The Declaration of Independence


[T]he Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth. . . . [and] laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.
John Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport at Their Request on the Sixty-First Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1837 (Newburyport: Charles Whipple, 1837), pp. 5-6.

From the day of the Declaration, the people of the North American Union and of its constituent states were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians. . . . They were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.
John Quincy Adams, Address Delivered at the Request of the Committee of Arrangements for Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence at the City of Washington on the Fourth of July 1821, Upon the Occasion of Reading the Declaration of Independence (Cambridge: Hilliard and Metcalf, 1821), p. 28.

The Declaration of Independence cast off all the shackles of this dependency. The United States of America were no longer Colonies. They were an independent nation of Christians.
John Quincy Adams, An Oration . . . on . . . July 4, 1837, p. 18.


David Barton writes:


[T]he [Supreme] Court’s actions have actually been illegal under the standards of original intent. Furthermore, they have violated the value system of “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” established in the Declaration of Independence.

Even though contemporary courts now regularly violate that legal standard, few today consider such violations significant for they believe the Constitution to be independent of the Declaration. This incorrect belief is of recent origin; in fact, it was rejected by earlier generations. As Samuel Adams pointed out:

Before the formation of this Constitution. . . . [t]his Declaration of Independence was received and ratified by all the States in the Union and has never been disannulled. (emphasis added)
Samuel Adams, The Writings of Samuel Adams, Harry Alonzo Cushing, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908), Vol. IV, p. 357, to the Legislature of Massachusetts on January 17, 1794.

For generations after the ratification of the Constitution, the Declaration was considered a primary guiding document in American constitutional government. In fact, well into the twentieth century, the Declaration and the Constitution were viewed as inseparable and interdependent—not independent—documents.

Perhaps the proper relationship between the Declaration and the Constitution is best understood by a comparison with the relationship between a corporation’s Articles of Incorporation and its By-Laws—the two documents vital to its legal existence. The Articles of Incorporation call the entity into legal existence, and the By-Laws then explain how it will be governed. However, the governing of the corporation under its By-Laws must always be within the framework and purposes set forth in its Articles; the By-Laws may neither nullify nor supersede the Articles.

Such is the relationship between the Declaration and the Constitution; the Declaration is America’s articles of incorporation and the Constitution is its bylaws. The Constitution neither abolished nor replaced what the Declaration had established; it only provided the specific details of how American government would operate under the principles set forth in the Declaration.

Today, as the knowledge of this interdependent relationship has been widely lost or ignored, many individuals complain of the difficulties arising from the fact that the Founders placed no explicit moral values or rights and wrongs into the Constitution. However, the Founders needed to place no values in the Constitution (the bylaws) for they had already done so in the Declaration (the articles of incorporation).

Is there proof that the Founders believed that the Declaration was the foundational document in our Constitutional form of government? The answer is an emphatic, “Yes!” Notice, for example, that in Article VII, the Constitution attaches itself to the Declaration:

Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the States present the seventeenth day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven, and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth. (emphasis added)

Furthermore, under the Constitution, the Founders dated their government acts from the year of the Declaration rather than the Constitution. Notice a few examples (emphasis added in each quote):

Given under my hand and the seal of the United States, in the city of New York, the 14th day of August, A.D. 1790, and in the fifteenth year of the Sovereignty and Independence of the United States. By the President: GEORGE WASHINGTON 4

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand. Done at Philadelphia, the 22nd day of July, A.D. 1797, and of the Independence of the United States the twenty-second. By the President: JOHN ADAMS 5

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed, and signed the same with my hand. Done at the city of Washington, the 16th day of July, A.D. 1803, and in the twenty-eighth year of the Independence of the United States. By the President: THOMAS JEFFERSON 6

Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at the city of Washington, the 9th day of August, A.D. 1809, and of the Independence of the said United States the thirty-fourth. By the President: JAMES MADISON 7

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 28th day of April, A.D. 1818, and of the Independence of the United States the forty-second. By the President: JAMES MONROE 8

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 17th day of March, A.D. 1827, and the fifty-first year of the Independence of the United States. By the President: JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 9

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 11th day of May, A.D. 1829, and the fifty-third of the Independence of the United States. By the President: ANDREW JACKSON 10 &c.

