Running Head: DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE U.

S CONSTITUTION 1

Analysis of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution

Abdulaziz Alghamdy

Lynn University
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE U.S CONSTITUTION 2

Abstract

The essay gives a clear analysis of the Declaration and the Constitution of the United

States. The Declaration of Independence was a statement written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776

and was a way of seeking sympathy of the international community for the colonies cause of

turning against their mother country by highlighting their grievances against the British Colony.

According to the declaration, it’s the people’s power to decide the government that should be in

power as well as overthrow the government that they feel to not fully serve in accordance with

their rights. To avoid the existence of a tyranny government, the constitution divided the powers

of the government into three arms namely: the legislative, the executive and the judiciary which

overlap in the functions to ensure each branch of the government imposes checks and balances

on the other branches. There are some lines of similarities that the power of the government is

drawn from the people but the Constitution further limits powers of the government through the

introduction of the Doctrine of Separation of Power. The two doctrines basically work under the

same basic principle to ensure the rights of the people are observed and preventing tyrannical

rule by the government giving power to the people decide who rules them and limiting the

powers of the rulers.

Keywords: Declaration, Constitution, people’s power, important concepts and

government arms.

Introduction

The Declaration of Independence was a statement written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776

for the purpose of expressing why various representatives in different colonies desired to be

independent. Primarily, Declaration of Independence was a way of seeking sympathy of the

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE U.S CONSTITUTION 3

international community for the colonies cause of turning against their mother country by

highlighting their grievances against the British Colony (Hamowy, 2000). The underlying idea

contained in the Declaration is that all men are equally created and the power of the government

is drawn from the people which can be used as an inspiration for the democratic values of a

country. These ideas are expressed in the ideology of ‘Popular Sovereignty’ by America whose

idea and purpose is to serve the governed whose ideas are in turn expressed by the

representatives they elect. The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4th, 1776 and

served as America’s official birthday. Even though the Declaration was the inspiration for the

country’s democracy, it didn’t put forth the actual system of the American government but

instead laid down a foundation for the adoption of the constitution which was formed to function

in accordance to the ideology by creation of government whose powers were controlled by the

constitution so as to avoid the incidences of a tyrannical government.

Important concepts

One of the important concepts cited under the Declaration is Inalienable rights. Under

the Declaration, “All men are … endowed by their Creator with inherent & inalienable Rights,”

this in this case refers to the rights that we are not in a position to give up even if we desired to

do so. The term ‘Inalienable’ as initially drafted in the Declaration was later changed to

unalienable by a copyist as found in the modern draft of the Declaration and the Constitution that

drew the concept of inalienable Rights from the Declaration. Liberty is one example of an

inalienable rights identified in the Declaration which means that even if we signed a contract to

be slaves, we wouldn’t be obliged to keep it and nobody would be entitled to our services as

slaves because our right of liberty protects us against any sort of enslavement (Wilson,

2017). However, although the ideology of inalienable means that these rights cannot be deprived,
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE U.S CONSTITUTION 4

these doesn’t mean they cannot be violated for instance in cases where we are imprisoned,

arbitrary killed or faced by any other form of oppression. On the contrary, these rights mean that

they are not morally justifiable and as a result give us room for moral complaint. Other

inalienable Rights cited under the Declaration are life and pursuit for happiness leading to a

conclusion that inalienable Rights mean those rights that basically define us as human beings and

cannot be retrieved for the mere reason that they are part of us.

Another fundamental concept of democracy derived from the Declaration is the idea of

the ‘consent of the governed’ which serves as the primary requirement for the operation of a

legitimate government. In simple terms, it means that the government’s authority and power

depend on the people’s consent as it’s expressed in their votes during an election (Hamowy,

2000). Thus, according to the Declaration, the source of the government’s authority is the people

it governs. According to the declaration, it’s the people’s power to decide the government that

should be in power as well as overthrow the government that they feel to not fully serve in

accordance with their rights. Hence, a government’s legitimacy is determined by the willingness

of the people to be governed by it which qualifies any other justifications to rule as per the

Declaration to be illogic and unjustifiable. Therefore, this is a clear indication that the

government’s right to the people can be derived only from the people through their consent and

acceptance and or leadership of the government.

Democracy, as defined and indicated in the constitutions, was a mere concept that was

derived from the Declaration of independence. Thus to avoid the existence of a tyranny

government, the constitution divided the powers of the government into three arms namely: the

legislative, the executive and the judiciary so as to uphold democracy and protect people’s rights

as required by the Declaration of independence. The functions of each arm are specific with the
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legislature making laws, the executive implementing them and the judiciary making the

judgments on the situations where there is the breach of the law (Fraser, 2017). By the separation

of power, the abuse of power by the government is controlled because it won’t be concentrated

to a few individuals by confining the unlimited exercise of power by any particular arm of the

government. This doctrine is also responsible for checking corruption and other unlawful and

harmful activities against the interests of the common people who the government has the

obligation of serving. Even when each branch of the government is serving its functions and

acting within its ambit of power, there is overlap in the functions of the government arms which

ensure each branch of the government imposes checks and balances on the other branches.

Both the Declaration and the Constitution are absolutely important to the country as they

define our democracy, the ideas and our goals as a country including the rights of the people.

However, there are some lines of similarities between the two as for one, while the Declaration

identifies the basic rights of the people such as their inalienable rights, the Constitution expresses

all the rights and Freedoms of the people of America that ought to be observed and respected

(Zinn, 2015). Another aspect that should be noted is that Constitution and the Declaration also

highlights the powers of the government as well as the legitimacy of a government where the

Declaration only highlights what comprises a legitimate government unlike the Constitution that

deeply explains how a government should come to power including the voting rights of the

people that give the people its power. Hence, the Declaration and the Constitution agree that the

power of the government is drawn from the people but the Constitution further limits powers of

the government through the introduction of the Doctrine of Separation of Power.

Conclusion
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The two doctrines, the Declaration, and the Constitution, basically work under the same

basic principle to ensure the rights of the people are observed and preventing tyrannical rule by

the government. They give power to the people, the power to decide who rules them and at the

same time limiting the powers of the rulers. For example, the Constitution limits the

government’s power by granting all Americans right to privacy in homes that prevents

unwarranted invasion by the government (Tooker, 2017). This is one way of the Constitution’s

limiting the government’s power and ensuring the government doesn’t exercise tyrannical power

on the governed.
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REFERENCES

Fraser, R. (2017). A machine that would go of itself: The Constitution in American culture.

Routledge.

Hamowy, R. (2000). The Declaration of Independence. A Companion to the American

Revolution, 258-261.

Tooker, E. (2017). The United States Constitution and the Iroquois League. In The Invented

Indian (pp. 107-128). Routledge.

Wilson, W. (2017). Constitutional government in the United States. Routledge.

Zinn, H. (2015). A people's history of the United States: 1492-present. Routledge.