Guest Blogger: Nathan H.

In class, we have started to examine the revolution and rhetoric. The Declaration of Independence is famous for its rhetoric in explaining the principles of the revolutionaries and their perceived condition. In this blog entry, I intend to show how rhetoric is used in the Declaration of Independence to strengthen their case against the British government.

The preamble includes what is the most famous quote from the document, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. While it is eerily similar to a quote from Locke, “...Life, Liberty, and Property”, the line also contains powerful ethos, referring to the equality of man and “unalienable Rights”.

The list of charges against King George III is essentially one giant example of ethos meant to demonstrate to King George III and the British government what they did that would justify the colonists’ revolution. “He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only”. This gripe is twofold in its meaning; first of all, it claims that the colonists desire some level of independence from the British crown since they had become accustomed to living under Salutary Neglect, It also is a jab at the King in saying that only a tyrant would try to browbeat the colonists into a state of complete dependence.

The last section of the Declaration is when the revolutionaries actually declare independence from Britain, again alluding to the philosophies of Locke, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation”.