Jefferson’ s Declaration and Constitution: One People
Advancing Toward a More Perfect Union
By Julia Ernst
Our celebration of the 250th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’ s Declaration of Independence this summer provides a marvelous opportunity for Americans to cultivate a deeper understanding of our nation’ s history and contemplate how our past shapes the United States today. In this vein, I have been delighted to collaborate this year with students in the North Dakota Law Review on an article entitled“ Thomas Jefferson’ s Declaration of Independence and U. S. Constitution: One People Advancing Toward a More Perfect Union.”
As one of the most well recognized of the Founding Fathers, Jefferson not only drafted the famous manuscript announcing the separation of the 13 colonies from Britain, but he also played a significant part in the formulation and application of constitutional interpretation during the early years of the republic. His kaleidoscopic constitutional construction shifted in accordance with his various public roles, from the Revolution until his passing at 83 years of age – on the same day as his longtime political partner and rival, John Adams – both on July 4, 1826, 50 years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Articulating the Declaration’ s vision of the newly independent citizens as“ one people,” Jefferson bolstered nation-building in the nascent republic by fostering a sense of unity among the disparate colonists, who tended to think of themselves as Virginians, Pennsylvanians, Georgians, etc., rather than Americans. His famous phrase,“ 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,” sets forth the fundamental human rights forming the core of the document described as America’ s Creed.
Moreover, Jefferson’ s assertion based on Enlightenment principles,“[ t ] hat to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” boldly locates sovereignty in the people instead of the government. This embrace of popular sovereignty allowed for a political theory of split sovereignty – both vertically between the state governments and the federal
Julia Ernst with a portrait of Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia. government, as well as horizontally between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government – which underpins the Constitution’ s structure of divided sovereignty, separation of powers,
Thomas Jefferson Statue, University of Viginia
and checks and balances. Since ultimate sovereignty rests with the people of the United States, the people – in ratifying the U. S. Constitution via conventions in their respective states – were able to endorse these divisions of sovereign authority, thus eschewing the prior assumption that sovereignty must be unified in one person( e. g., King George III), one entity( e. g., Parliament), or an indivisible combination thereof( e. g., the concept of the King-in- Parliament).
U. S. CONSTITUTION
Although Jefferson was absent from the drafting of the U. S. Constitution in 1787, during his years of service as a U. S. diplomat in France, he contributed from afar to the thinking of the framers – particularly through his protégé, James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution – as well as to the national debates about its ratification, especially through Jefferson’ s advocacy for the addition of a Bill of Rights. Furthermore, Jefferson provided his own gloss on constitutional interpretation as the nation’ s first secretary of state under President George Washington, as founder and leader of the Republican Party opposing the Federalists initially in power in the central government, as vice president under President John Adams, as the third president of the United States from 1801-1809, and as an elder statesman upon his retirement from public life.
The NDLR article examines Jefferson’ s contributions to these seminal documents – two bedrocks of American democracy – and investigates the kaleidoscopic approaches to constitutional interpretation he employed while serving in these different roles. The paper explores how Jefferson’ s writings about constitutional interpretation, as well as his application of constitutional interpretation through his actions in his various positions, provide insights into how one of the most prominent original founders of our country might have envisioned the Constitution could be interpreted in the future. It suggests that, in contrast to the strict constructionist approach he avowedly espoused and which many historians attribute to him, Jefferson instead adopted a creative and
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