Recently, the European Parliament again demanded the return of Crimea to Ukraine, promising to lift sanctions. Garry Kasparov wrote that the “opposition” cannot participate in the elections in Crimea, and after the “collapse of the regime”, Crimea will have to be returned.
It causes interesting questions both practical and theoretical.
In practice, the return of Crimea to Ukraine is not feasible, even if for some reason the authorities wanted it - this would be faced with extremely sharp rejection by the majority of the population of both Crimea itself and Russia as a whole.
The transfer of two million people under the rule of a state under which they categorically do not want to be (and the recent patriotic deeds of Dzhemilev and the company have further strengthened them in this) is a task that can be solved (if solved) only under conditions of tough occupation and filtration camps and, of course, extremely widespread violations of human rights. But who will do this extremely dirty and hard work?
Suppressing one's own citizens in order to bring them under the rule of another state is a case that would be unique in history, and a government that tried to do this could in no way count on the loyalty of its security forces. Theoretically, a foreign occupying army, having shed a sea of their own and other people's blood, could achieve this, but the prospect of occupying Russia looks unrealistic.
So, it is impossible to return Crimea to Ukraine, because the Crimeans do not want it, and to force them is a technically impossible task. Extending the sanctions does not make it any more solvable.
This is the situation at the level of practical possibilities. But we should consider the most interesting collision that will arise at the level of theory. The European Parliament recalls the need to respect human rights in Crimea. At the same time, he also demands the return of Crimea, which is realistic only if the right of its inhabitants to express their will is decisively violated, and if they resist (which is likely), then to life.
It is a paradox of world history that the idea of human rights, which is Western in origin, is the main obstacle to Western interests, since non-Western peoples tend to come to the realization that they are also people and they also have rights.
The very principles that the West proclaims as its own are assimilated by non-Western peoples and turned against the West itself. Most of all, American principles, assimilated by other peoples, work against the state interests of the United States.
Let us recall these principles as they are set forth in such a fundamental document as the US Declaration of Independence. It's true great document, and Americans have a right to be proud of it as their contribution to human civilization.
“We proceed from the self-evident truth that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, governments are instituted by the people, deriving their legitimate authority from the consent of the governed.”
Of course, at the time of the adoption of this document, in fact, “all people” meant “white men of Anglo-Saxon origin and Protestant religion”, at its founding the country was a slave-owning and fiercely racist. But the word flew out - and gradually other ethnic groups began to pay attention to the fact that the document says "all people."
Poles, Irish and other papists, Jews, Italians and Latinos of doubtful whiteness - all began to insist that they, too, were people and also had rights. Most recently, blacks were actually included in the category of "all people".
The conflict between the lofty ideal and the practical interests of privileged groups that marked the history of the United States, as this ideal spread, acquired an international dimension.
The United States is a power that, like any power, pursues its national interests. In the course of this, the United States (as, indeed, other powers - the States are no better and no worse here) support ferocious dictatorships, declaring them defenders of civilization, or frostbitten thugs, declaring them freedom fighters. Foreign policy is the art of the possible, and it comes from interests, not from ideals.
And ideals can directly contradict these interests. If the people of other countries establish governments that derive their legitimate authority from the consent of the governed, those governments will defend the interests of the peoples of their countries, even if they are sharply at odds with US interests.
For example, residents of some strategically important region may not agree to be governed by a government allied with the United States, but, on the contrary, agree to be governed by a government that honors US interests to a much lesser extent.
If we take the text of the Declaration seriously, then they have this, God given right. Having found itself in a situation where the Declaration cannot be retracted aloud and state interests it is necessary to pursue somehow, interested persons will (as always in history) look for some way out.
Or to say that, in fact, the Crimeans are just eager to live in a democratic Ukraine, but green men at gunpoint make them vote “yes” and wear tricolors.
But this creates a conflict with the real state of affairs. Or to say that the will of the insignificant quilted jackets, drugged by Kiselyov's propaganda, is worth nothing. But this creates a conflict with the Declaration - it says about all people.
One way or another, the “consent of the governed”, when it is expressed in accordance with the interests of the United States, is regarded as an excellent manifestation of democracy, while at the same time voting, referendums and generally expressions of popular will that are contrary to these interests can at any moment be declared null and void. no legal force.
But Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration, says that it is not this or that human government that gives the rights of the people. Not King George and not even the US State Department - but the Creator. And governments derive their legitimate authority from those they govern, not from anyone else.
The inhabitants of Crimea have exactly the same right to decide what kind of government they want to be under as the inhabitants of Kyiv, Lvov, Glasgow or Quebec. The people of Kiev have every right not to be under the scepter of Moscow. Sevastopol residents have every right not to be under the scepter of Kyiv.
Because "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Including Russians.
Continental Congress, made up of representatives from 13 British colonies North America adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. By this time, the American War of Independence had been going on for more than a year - it began on April 9, 1775.
