments, they are slow to change their habits. Change ultimately happens when a new way of doing things appears both possible and desirable. Allen, like Jefferson, is both an optimist and pessimist about humanity’s capacity for revolutionary change.

She strikes a similar balance in her claims about the Declaration’s truth value. In its vision of government, all people can participate in judging events, whether life is going well for them, and change their political landscape if it is not. Similarly, all readers should evaluate the Declaration’s claims through reason alone—once readers have done this, they have proven that the Declaration’s claims about equality are true. Allen admits, however, that very few citizens have done this work, and that future generations will each have to embark upon it to truly preserve its legacy as our inheritance. Allen’s work spans genres and academic disciplines, but her fundamental concern is informed citizenship. She combines sharp analysis with deep emotion to ensure that we remain engaged with the Declaration of Independence as our inheritance.