Was the Declaration of Independence Plagiarized?
After reading, really attentively reading the Declaration of Independence for class the other day I realized it was practically a rip-off of John Locke's Second Treatise of Government. In the first paragraph the framers reference Locke's "Law of Nature" which is the idea that all men are born sovereign unto themselves outside of the jurisdiction of a governing system. One does not come under the control of the government without express consent. Consent being another of Locke's focal points. Even the most popular phrase in the Declaration, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is a direct nod to Locke's three essentials, life, liberty, and property (for those that know Locke, property makes Locke very happy).
The very nature of the Declaration of Independence, as I have stated in class, is at its core, Locke's vision brought to life. Locke depicts a system of the government in which, "all power given with trust for the attaining of an end, being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected, or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those who gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security" (Locke, 78).
I don't remember seeing a work cited page or even a footnote on the Declaration of Independence that mentioned that practically all of the background information was plucked from a 100 year old document. So not only did the authors of the Declaration of Independence commit treason but they also plagiarized one of the most important documents in American History.
The very nature of the Declaration of Independence, as I have stated in class, is at its core, Locke's vision brought to life. Locke depicts a system of the government in which, "all power given with trust for the attaining of an end, being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected, or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those who gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security" (Locke, 78).
I don't remember seeing a work cited page or even a footnote on the Declaration of Independence that mentioned that practically all of the background information was plucked from a 100 year old document. So not only did the authors of the Declaration of Independence commit treason but they also plagiarized one of the most important documents in American History.
posted by Kristian at 2:50 PM
9 Comments:
I think you have a really good point, Kristian. Though I don't know that I'd say that the Declaration was literally plagiarized, it definitely comes close at certain points and is very similar to the ideas Locke held. I actually remember my American History teacher in high school commenting on this. However, all ideas have to come from somewhere, right? Maybe they didn't see it as plagiarizing in their minds but as a simple following of Locke's ideas that were important to them as well.
This is a similar issue to a question we discussed in class: how revolutionary was the American Revolution? Clearly, many of the ideas from the Declaration of Independence were already written in other places (e.g. Locke). However, Locke never broke away from Great Britain and established a new experimental form of democratic government. Locke wrote about it and theorized. The Declaration of Independence put thoughts into action. So, in my opinion, the American Revolution wasn’t all that revolutionary in terms of ideas, but the actions taken by “Americans” in the 1700s were unquestionably revolutionary.
Haha, I remember discussing this subject in my Poli Sci class senior year of HS. I always thought it was ironic that while plagiarism is so heavily condemned at Duke and every other educational institution, our Declaration, one of the basic ideological foundations of the U.S. borrows heavily (if not directly) from the work of another. In my opinion, this is simply a reflection of how deeply the double-standard is entrenched in our political system -- for instance, as our leaders publicly condemn corruption, many of them are accepting funding from lobbyists or major corporations, etc.
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