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=Explain the influence and ideas of the Declaration of Independence and the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson.=




 * The image to the right is John Trumbull's Painting of a Drafting Committee Presenting the Declaration of Independence to Congress. **
 * ** This image is found on the back of the two dollar bill. **

** Topics on the Page **

 * Overview of the Declaration **
 * Primary Sources **
 * Timelines **
 * Multimedia Resources **
 * Key Ideas in the Declaration **
 * ** John Locke's Influence **
 * ** Jefferson's Political Philosophy **
 * More Declarations **
 * **Declaration of Sentiments (1848)**
 * **United Steelworkers Declaration of Independence (1936)**
 * **Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)**
 * **Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1956)**
 * **A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace (1996)\**
 * The Declaration in a Global Perspective **
 * Haitian Declaration of Independence (1804)
 * New Zealand Declaration of Independence (1835)
 * Declaration of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945)

**//Focus Question: What ideas and events influenced the writing of the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson's political philosophy?//**

 * Overview of the Declaration**

"The Declaration of Independence does not have the force of law; the Constitution establishes the shape of government, and the limits and boundaries of the freedom it protects. The Constitution does not specifically recognize equality in the way the Declaration does, except perhaps in the Reconstruction Amendments. . . The Declaration remains the outstanding example of the spirit, as opposed to the letter, of U.S. law."
 * Quoted in __ The Declaration: A Primary Sourcebook __, Teaching American History Professional Development Project, Fall River Public Schools and Bristol Community College, p. 1


 * [[image:Screen Shot 2017-02-24 at 12.30.24 PM.png link="http://www.lsrhs.net/departments/history/ShenM/Site/MA_classwork,_handouts_files/Declaration%20of%20Indep.%20-%20MA.pdf"]][|Go here a lesson plan to create]** a simplified version of the Declaration of Independence

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 * [|The Declaration of Independence: "An Expression of the American Mind"] --a We The People Lesson Plan
 * Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence
 * Learn about The Committee of Five, what influenced Jefferson's writing, and the impact of the Declaration


 * 5 Obscure Facts About the Declaration of Independence

**Primary Sources:**
 * **[|Text of the Declaration of Independence] (1776)**


 * **Malden, Massachusetts Declaration of Independence** (May 27, 1776)


 * **Vermont Declaration of Independence** (1777)


 * **Text of the British Reply to the Declaration of Independence (1776)**


 * Text of the Texas Declaration of Independence (1836)

Monticello Classroom Image Gallery
 * Explore images of the Declaration of independence, maps explaining the Louisiana Purchase, portraits of Jefferson, and more!
 * Can you find a primary source that really interests you and try to analyze it historically?
 * Slide on How to Analyze a Primary Source


 * [[image:timeline2_rus.svg.png link="@https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/timeline-jeffersons-life"]]Timeline of Jefferson's Life**
 * From birth to death, learn about the important events in both Jefferson's private and public life


 * Timeline: The New Nation**
 * Highlights and summarizes key events from 1783-1815
 * also does the same from before 1783 and all the way up to the present


 * Multimedia & Interactive Websites:**

Thomas Jefferson and His Democracy: Crash Course U.S. History
 * [[image:Screen Shot 2016-03-06 at 3.33.37 PM.png]]Click on Ages of Revolution: How Old Were They on July 4, 1776? **to find out the ages of the key participants in the American Revolution on July 4,1776. More than one dozen of the signers of the Declaration were under 35 years old.
 * ** [|Creating the Declaration of Independence] ** is an interactive website from the Library of Congress with links to primary source documents that reveal the origins of key ideas in the document.
 * [|Understanding the Declaration] video from YouTube
 * Crash Course's review of the Declaration of Independence
 * [|America the Story of Us: Declaration of Independence] A video from the History Channel miniseries off of YouTube.
 * History's Declaration of Independence Interactive!
 * History's Declaration of Independence Interactive!

