Redlining the Declaration (A Greatest Hit)

Burt Likko

Pseudonymous Portlander. Pursuer of happiness. Bon vivant. Homebrewer. Atheist. Recovering Republican. Recovering Catholic. Recovering divorcé. Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Ordinary Times. Relapsed Lawyer, admitted to practice law (under his real name) in California and Oregon. There's a Twitter account at @burtlikko, but not used for posting on the general feed anymore. House Likko's Words: Scite Verum. Colite Iusticia. Vivere Con Gaudium.

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17 Responses

  1. Chad Stanton says:

    I’m increasingly surprised that many prominent activists in the black community didn’t come together to create a list of grievances echoing the Declaration of Independence from the time of Reconstruction up until the Civil Rights Movement.

    Given the presence of vigilantes and later a heavy police presence often unrepresentative of the community they were policing. A lack of representation in governing bodies despite also being subject to taxation, without many if any dollars coming back to the community it would seem like an obvious move.

    If that did occur and I’m simply ignorant of it someone please point me to it. Otherwise I’d say it’s a hell of a testament to the commitment folks had to the nation even when the nation didn’t have a commitment to them.Report

  2. Christopher Carr says:

    Awesome post. I missed this the first time around. Do you think it would be possible to do something similar for the Constitution?Report

  3. As you probably know by now, I’m of a different persuasion and don’t really see the “founders” as heroes. Still, I can agree with this:

    Humanizing the work of the Founders takes them out of the realm of myth and legend, and grounds them in human and political reality….If they really were the demigods legend makes them out to be, it would be harder to relate to them.

    And this:

    That is why I look at the Declaration as a human act, a political act, every year….Too many people don’t consider them at all; too many of the ones who do cannot distance themselves from the legendary thinking and ground the Founders’ actions in reality. They would profit from doing so.

    Great post, Burt.Report

  4. There’s the other kind of redlining too, where for the first almost 200 years the Constitution wasn’t available in some areas.Report

  5. Kolohe says:

    The Quebec thing was straight trolling. The Brits had recently got formal control of it as spoils of the 7 Years / French & Indian War, and had a small number of Anglo phone settlers there, but the majority of the population was, of course, still French in language and customs.

    The Brits didn’t have the numeric superiority they had in the Maritimes to do the same ethnic cleansing in Upper Canada, so to keep the peace, they passed an Act so that the Franco Americans to have a great deal of cultural autonomy and self governance – which they did differently from the British Americans.

    The complaints about immigration (too little) and Native Americans (too many) are of the same sort of missing the forest for the trees. (& deliberately for selfish reasons). The Brits didn’t have the wherewhithal after the 7 years war to maintain security of Brit settlers in the Trans Appalachia, so they set up a demacarcation line on the Blue Ridge, saying via treaty that, in essence, white people would stay east of the line, and Native Americans would have free reign west of it.

    The Brit settlers were violating this treaty willy nilly, naturally provoking a Native American repsonse, and the settlers are now complaining that the Crown isn’t protecting them.Report

  6. Saul Degraw says:

    I noticed that you struck some parts that you found to be factually inaccurate.

    How many of the factual inaccuracies do you think were for the sake of propaganda/rhetoric/drumming up support for the cause? Do you think making the Declaration of Independence more factually accurate takes away from the power of the prose and the cause?Report

  7. J_A says:

    I read in LGM that the language added about “domestic insurrections among us” next to the Indian language, refers to slave insurrections?

    I don’t always believe LGM, so any view about that?Report

  8. Kazzy says:

    What’s up with the capitalization? Some words it seems were edited to have capitals where they wouldn’t normally.Report