War for independence
In 1763, when the Seven Years' War ended in triumph for British colonial policy in the New World and Canada passed from France to the British Empire, the colonists celebrated victory. For many future revolutionaries, it was the experience of the Seven Years' War, or, as it is called in the New World, "the war with the French and Indians" ( French and Indian War), became the first military experience that would be useful to them already in the war with the British regular units.
But on the wave of triumph, difficulties arose associated with the desire of the British Empire to control the colonies, the desire to unify the colonial system, to deprive the colonies of those many privileges that dated back to the 17th century, to the times of the British revolutions, when the government did not always care about the colonies, there were not always enough hands deal with them. The budget needed additional funds, including to cover the costs of the just ended Seven Years' War. And this is the desire of the British Empire for centralization, for the growth of control over the colonies, combined with the widespread dissemination of the ideas of the Enlightenment, the ideas popular sovereignty, natural law, the ideas of the so-called Whig opposition, associated with ideas about the lost English freedoms, about the usurpation of freedoms by the king and his cabinet in London (Bernard Beilin drew attention to the role of Whig literature in the classic 1967 book "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution", published in 2010 in Russian translation) - all this, in the face of a series of tough measures on the part of London, led first to a powerful crisis, and then to the fact that the first blood was shed. And when blood is shed, it is already very difficult to stop the escalation of violence.
// "George Washington and Gilbert Lafayette at Valley Forge", John Ward Dunsmore, 1907
Initially, the colonists advocated the idea of self-government - home rule, or, as they have been writing in Russian since pre-revolutionary times, “home rule”, that is, for autonomy, what Irish politicians initially fought for in the 19th century. However, the situation quickly radicalized due to the harsh decisions of the London Cabinet, the adoption of "intolerable acts" on the eve of the revolution, and before that the Townshend Acts (1767), when, in particular, a stamp duty was introduced on a number of goods, including tea, that is, an excise tax. . New taxes were introduced by Parliament in London, for which the colonists did not vote. This infuriated the fighters for self-government, whose slogan was the words "No taxation without representation" ( No taxation without representation). And therefore, already from 1773-1774, it begins to talk about independence.
In 1774, the Continental Congress of representatives of the 13 American colonies convened in Philadelphia, which eventually began to advocate full independence. So the United States did not follow the path of Canada, which became an independent state peacefully (finally, by the way, only in 1982 under the Canada Act).
How did tension build up? Most of you have probably heard of the Boston Massacre. Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770), when soldiers from the British regular units stationed shortly before in Boston opened fire on the large port area (of course, this is always a very lively place), apparently in response to some insults and attacks. A few years later, the “Boston Tea Party”, already known to everyone from school textbooks, took place (December 16, 1773), when at night several dozen revolutionaries dropped a huge load of tea just brought by the East India Company from three ships into the sea. The fact is that the London East India Company received in May of that year the right to import duty-free tea into New World. Smuggling then became a kind of patriotic act for American, including Boston, merchants.
// "Join or die." Political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin, published in the Pennsylvania Gazette, May 9, 1754
Benjamin Franklin's famous caricature depicts a snake cut with an ax, and each piece of this snake shows the abbreviations of the then colonies, then the states. By the way, these abbreviations have survived to this day. And a bright signature join, or die, that is, we must unite, or we will perish. The cartoon was published in a newspaper on May 9, 1754, when it was about uniting against the French threat, but in the second half of the 1760s and the first half of the 1770s, it took on a different meaning. The 13 colonies that will become part of the United States of America are very different in spirit. At a minimum, these were slave-owning colonies and colonies where there were practically no slaves or there were none at all. At that time, there was no formal prohibition of slavery in the northern colonies - it would begin to be abolished just during the years of the War of Independence. Two colonies stood out in the fight against the mother country: northern Massachusetts, which was largely associated with maritime trade and farming, and southern Virginia, a state of plantation tobacco (and then also cotton). What is common between them? The population was generally homogeneous, after all, they were mostly people from England, although in Pennsylvania a third of the population came from Germany and German lands, and it is no coincidence that on July 6, 1776, a translation of the Declaration of Independence into German was published. It is very interesting how such different people found the wisdom and strength in themselves to realize that in the confrontation with the mother country, the colonies need to unite.
From the very beginning of the War of Independence, it was about establishing a republic, since the most important ideological source of the American Revolution was, as I said, the ideas of the Enlightenment. They knew well and argued a lot about the republican experience of Greece, Rome, medieval Italian cities. That is, from the very beginning it was, of course, about the republic. In monarchist sympathies, however, they suspected the adjutant George Washington, and then the first Minister of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, by the way, a well-known Anglophile.
History of the Declaration of Independence
On June 7, Virginian Richard Henry Lee addressed the Continental Congress with a resolution on the independence of the colonies. On June 11, a committee of five deputies was appointed to prepare the document known today as the US Declaration of Independence. These were John Adams (Massachusetts), Roger Sherman (Connecticut), Robert Livingston (New York), Benjamin Franklin (Pennsylvania), Thomas Jefferson (Virginia). Unfortunately, no minutes of their meetings were kept.