WATCH: Liberty's Kids: The First Fourth of July

Thomas Jefferson for Kids




 * [[image:primary_sources.PNG]]Text of William Penn's [|Concessions and Agreements of the Proprietors, Freeholders, and Inhabitants of the Province of West New Jersey], 1677. **


 * This document established a representative democracy with freedom of religion, assembly and trial by jury 100 years before the Declaration of Independence. **

See also the [|Founding of the Quaker Colony of West Jersey]

**Key Ideas in the [|Declaration of Independence]**:

 * Stated that men have "inalienable rights" that the founding fathers felt had been violated by Great Britain
 * Believed that everyone "endowed by their Creator" had the right for "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
 * Stated that the people have a right to cut ties with a government that they feel is unjust
 * Stated that the colonists had endured sufficient amounts of intolerable acts that deemed their separation from its mother country justifiable
 * Listed the acts and laws that Great Britain had passed that many colonists disagreed with
 * Stated that the British should not be surprised by the colonies' announcement because they had been warned numerous times that their acts were intolerable


 * John Locke and influences on the Declaration of Independence**

[|Locke's Political Philosophy]
 * [[image:john-locke.jpg width="176" height="250" align="left"]]Some argue that the declaration was in some ways inspired by several great thinkers who had considered republicanism before the creation of the Declaration
 * One of these thinkers was John Locke, who believed in "social contract" or the right the people have to govern in order to maintain social order - includes giving up what he believed to be excessive rights
 * Locke wrote that the people could dismiss a government that did not provide support for their natural and social rights: life, liberty, and property - property was a right derived from labor
 * His ideas were strongly influential on the Declaration; Jefferson slightly edited Locke's natural rights theory to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness because many colonists did not own property


 * For info on others who influenced the founding of the American states, check out this video on Jean-Jacque Rousseau.


 * Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson**
 * Believed in limited powers on the federal level
 * Wanted to ensure that small, local governments were capable of keeping the federal government accountable
 * His political philosophies on restraining the federal government were greatly rooted in the fears that many colonists had following their experiences with Great Britain's controlling governing strategies. Many colonists, and even early Americans, remained fearful that the United States would become a monarchical society mirroring England's
 * Believed that all men should be educated and politically informed
 * Imagined a smaller groups of educated elites ruling their local governments

For more on Thomas Jefferson, see
 * United States History I.22 for material on his Presidency
 * Grade 5.29 for material on the Louisiana Purchase

For more information about the //Declaration// and Thomas Jefferson, check out Hans Eicholz book //Harmonizing Sentiments//
 * Slavery on Jefferson's Monticello Plantation
 * For another perspective, read the Smithsonian's essay on Jefferson and Slavery

Check out TED-Ed's video on the misconceptions surrounding the Declaration of Independence.

If teachers would like to supplement their lessons on the Second Continental Congress and the //Declaration of Independence//, the HBO miniseries //John Adams// contextualizes the period quite well (even if some of the scenes are somewhat historically inaccurate). In any event, the //Declaration of Independence// resolution and subsequent proclamation scene showcased its importance in changing the mission of the Revolution.

To learn about Mary Katherine Goddard, the one woman whose name appears on the Declaration of Independence, click here.
 * For more information about the women behind the signers, click here.

Declaration of Sentiments (1848)


The Declaration of Independence was used as a model by Elizabeth Cady Stanton to forthrightly demand that the rights of women as right-bearing individuals be acknowledged and respected by society in the Declaration of Sentiments.

Click here for a two-day lesson plan on Seneca Falls and how women in the 19th century manipulated the Declaration of Independence to gain more rights for women!

To read the Declaration of Sentiments, click here.

To learn more about the achievements of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, click here.

United Steelworkers Declaration of Independence (1936)
We Are Americans! The Homestead Workers Issue a Declaration of Independence by 1936

Early Attempts at Abolishing Slavery
 * How Jefferson ironically owned slaves, tensions leading to the Civil War, and more!

**Declarations of Independence Around the World**
The Declaration of Independence in a World Perspective


 * **More than half of the countries now represented at the United Nations have a founding document that can be called a declaration of independence **

There have been three major periods of declaring independence:
 * the years from 1776 to the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe;
 * the immediate aftermath of the First World War and the breakup of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires;
 * and the decades from to 1945 to 1979, when 70 newly independent states emerged from the wreckage of the European colonial empires.

Haitian Declaration of Independence (1804)
 * Haiti**
 * Haiti's Founding Document Found in London, New York Times (April 1, 2010)

New Zealand Declaration of Independence (1835)
 * New Zealand**
 * Signed by a number of native Maori chief, this document proclaimed sovereign independence of New Zealand
 * Background info on its importance


 * Vietnam**
 * Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam** (1945)

Declaration of Independence. Retrieved April 5, 2007, from The National Archives Experience Web site: http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration.html John Locke. Retrieved April 5, 2007, from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Web site: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/ Thomas Jefferson. Retrieved April 5, 2007, from The White House Web site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/tj3.html
 * Works Cited:**
 * //John Adams//. Retreived February 19, 2010 from Youtube website:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrvpZxMfKaU