From Declaration to Constitution: Tracing America's Founding Principles

A fourth-grader's question about how the Declaration of Independence influenced the U.S. Constitution reveals the complex relationship between America's founding documents. Dr. Beienburg explains how the Declaration's principles and criticisms of British rule directly shaped constitutional provisions and informed the development of state constitutions.

• Declaration enumerated specific problems with British rule that the Constitution directly addressed
• Many provisions in the Bill of Rights respond to grievances listed in the Declaration
• Declaration first influenced state constitutions, which then informed the federal Constitution
• Two competing models emerged: Pennsylvania (direct democracy) and Massachusetts (structured republicanism)
• Constitution aimed to create sustainable self-government, not just immediate democratic response
• State constitutions often include philosophical language similar to the Declaration
• Constitutional principles can be traced through "genealogies" across generations of documents
• Some ideas in modern state constitutions can be traced back to founding-era documents and even European philosophers like Machiavelli

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Speaker 1 0:46

My name is Tenley , from Iowa and I am in fourth grade . My question is how did the Declaration of Independence influence the US Constitution ? So on a last episode and I will link it in our show notes , we kind of alluded to how the Declaration influenced the US Constitution and we have Dr Weinberg back to kind of talk about this , because they are two different documents . One is a again declaration that we're separating from Britain , but then the US Constitution is our framework for government . So , dr Beinberg , how did the Declaration of Independence influence our US Constitution ?

Speaker 2 1:27

Right . So there's a way to think of it as having a direct influence and a way to think of it as having an indirect influence

Fourth-grader Tenley's Constitution Question

Speaker 2 1:32

. So the direct influence is that the Declaration of Independence describes basically in its opening sections , sort of what a proper kind of government is trying to achieve , and later on , in the longer part , as we talked about before , it's a long list of discussions of how the British government , from the perspective of the colonists , is no longer achieving those ends Particular objections , and we'll talk about those in a second . So that's the sort of direct connection is here's what we think a government should look like , here's what we think the British government is failing to do ,

Direct Influences on the Constitution

Speaker 2 2:13

and so therefore , when they're writing the ? U , the US Constitution , they have both of these in mind . So in some ways you can think of , many of the structures of the US Constitution are directly installing corrections to what the British government had been doing during the revolution . So , for example , as we talked about one of the themes , I would argue this is something of a controversial take , but I would argue that the American Revolution is fundamentally a question of local government .

Speaker 2 2:40

The first several objections of the Declaration of Independence , and a few others sprinkled throughout are basically critiques of the British government for making it functionally difficult to straight up , impossible for the local colonial legislatures to meet , act and govern , to govern the people . And so at its core the US Constitution is structurally one about decentralized power , and we'll talk more about how that connects to the Articles of Confederation . They certainly recognize they tilted far too . They tilted too heavily toward local government with the Articles . But the Constitution , when they're fixing that , doesn't just simply say and therefore we're overturning that altogether . They say here's basically a couple other checks we have to put on the states , here's a couple other powers we need the feds to have . But it still fundamentally maintains that idea of local government from the Declaration of Independence . So we see that , as we talked about a little bit before , the Americans had understood British liberty to require effectively independent judges , which was something that existed in England but that had been sort of lost in translation to the colonies . So Article 3 creates protocols for independent judges holding terms during good behavior . That's a phrase that literally comes from British law the Act of Settlement of 1701 , if I recall correctly where that gets implemented . But the Declaration of Independence protests that that isn't being implemented in the colonies . So the US Constitution implements that .

Speaker 2 4:11

So there's a critique as well in the Declaration of Independence . The phrase is really

State Constitutions as Intermediaries

Speaker 2 4:16

fun , but it's effectively a critique of overbearing bureaucracy . He meaning King George , although in many ways this is Parliament has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance . There's this sort of free-ranging bureaucracy that seemingly is hassling us , and so the constitution sort of creates restrictions on those kinds of things . So those are in some ways . And then obviously many of the sections of the Bill of Rights , the civil liberties guarantees , our responses to objections in the Declaration of Independence , ordering large bodies of armed troops among us . That translates pretty clearly to a third amendment , not using appropriate trial by jury , and so on and so forth , fifth , sixth amendments . So we see lots of structures and civil liberties carried over in that sense .

Speaker 2 5:10

But another way that I think the Declaration of Independence influences the US Constitution is that the Declaration of Independence is often there is sort of an inspiration to the state constitutions . In some of the cases the state constitutions actually parts of them , precede the Declaration of Independence , because the Continental Congress , as they were again , they didn't just come up with this and say well , we're mad today , so we're declaring independence . They've been kicking around these debates for years , and so they had said to the colonies you know , let's get ready for independence , which means you colonial governments are now going to be basically state governments . So start thinking through what your state constitutions are going to look like before we pull the trigger and actually declare independence . And so the Declaration of Independence , a lot of the language , a lot of the logic , gets translated first into those state constitutions .

Speaker 2 6:06

Because , again , most government , their understanding , is going to happen at the colonial or , in turn , state level . And so that's where you need to build your judges , you need to build your civil liberties guarantees , and so lots of those things in the Declaration of Independence translate initially to the state constitutions . And , and when you know about 10 years later , they're drafting the US Constitution , the founders of the Constitutional Convention is able to look around and say , ok , what are the constitutions that are happening in the United States ? Which are the ones that we think are working really well and which are the ones that we think are working not so well ? And even within those , what are the parts of them that are working well ?

Speaker 2 6:49

And so as I tell my students . In some ways the US Constitutional Convention , or particularly Madison's commentaries on it in the Federalist Papers , as I say , are almost subtweets of the Pennsylvania Constitution . These are the places they went wrong . Conversely , it largely picks up much of the Massachusetts Constitution right . Those end up being sort of the two predominant models in the sort of period between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution the Pennsylvania model and the Massachusetts model . But in some sense both of them are attempts to translate the Declaration of Independence into governance . The Pennsylvania Constitution really , really , really emphasizes the idea of democracy , or I should say and I choose that word carefully because it is very , very , very responsive Whereas the Massachusetts Constitution very much takes the idea of the people are sovereign , but you need structures instead of just giving the people what they want immediately . So we need to guarantee there's stronger protection of judicial independence in Massachusetts than there is in Pennsylvania Again . So that's one where you can see the Declaration of Independence have a way through . So the US Constitution very much is .

Speaker 2 8:05

Again , I will confess I'm somewhat impatient with the scholars who say it's a repudiation . The Declaration of Independence was creating this wonderful vision of self-government by the people , and then evil . James Madison swooped in to create this sort of elite cabal that locks them out . And so they argue effectively that the Pennsylvania model was the model that should have continued , which is hyper-direct democracy with very weak structural checks . And I and Madison and others want to say , yes , we do care about government by the people , but it needs to be a sustainable government and not just anything that a majority immediately howls for . They get it five seconds later and then five seconds after that they change their mind , which is why Madison's vices the constitutional system of the United States .

Speaker 2 8:55

It's a really famous doc . It's originally basically an internal memo . He sort of writes to himself . But Madison goes through and explains you know , this is going to discredit self-government . If laws are just being changed too fast , they're not being thought through . This is going to in some sense rationalize those who say self-government doesn't work . These people are too stupid to govern themselves .

Speaker 2 9:17

Madison wants to say no , we actually can make self-government work , republican self-government work , but that means creating structures that sort of slow things down to make sure there's proper deliberation , to make sure that the different branches are built correctly to do the different things that they're supposed to do . But the legislature should be deliberative and slow and cautious and an executive should be efficient in executing the laws , whereas in Pennsylvania they didn't really have much of a difference there . So Madison very much , I think wants to , with the US Constitution , say we really want to make self-government work . That's the thing that we saw in the Declaration of Independence and similarly , again , the Declaration of Independence on its own terms says we want to be deliberative and cautious about this .

Speaker 1 10:05

It's already in there .

Speaker 2 10:06

It's not just simply like the British government made us mad , we're going to throw a tantrum

Pennsylvania vs. Massachusetts Models

Speaker 2 10:10

and leave immediately , which you basically can do with the Pennsylvania Constitution originally , Not secede in the sense that the people they're mad about something and they immediately get it . So I think that the US Constitution very much is a sort of faithful translation of the Declaration of Independence , both directly and again kind of mediated through the state constitutions that themselves draw on a lot of the principles of the US Constitution .

Speaker 1 10:38

You talk about a lot of the constitutions for the states that were you know they were already colonies . Is there influence later on , like as states are coming in ? So perhaps the great state of arizona , the 48th state ? Do we see the declaration in later state constitutions ?

