I recently finished reading Professor Danielle Allen's, Our Declaration and it did what all good books do it provoked me to think about my own work and beliefs. Specifically it showed me a disjuncture in the way I read texts and believe texts should be read. It has always been my belief that documents should be read within their historical context. In fact I don't believe you can be a historian if you believe in reading documents out of context. But this is in direct conflict with my belief that laws and constitutions should be read in the present context.
The easy out is to simply say that when I read historical documents, which are not active I read them as a historian, but when I read laws or constitutions I read them as a lawyer. While this is true it does not solve the disjuncture. Many lawyers, Originalists, do read the Constitution and laws in the context in which they were written. As I read Allen's book I was simultaneously struck by the beautifully crafted argument she was making and how vehemently I disagreed with it precisely because it was ahistorical. Conversely I am a fervent opponent of Originalism because one I don't think any one document created by multiple authors can have an original meaning and because I believe to read the Constitution in this way is to kill it.
I have never liked the phrase an evolving constitution as that implies that it is becoming better and I do not subscribe to Whiggish view of history or development. I prefer to think of it as relativistic that way there is no positive judgement or expectations associated with any time period. The laws of our country are simply changing as our country changes. But I digress from the problem at hand.
The best solution I can come up with is that I see documents such as the Declaration of Independence as dead, but law and the Constitution as living. However, this is still one level removed from the real division between living and dead documents. Alas, I have only been pondering this or a few hours and will not likely come to a solution for a while.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Reading the Declaration of Independence
Allen, Danielle. Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2014.
Professor Allen's book exemplifies all that is admirable and flawed with the University of Chicago's core teaching methods. Although at Princeton University it is clear that Allen's sensibilities and intellectual focus remain in Hyde Park. Directed at both academics and lay readers Allen does a spectacular job dissecting the Declaration line by line. As I read the book I could feel myself transported inside of the neo-gothic buildings of U of C. I could almost smell the chalk (Chicago steadfastly refuses to put in whiteboards) and see the undergrads parsing this seminal document word by word. Allen's voice is clear throughout the work guiding the reader like the skillful teacher she is.
Her assessment that the Declaration is a memorandum was revealing and allows a modern reader to connect with an often misremembered document. Allen at times seems to be torn by the desire to make historically based arguments and her non-contextual reading. At times she uses historical context and research to show that the Declaration had numerous authors, but then ignores context when examining the text. Although mentioned Allen fails to point out the degree to which the Declaration is modeled explicitly on the English Bill of Rights of 1689. These were Englishmen not yet American's writing this document.
Allen pushes some of her arguments too far. For example, she argues that there were numerous individuals involved in the conversation to help show that the declaration belongs to more than a few writers. She does have a point that the Declaration was the work of more than a few secluded men in Philadelphia, but to include people in the states who affirmed their desire for independence is a bit too much. That the independence would not have occurred but for the effort of thousands of men and women is beyond question. But to assert that these people had any effect on the wording of the Declaration is absurd. And it is the wording that Allen is concerned with.
These mild criticisms aside, Allen's book should be read by anyone who wants to understand either why the Declaration remains a relevant document to this day or by anyone who is considering attending the College of the University of Chicago. Allen tackles head on the compromises needed to pass the Declaration, which made it a less than perfect document. Some will criticize her for letting Jefferson and the other founders off the hook for dodging slavery, but Allen's goal is to show the continued relevance of the Declaration not its shortcomings Historians will be frustrated at times by her lack of contextualism. But this is not a book for historians, this is a book for everyone.
Professor Allen's book exemplifies all that is admirable and flawed with the University of Chicago's core teaching methods. Although at Princeton University it is clear that Allen's sensibilities and intellectual focus remain in Hyde Park. Directed at both academics and lay readers Allen does a spectacular job dissecting the Declaration line by line. As I read the book I could feel myself transported inside of the neo-gothic buildings of U of C. I could almost smell the chalk (Chicago steadfastly refuses to put in whiteboards) and see the undergrads parsing this seminal document word by word. Allen's voice is clear throughout the work guiding the reader like the skillful teacher she is.
Her assessment that the Declaration is a memorandum was revealing and allows a modern reader to connect with an often misremembered document. Allen at times seems to be torn by the desire to make historically based arguments and her non-contextual reading. At times she uses historical context and research to show that the Declaration had numerous authors, but then ignores context when examining the text. Although mentioned Allen fails to point out the degree to which the Declaration is modeled explicitly on the English Bill of Rights of 1689. These were Englishmen not yet American's writing this document.
Allen pushes some of her arguments too far. For example, she argues that there were numerous individuals involved in the conversation to help show that the declaration belongs to more than a few writers. She does have a point that the Declaration was the work of more than a few secluded men in Philadelphia, but to include people in the states who affirmed their desire for independence is a bit too much. That the independence would not have occurred but for the effort of thousands of men and women is beyond question. But to assert that these people had any effect on the wording of the Declaration is absurd. And it is the wording that Allen is concerned with.
These mild criticisms aside, Allen's book should be read by anyone who wants to understand either why the Declaration remains a relevant document to this day or by anyone who is considering attending the College of the University of Chicago. Allen tackles head on the compromises needed to pass the Declaration, which made it a less than perfect document. Some will criticize her for letting Jefferson and the other founders off the hook for dodging slavery, but Allen's goal is to show the continued relevance of the Declaration not its shortcomings Historians will be frustrated at times by her lack of contextualism. But this is not a book for historians, this is a book for everyone.
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