(Bonus PDF) Backstory of Creation of the U.S. Declaration of Independence

07/03/17 • 0 min

Historic Voices: Global History and Culture

The sources and interpretation of the Declaration have been the subject of much scholarly inquiry. The Declaration justified the independence of the United States by listing colonial grievances against King George III, and by asserting certain natural and legal rights, including a right of revolution. Having served its original purpose in announcing independence, references to the text of the Declaration were few in the following years. Abraham Lincoln made it the centerpiece of his rhetoric (as in the Gettysburg Address of 1863), and his policies. Since then, it has become a well known statement on human rights, particularly its second sentence:

We hold these truths to be selfevident, 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.

This has been called "one of the bestknown sentences in the English language", containing "the most potent and consequential words in American history". The passage came to represent a moral standard to which the United States should strive. This view was notably promoted by Abraham Lincoln, who considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his political philosophy, and argued that the Declaration is a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted.

The United States Declaration of Independence inspired many other similar documents in other countries, with its ideas gaining adherence in the Low Countries, as well as in the Caribbean, Spanish America, the Balkans, West Africa, and Central Europe in the decades up to 1848.

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(Bonus PDF) Founding Fathers of the United States

The Founding Fathers of the United States are those individuals of the Thirteen Colonies in North America who led the American Revolution against the authority of the British Crown in word and deed and contributed to the establishment of the United States of America.

The term Founding Fathers is sometimes used to refer to the Signers of the embossed version of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It is not to be confused with the term Framers; the Framers are defined by the National Archives as those 55 individuals who were appointed to be delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and took

Of the 55 Framers, only 39 were signers of the Constitution. Two further groupings of Founding Founders include: 1) those who signed the Continental Association, a trade ban and one of the colonists' first collective volleys protesting British control and the Intolerable Acts in 1774 or 2) those who signed the Articles of Confederation, the first U.S. constitutional document.

The phrase "Founding Fathers" is a twentieth century appellation, first coined by Warren G. Harding in 1916. In the 19th century, they were referred to as simply, the "Fathers". Some historians have begun to eschew the limiting Great Man theory associated with the term "Founding Fathers" and apply it to a broader group of people, that includes not only Morris' "Seven" or the Signers or the Framers but also all those, no matter their race or gender, who, whether as politicians, jurists, statesmen, soldiers, diplomats, or ordinary citizens, took part in winning U.S. independence and creating the United States of America.

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(S01-E29) HV President Jimmy Carter - "Crisis of Confidence" TV Speech to the Nation- July 15, 1979

In this podcast episode, we feature President Jimmy Carter and his “Energy and the National Goals” speech. It is often called the “Crisis of Confidence” speech.

A major priority of President Carter was the U.S. policy of energy consumption. The nation was suffering from rising oil costs due to OPEC which resulted in gas rationing, long gas lines, and energy shortages just to name a few. Before the formal part of this energy policy speech, President Carter explored reasons for lack of action by Congress with energy issues. He saw the threat as a “crisis of confidence” in our ability to forge a national priority to work together to deal with this and other issues. That section of the speech is why some call this the “Crisis of Confidence” speech.

In addition to this audio recording, I also provide three PDF documents: first, a transcript of this speech, second, a short overview of his personal and political life, and finally a summary of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act which was part of President’s Carter’s National Energy Act.

This podcast is part of the LifePodcast Network which is a group of family-friendly podcasts bringing a positive message of hope and inspiration. Check out the LifePodcast Network at http://LifePodcast.net

These audio recordings come from the American Rhetoric online database. This website provides more than 5,000 speech transcripts, audio recordings, and videos of public speeches, sermons, lectures, interviews, and more. Checkout the website at http://americanrhetoric.com

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Please post comments to the individual episodes at http://historicvoices.org, podcast review and rating section within iTunes and other apps, or email to me. Thanks for listening, David Arendale, [email protected]