"The Declaration of Independence" by Justice Clarence Thomas

Justice Clarence Thomas Remarks at the University of Notre Dame | C-SPAN.org -video

Justice Clarence Thomas: 2021 Tocqueville Lecture, Transcribed – Reason.com -article

Justice Clarence Thomas_ 2021 Tocqueville Lecture (otter.ai) -transcript/audio

Excerpt: "This university has been a stalwart of American academia, and one of the universities we revered from afar in Savannah, Georgia during my youth. It stated mission has been unwavering, the pursuit of truth for its own sake. And its inspiration has been divine; Jesus Christ as a source of wisdom, in Whom all things can be brought to its completion. ... Our neighbors and those in our daily lives, taught us that God loved us equally. And that America stood for it that same ideal, even though it had failed to live up to it. Despite this failure, our Christian duty was to still love our country, even as we objected to its evident shortcomings. This was more than a belief. It was a way of life.

As I matured, I began to see that the theories of my young adulthood were destructive and self- defeating. After recognizing that I was adrift. What I realized more than anything else, is that I needed to regain common sense and judgment and what I had jettisoned. I had rejected my country, my birthright as a citizen, and I had nothing to show for it. Perhaps that is the ultimate destination of nihilistic ideologies. The wholesomeness of my childhood had been replaced with an emptiness, cynicism and despair. I was faced with a simple fact that there was no greater truth than what my nuns and my grandparents had taught me. We are all children of God and rightful heirs to our nation's legacy of civic equality. We were duty bound to live up to obligations of the equal citizenship, to which we were entitled by birth. On the morning of April 16th 1970. After returning from a riot, I stood outside the chapel at Holy Cross, and ask God to take hate out of my heart. I use this background to set the stage for my later and more in depth encounter with the declaration of independence in the mid 1980s. At that time, having run agencies and seeing how the federal government actually worked, I became deeply interested in The Declaration of Independence. I had hoped it would bring some clarity to the cacophonous world in which I found myself studying the founding. Though. Studying the founding, however, thought more like a return to familiar ground, the ground of my upbringing. The declaration captured what I had been taught to venerate as a child, but had cynically rejected as a young man. All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. And so declaring the Declaration of Independence did not propose to have discovered anything new. Its truths were self evident. They were beyond dispute. They were a priori in the society of my youth, and by the School, home and in the culture they were given. And as I rediscovered, the God given principles of the Declaration, and our founding, I eventually returned to the church, which had been teaching the same truths for millennia, that the declaration set forth self evident truths was no accident. The founders quite frankly, didn't have the time or the mandate to reinvent the wheel or the world. Between April and July 1776. The fervor for the for Independence was palpable throughout the colonies. The colonies, their counties and towns and even trade associations. Were drafting their own declarations of independence. The late historian Pauline Maier estimated that there were 90 such declarations during this time frame. Though not all were specifically denoted as such.

These lesser known declarations typically began with lists of grievances against the British Empire. Among them with George two thirds rejection of the olive branch petition, Great Britain's use of Indian tribes and German mercenaries to wage war against the colonies and Parliament's prohibitory act cutting off all trade between the colonies and England. The declarations then asserted that these usurpations were at odds with man's invaluable rights and privileges, to quote a Rhode Island declaration, or the first principles of nature to quote a declaration from Pennsylvania. Thus, to maintain inviolate our liberties and to transmit them unimpaired to posterity, as one Maryland declaration put it, separation from Great Britain was the only remaining course. When the Continental Congress convened in spring 1776. The colonists did not need to be reminded of their grievances or the righteousness of their cause. Their declarations made their points clear, rather, what they sought was leadership from a united Congress. As another Maryland declaration explained, national independence could be achieved only upon a close union and continental Confederation. Yet when Thomas Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia on May 14 17th 1776, he was torn and arguably did not want to be there. The Commonwealth of Virginia was about to debate its constitution, and Jefferson had spent weeks preparing a draft for the Commonwealth consideration. But Jefferson due to illness had been the last of the Virginia delegation to arrive in Philadelphia. So he was chosen to stay behind in Philadelphia, while the other delegates headed back to Virginia. When fellow delegate George wife left for Williamsburg, Jefferson tuck the copy of his draft constitution and White's baggage, Virginia cribbed from Jefferson's proposed preamble, but not much else. In Philadelphia, Congress tasked Jefferson and his committee of five to prepare the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson submitted the committee's draft to Congress, a little more than two weeks after receiving the assignment. John Adams later recounted that Jefferson had drafted the document and only a couple of days. Jefferson was a busy man and June 19 in 1776. He oversaw multiple committees regarding Canadian affairs drew up the rules and regulations for congressional debates, and participated in other matters. Moreover, Virginia was operating with a skeleton delegation, providing little opportunity to spread the word around. Nevertheless, Adams urged Jefferson as busy as he was depend to drive, as it would be better for a more measured Southern Gentleman, rather than a divisive, independent minded New Englander to take the lead and drafting and promoting the Declaration.

As time was of the essence, Jefferson drew heavily from two sources, the preamble of his draft of the Virginia constitution, and the recently enacted Virginia Declaration of Rights. Jefferson's preamble included many of the grievances against King George, that up at that ultimately appeared in the Declaration. Likewise, the Virginia Declaration of Rights already had declared men equally free and independent, and endowed with the inherent rights, including the right to pursue, obtain and obtain happiness and safety. So ultimately, Jefferson did not propound a new political theory, often the he wasn't even introducing new language. Rather, he reiterated what his fellow countrymen already believed, and what they had already repeatedly set out in their own declarations. There was no time or appetite for a new theory of American independence. Even the words in the Virginia document, were not original. The American founding drew upon centuries of British history, most notably the British Declaration of Rights of 1689. That declaration like the British declarations of the centuries prior had three basic parts, one to raise grievances against the cane, another to declare the rights of Englishmen and the third to fashion a government to protect those rights. The American Declaration of Independence adopted the very same structure. And so doing the declaration made clear that like much like the English Declaration of Rights, it was a Constitutional document that set out a foundation for government. It was a clarion call to the new Americans. You are men of innate and civic equality, who are now duty bound to defend your new country and deed.

Once published, the Declaration was distributed not only among the colonies, but also to each commander of the Continental Army. What followed was a revolution and the founding of a nation. The later adoption of our Constitution did not consign the Declaration of Independence to a preparatory status. To the contrary, the Declaration remains central to and often preeminent in the American project. As Frederick Douglass later put it, the Declaration of Independence was a ring bolt to the chain of our nation's destiny. America's fight against the most glaring contradiction, the peculiar institution of slavery, immediately put the ring boat to its greatest test. From the beginning, the founders understood that slavery violated the national call to equality. James Madison wrote in his notes during the Constitutional Convention, where slavery exists, the republican theory becomes still more fallacious. Governor marks likewise condemned the nefarious institution as the curse of heaven, on the states where it prevailed. In fact, because many of the founding fathers were so deeply ashamed of slavery, they refuse to include the word slave in the original Constitution. Slavery now appears only once in the 13th amendment that abolished it. Nevertheless, slavery persisted for eight decades after the ratification of the Constitution. It was the rot at the core of our country's Foundation, to some that made America irredeemable William Lloyd Garrison the fiery abolitionists called the Constitution, a covenant with death and an agreement with as hell, he refused to vote and call for the dissolution of the Union. He would even burn copies of the Constitution during his speeches. In his view, America was a slaveholding nation, and there could be no compromise with the evil of slavery.

Others of the era, however, were unwilling to give up on the American project. equal citizenship was a black man's birthright, and to give up on America was to concede that America's blacks never were equal citizens, as the Declaration of Independence had promised them to demoralize freedmen and slaves in that way, as Frederick Douglass argued, served only to increase the hopelessness of their bondage. The real goal, Douglass repeatedly made clear was to convince Americans that the country was unmoored, but not lost. But many Americans, even those who did not live in the south, or themselves own slaves, undermine Douglass's message. Take for instance, another Douglas of the of that era, Stephen A. Douglas, the Illinois senator touted an odd brand of popular sovereignty. In his view, each territory had the right to determine whether to permit slavery within its border. When confronted with the simple, clear and direct language of the Declaration, declaring that all men were created equal. Douglas responded in 1857 by arguing that the text did not mean what it said. to him. The declarations famous opening meant only that, quote, British subjects on the continent were equal to British subjects born and residing in Great Britain. Thus, he reduced a universal truth to a narrow national one. A large group of Illinois citizens were dismayed by Douglass's attack on the Declaration of Independence. So they invited a young lawyer to respond to Douglas in Springfield, Illinois. That man, of course, was Abraham Lincoln, who became perhaps the Declarations greatest proponent and advocate. Lincoln conceded that the declaration did not assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying equality nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. But man's unequal station meant only that the dream was deferred, it remains to be attained.

As Lincoln explain the Declaration, propose a standard Maxim of equality for free society, which should be familiar to all and revered by all, constantly looks to constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening in its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. To Lincoln, this promise of equality was not merely important to the nation. It was foundational, there was no American nation without the Declaration of Independence. A year after his debates in Springfield, Lincoln made this strikingly clear. He, he declared, think nothing of me. Take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever, but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me you choose, if you will, but heed these sacred principles. You may not you may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. Unfortunately, President Lincoln would later pay that ultimate price. So to what almost 700,000 Americans, decades of racial strife followed by Time and again, the Declaration of Independence remained our national North Star. Or as Pauline Mayer describes it, our American scripture. We did not surrender our inheritance as equal men endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. Neither slavery nor Jim Crow defeated us. We recognize it's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared decades ago that the magnificent Words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

The history of our nation is our shared struggle to live up to that promise. It is a slow, arduous battle, but we have yet to fail. Today, there's a notable pessimism about the state of our country, and cynicism about our founders. There are some who would even cancel at founders. We are all aware of those who assert, much like garrison, that America is a racist and irredeemable nation. But there are many more of us, I think, who feel that America is not so broken, as it is adrift at sea. Some of you come from my generation, you remember reciting the pledge of allegiance, the Fourth of July celebrations, and the shared belief that our nation was destined for greatness. Others of you are younger, you lived in the twilight of that life or feel nostalgia for a world that you've missed, or you don't remember that all. In all cases, we sense among as an American spirit we cannot quite capture. We sense amidst the noise and din telling us that truth does not exist, that there is something true, something transcendent, something solid, something that pulls us together, rather than divides us.

As I said, my wife and I this summer, were inspired when we saw in the RV parks, the people who still hold these values and who still believe, as they flew proudly so many flags in the RV parks, I lay no claim to the answer or to the gospel. But this I do know for whatever it is worth, the Declaration of Independence has weathered every storm for 245 years. It birthed the great nation, it abolished the sin of slavery, and it endeavored to address its effects. While we have failed the Declaration, time and again and the ideals of the Declaration, time and again, I know of no time when the ideals have failed us. Ultimately, the Declaration and doors because it articulates truth, it was not a grand philosophy contrived by clever academics. It came from aniseed and shared values. unlike so many of the theories of more recent vintage as Lincoln taught us, the declaration reflects the noble understanding of the justice of the Creator, to his creatures, and the enlightened belief that nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on and degraded, and in bruited by its fellows. The declaration simply recounts what the church has taught for millennia, and what we once universally accepted as a given, all men are created, and all men are created equal. No force on earth can take away what God has given us. Thus, I leave you with this thought. The Declaration of Independence may or may not be the American Scripture, as Pauline Maier's book is entitled, but establishes a moral ideal that we as citizens are duty bound to uphold and sustain. We may fall short. But our imperfection does not relieve us of our obligation. My nuns and my grandparents lived out their sacred vocation in a time of Stark racial animus, and did so with pride with dignity and with honor. May we find it within ourselves to emulate them. Lincoln put it best as in his Gettysburg Address. "It is rather for us to be that here, dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead, we find increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dad will not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people by the people, for the people shall not perish from The Earth." May we as a people, and a nation endure and prosper. May God bless you. May God and may God bless and preserve our great country. Thank you and go Irish.".......

(Q & A follows...)