Additional evidence of the importance of the Declaration in our constitutional government is provided by the fact that the admission of territories as States into the United States was often predicated on an assurance by the State that its constitution would violate neither the Constitution nor the principles (i.e., the value system) of the Declaration. For example, notice these enabling acts granted by Congress for various States:

[T]he constitution, when formed, shall be republican, and not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the principles of the Declaration of Independence. COLORADO 11

[T]he constitution, when formed, shall be republican, and not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the principles of the Declaration of Independence. NEVADA 12

The constitution, when formed, shall be republican, and not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the principles of the Declaration of Independence. NEBRASKA 13

The constitution shall be republican in form. . . and shall not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the principles of the Declaration of Independence. OKLAHOMA 14

In the Declaration, the Founders established the foundation and the core values on which the Constitution was to operate; it was never to be interpreted apart from those values. This was made clear by John Quincy Adams in his famous oration, “The Jubilee of the Constitution.” Adams explained:

[T]he virtue which had been infused into the Constitution of the United States . . . was no other than the concretion of those abstract principles which had been first proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. . . . This was the platform upon which the Constitution of the United States had been erected. Its virtues, its republican  character, consisted in its conformity to the principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and as its administration . . . was to depend upon the . . . virtue, or in other words, of those principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Constitution of the United States. 15

Generations later, President Abraham Lincoln reminded the nation of that same truth:

These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” . . . . They erected a beacon to guide their children, and their children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. . . . [T]hey established these great self-evident truths that . . . their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew that battle which their fathers began, so that truth and justice and mercy and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land. . . . Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence . . . let me entreat you to come back. . . . [C]ome back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. 16

The interdependent relationship between these two documents was clear, and even the U. S. Supreme Court openly affirmed it. At the turn of the century (1897), the Court declared:

The latter [Constitution] is but the body and the letter of which the former [Declaration of Independence] is the thought and the spirit, and it is always safe to read the letter of the Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. 17

The Constitution cannot be properly interpreted nor correctly applied apart from the principles set forth in the Declaration; the two documents must be used together. Furthermore, under America’s government as originally established, a violation of the principles of the Declaration was just as serious as a violation of the provisions of the Constitution.

Nonetheless, Courts over the past half-century have steadily divorced the Constitution from the transcendent values of the Declaration, replacing them instead with their own contrivances. The results have been reprehensible—a series of vacillating and unpredictable standards incapable of providing national stability.


4. James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1897 (Authority of Congress, 1899), Vol. I, p. 80, August 14, 1790.

5. Richardson, Vol. I, p. 249, July 22, 1797.

6. Richardson, Vol. I, p. 357, July 16, 1803.

7. Richardson, Vol. I, p. 473, August 9, 1809.

8. Richardson, Vol. II, p. 36, April 28, 1818.

9. Richardson, Vol. II, p. 376, March 17, 1827.

10. Richardson, Vol. II, p. 440, May 11, 1829.

11. The Statutes at Large, Treaties, and Proclamations of the United States of America, George P. Sanger, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1866), Vol. XIII, p. 33, Thirty-Eighth Congress, Session 1, Chapter 37, Section 4, Colorado’s enabling act of March 21, 1864.

12. Id. at Vol. XIII, p. 31, Chapter 36, Section 4, Nevada’s enabling act of March 21, 1864.

13. Id. at Vol. XIII, p. 48, Chapter 59, Section 4, Nebraska’s enabling act of April 19, 1864.

14. The Statutes at Large of the United States of America (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907), Vol. XXXIV, Part 1, p. 269, Fifty-Ninth Congress, Session 1, Chapter 3335, Section 3, Oklahoma’s enabling act of June 16, 1906.

15. John Quincy Adams, The Jubilee of the Constitution (New York: Samuel Colman, 1839), p. 54.

16. Abraham Lincoln, The Works of Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Debates, John H. Clifford, editor (New York: The University Society Inc., 1908), Vol. III, pp. 126-127, August 17, 1858.

17. Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway Company v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150, 160 (1897).