Declaration of Independence: Sheet Anchor of the Republic

The Declaration of Independence, which Abraham Lincoln called the “sheet anchor of the republic,”  spurred the articulation of American ideals when it summoned the radically democratic idea that government, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, exists to serve the people, rejecting the Old World doctrine that the people exist to serve the government. Consequently, American citizens have the patriotic duty, as well as the natural right, to keep their government in line, to prevent it from making mistakes and, when it does, to criticize the errors of its ways and demand corrections. Liberty and equality, the foundation stones of our nation’s creation story, and the underpinnings of the Constitution, remain the essential ingredients for happiness, worthy of the devotion of our energy and pursuits.

In remarks at Independence Hall in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln shared the roots of his political philosophy while reflecting on the cornerstone of the republic. “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” He added, admiringly, “I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time.” 

It was with good reason that Lincoln, as devoted a student of the Declaration of Independence as any American president, with the possible exception of its author—Thomas Jefferson—pointed to the courage of those who signed the Declaration.  The Declaration was an act of treason against the Crown, which prompted Benjamin Franklin to say, at the signing, “We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” The unity of the signers was reflected in the closing sentence: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The pledge of life, fortune and honor—essentially, all that a person has to offer—to support the Declaration, the premise  of which was a new republic and a vision of liberty and governance that would light the way for the rest of the world, what Lincoln, like Jefferson, called the “best hope for mankind,” represented a defining moment in our nation’s political education, a document that has informed America’s worldview, goals and pursuits. “The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society,” Lincoln observed.  He applauded Jefferson for introducing into a revolutionary document “an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, day-to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”

Lincoln’s exposure of the fragility of the republic, a reality with which he was painfully familiar as president, engaged in an epochal battle to save the Union, reminded him then, as it reminds us now, that the Declaration of Independence, which emphasizes at its core the sanctity and centrality of the individual and the  corresponding right to self-governance, is not universally shared. Jefferson’s elegant prose stirs most readers, from its majestic opening— “When, in the course of human events”—to its inspiring, yet sobering close—“we mutually pledge our lives”—but some in high office are not persuaded by its appeal to the unalienable right of equality and its sequential expression in the Constitution of “the equal protection of the law.”

In 1838, in his prescient address to the Young Men’s Lyceum, Lincoln addressed the threats to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He focused on the danger to America from within America, which he perceived to be the real threat, not dangers from abroad. That internal threat reflected not only the citizenry’s retreat from the duty to honor and exalt constitutional principles and the rule of law, but also the failure of governmental officials to perform the duties of their office. The result, predictably, would be constitutional failure.

As we approach the year- long celebration of the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we hear Lincoln’s voice, but ask, do we heed his warnings?

David Adler is president of The Alturas Institute, created to advance American Democracy through promotion of the Constitution, civic education, equal protection and gender equality. He has lectured nationally and internationally on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. His scholarly writings have been quoted by the US Supreme Court, lower federal courts and by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.