Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality

Unlike other belief statements, such as Catholic prayers, the Founding Fathers declared their beliefs to be “self-evident.” They rely not on God but on “their own powers of perception and reasoning” (160). One kind of self-evidence is what we perceive—we can know things about nature from immediate observation. Another comes from reflection and logic. We can string together a set of premises to draw particular conclusions. Allen’s example is that “Bill Gates is a human being. Human beings are mortal. Bill Gates is mortal” (161-62). The Declaration operates similarly when it tells us that human beings have certain inalienable rights and that they use governments to secure those rights. It follows from here that when governments fail, the people can and should establish new ones. This works best when we insert a “missing premise”—that “all people have a right to whatever is necessary to secure what they have a right to” (166). Namely, the right to government contains within it the right to revolution because revolution allows people to secure appropriate government for themselves.

Allen continues her exploration of mathematics and logic and their contribution to our understanding of the Declaration. Equations can show us that elements that look distinct are in fact the same—three times four is not identical to two times six, but they express the same fundamental truth.