Speaker 2 11:04

yeah . So one of the things that , uh , I would say in a more mediated way . So one of the things that again I alluded to , the fact there ends up being sort of two basic models at the founding one or the other . So , for example , the Pennsylvania Constitution is floating around when the Constitution , when the Continental Congress , is meeting and delegates from Georgia pick that up . Later , vermont , which is sort of its own quasi-independent thing at this point , they pick it up

State Constitution Evolution

Speaker 2 11:50

as well . So the Pennsylvania model gets copied in those Massachusetts gets copied by others . So the New Hampshire Constitution of 1784 picks up a lot of Massachusetts .

Speaker 2 12:00

But then a few years later , after the US Constitution largely tracks Massachusetts , pennsylvania itself rewrites its constitution to follow the Massachusetts model , to follow the Massachusetts model , and so as subsequent US or state constitutions come online , they very heavily borrow from what other state constitutions do , and there's actually kind of fun ways where you can track this through . So there's a line that doesn't come from the Declaration of Independence per se , but in the Arizona Constitution , one of its earlier sections , arguing frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is sort of necessary to a free government . That's a line that comes from the Washington State Constitution , which in turn comes from a long list of intermediate state constitutions which comes from the Virginia Declaration of Rights , which is an inspiration written by George Mason , which is an inspiration to the Declaration of Independence right . So you do see these interesting sort of through lines through that . But many of the state constitutions do borrow from each other as sort of this again with distinctive local varieties , based as what we would see in our sort of system of decentralized federalism . So they tweak things , but they often will borrow from particularly their neighbors which have similar problems or other areas that might have sort of similar climates or political cultures or something like that .

Speaker 2 13:28

So I mean , one of the things that I think we often do lose sight of is that the US Constitution is not the only part of the American constitutional tradition , that really they are complementary , that the state constitution is supposed to do some things and the US Constitution is supposed to do others . And so you do see , state constitutions do include a lot of the more sort of theoretical kinds of language , like the Lockean sort of social contract stuff , that the US Constitution skips pretty much all of that . It pretty much just is here's what the structure is , here's what the rights are , because state constitutions are supposed to be sort of the primary governing document of what most of the time politics and society are kind of doing . They have law . Particularly the early ones have long political theory discussions .

Speaker 2 14:19

So you do see , in Arizona's is a little thinner than others , one or two or three sections that are sort of theory and it jumps to the rights , but others have sort of long discussions that look like the kind of lead-in of the Declaration of Independence , like what's the purpose of government , what's the purpose of rights , what are they supposed to do ? So you see that inspiration in thinking through what are the basic political values of our society , which you see sort of in the Declaration of Independence . That will translate through the state constitutions but not in the US Constitution , not because it's a betrayal but because it's doing something different . The US Constitution is supposed to implement a few specific foreign policy

Constitutional "Genealogy" Through Generations

Speaker 2 15:02

, interstate commerce kinds of things , but it's not supposed to be sort of a be-all and end-all of political society in the way that they think the state governments will be much more influential . So again , you sort of see the Declaration of Independence translated some of its parts into the US Constitution and some of its parts into the state constitutional tradition .

Speaker 1 15:22

I would actually be a really fun lesson for teachers to do is take their state constitution and do like a genealogy almost , Because if we took Arizona , what I'm hearing is like the seventh great grandfather of the Arizona constitution is the Virginia Declaration of Rights . Because we can kind of trace that .

Speaker 2 15:40

Which you can go back one more step . George Mason takes the phrase . He doesn't cite him by name . I can't remember the phrase . It was like the celebrated Florentine or whatever it is , but he actually says it's from Machiavelli . Like the celebrated Florentine or whatever it is , but he actually says it's from Machiavelli . So my political theory , nerd colleagues . So Mason thinks Machiavelli is the best political philosopher ever , which is something of a spicy take , Not Montesquieu .

Speaker 2 16:03

Everybody else likes Montesquieu , but Mason's really into Machiavelli , but he takes that phrase from Machiavelli , I think , in the discourses on Livy , as I recall , so you can even take that one farther back . So that's one of my favorite examples of this . Is like , literally , you know , political theory , western save ideas that the founders had imbibed to Mason through , as you said , like seven generations of state constitutions to Arizona , which is the last of the contiguous state constitutions which , again , in some sense this is a conversation . It's not just the US Constitution by itself , but it really is a conversation of a broader political set of traditions .