From equality and the rule of law to the collapse of egalitarianism.

AuthorHarrigan, James R.
PositionEssay

In considerations of the American regime, the language of egalitarianism is never far from the surface. The reason for this is clear enough: the United States is the only nation the world has ever known to be founded on the principle of human equality. Thomas Jefferson's language in the Declaration of Independence, although familiar, bears revisiting. Echoing or even channeling John Locke, he wrote:

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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Not only has this assertion become American dogma or even, in the words of Pauline Maier (1997), "American scripture," it has resonated internationally as well, serving as the explicit or implicit framework for every revolution that has been undertaken from 1776 to the present. From the antislavery, women's rights, and civil rights movements in the United States to

the Israeli Declaration of Independence (which in an early draft began with the words "When in the course of human events" [Rozin 2009; Shachar 2009]) to Ho Chi Minh's assertion of Vietnamese independence in 1945 (which he began with the sentences "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" [Ho 1945]) the logic of the Declaration has been profoundly influential both at home and abroad (Rudoren 2016).

But although the first two paragraphs of the Declaration have undoubtedly been the most influential portion of the document, both in the United States over time and throughout the world, the strength of this influence obscures the comparatively longer portion of the document, the list of offenses committed by King George III against the American people. This middle section comprises roughly two-thirds of the total document and in some respects is a great deal more important than the theoretical underpinnings that begin the document in so high-minded a fashion.

In this section, Jefferson presents twenty-seven grievances against George III on the part of the colonies. These grievances range from the king's exercise of tyrannical authority to Parliament's inappropriate and unchecked meddling in colonial affairs to specific actions undertaken that the colonists felt amounted to acts of war. The list represents the sum total of colonial unhappiness in 1776 and includes grievances that had been festering in most cases for a number of years, dating to at least as early as the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765. None of them, in the minds of the colonists, represented "light and transient causes," as Jefferson put it. Rather, they represented "a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably ... a design to reduce [the people] under absolute Despotism." Indeed, all twenty-seven grievances can be summed up as violations of the rule of law itself.

Further, the second part of the Declaration provides a clear illustration not only that the law must apply to all but also that some laws are so offensive to the notion of equality that they represent an appropriate justification to break the ties that bind politically and to do so with violence.

Although the principle of human equality undoubtedly animated the revolution, it was combined with an appreciation for the rule of law, a combination that drove the conversation both before and after independence had been won. On the eve of the revolution, Thomas Paine made the case most clearly in his widely read pamphlet Common Sense, which was perhaps the single greatest summation of the American mind as the colonists moved toward revolution. He wrote:

But where, say some, is the King of America? I'll tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Great Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honours, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the Charter; let it be brought forth placed on the Divine Law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so tar as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. (1776) The law is king in America, and indeed it is and must be so in any free country. And in the years that followed America's revolutionary period, a distinct and protracted effort was made to operationalize this concept. The principle of equality stood directly behind every attempt to bolster the rule of law at the expense of the rule of men.

John Adams was the first in the American colonies to refer to a government of laws when he described republics as "a government of laws, and not of men," in his seventh Novangelus letter of February 6, 1775 (Adams 1775), and he brought this thought to bear as primary author of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, which began with a bill of rights. In that bill of rights, Adams borrowed liberally from Jefferson's language in the Declaration, writing: "All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and...

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