Thomas Jefferson was the main author of the Declaration of Independence. But it is extremely interesting to follow the editorial revision of other members of the committee, the final revision associated with the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. For example, it is well known that out of 28 charges against the British King George III, the charge that he encouraged the slave trade disappeared in the final version. There is nothing strange in this: practically all of the founding fathers, except for John Adams - Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison - were Virginian slave owners. Although the export of slaves from Africa was then considered an absolute evil (it was eventually banned by both the British Empire and the United States in March 1807), and slavery, as Jefferson thought, should have died out in the New World on its own, unable to withstand competition with free labor, the revolutionaries decided not to talk about the potentially explosive problem.
The Continental Congress voted for the Declaration of Independence as early as July 2, but discussion continued on July 3. It was then, by the way, that the mention of the slave trade was removed from the text. The official date for the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence is July 4 - the day of its promulgation, and in its final form.
// US Declaration of Independence. Facsimile by William Stone, 1823
The Declaration of Independence can be considered a document of international law only if the struggle for independence is crowned with success. As the famous English poem from the time of Elizabeth I, known to us in the arrangement of Samuil Marshak, says, "the rebellion cannot end in success - otherwise it is called differently." That is, if the colonists had lost, then the document would have remained literally a declaration, a public manifesto.
In this case, he laid the foundation for the existence of a new state. As the French philosopher Jacques Derrida commented on the Declaration, "the signature invents the signer."
In addition, the Declaration of Independence became the founder of a new genre. Of course, the Declaration of Independence had its own ideological genealogy, but, in fact, only one truly full-fledged predecessor - the Act of Oath Renunciation ( Plakkaat van Verlatinge) of July 26, 1581, in which the representatives of the Netherlands declared independence from the Spanish Habsburgs, referring to the sovereignty of the monarch, which comes from God, which he loses when he violates the natural rights of the people.
The US Declaration of Independence can be roughly divided into five parts. The first paragraph proclaims the necessity of explaining the reasons that can cause one people to sever the political ties that connect it with another. The second paragraph declares the principles of natural law on which legitimate power is based, and the violation of these principles by power leads to the loss of legitimacy and justifies its overthrow. The accusations against George III are then listed, whose "abuses" ( injuries and usurpations) justify the secession of the American colonies. The fourth part tells about the unsatisfactory response to those expressed in "the most restrained tone" ( humble terms) appeals of Americans to the British government. As a consequence, in the final fifth part, the "united colonies" are declared by right to be "free and independent states" ( these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States).
The ensuing massive series of declarations of independence is linked to the Spanish American War of Independence. But all subsequent secessionist movements, up to the latest events in Ukraine, seek to prove their legitimacy through such declarations. Proclaimed in specific historical conditions, the US Declaration of Independence was endowed by Thomas Jefferson with a universal content, which explains the significance of this text for world history.
// "The Signing of the Declaration of Independence" by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (Virginia History Museum)
Usually declarations follow the logic of their prototype: the assertion of natural law (subsequently - the right to self-determination in accordance with positivist international law), popular sovereignty and, as a consequence, the right legal representatives people to declare independence. Then comes the explanation of the reasons for declaring independence not only to compatriots, but also to the entire world community. I note that the contradiction between the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity not allowed in international law and today.
In the perception of the Declaration in the United States itself, as the modern historian David Armitage traced, for the first half century the most important was precisely the first phrase, that is, the words about state sovereignty: “When the course of events leads to the fact that one of the peoples is forced to terminate the political ties that bind it to another people, and take an independent and equal place among the powers of the world, to which it has the right according to the laws of nature and its Creator, a respectful attitude towards opinion humanity demands from him an explanation of the reasons that prompted him to such a separation.
Then, from about the middle of the 1820s, in the text of the Declaration of Independence, they begin to pay attention first of all to natural law and popular sovereignty: “... all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, governments are instituted by the people, deriving their legitimate authority from the consent of the governed.” These words entered the pantheon of "civil religion" ( civil religion) The United States as the cornerstone of American democracy, as the affirmation of the "American dream" (a concept introduced by James Truslow Adams in 1931, during the Great Depression, in the popular account of US history, "The Epic of America"). Interestingly, exactly with these famous words about human rights, the Declaration of Independence of Vietnam (1945), drawn up by the communist and Comintern member Ho Chi Minh, begins.
Andrey Iserov
Candidate of Sciences in History, Associate Professor of the School of Historical Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics
Declaration of Independence as a Unique Legal Document
The United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 is a unique political legal document, which reflected a number of provisions formulated in the political philosophy of the Enlightenment. What is unique about this document? If we turn to the history of the states of Western Europe, we will see that at that time a significant number of them were at the stage of development of absolutist monarchies. The essence of the political and legal regimes in most European countries was the unlimited power of the monarch, and even more - in the deification of the very principle of the power hierarchy. The American Declaration of Independence for the first time recorded the principle of popular sovereignty, stating that the source of power is not the personality of the absolutist monarch, but the people themselves, as a set (political community) of free citizens. For the first time, the value of natural, inalienable human rights was recorded in a political and legal document. Subsequently, this idea finds a more detailed form in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of the French Revolution of 1789.
The legal values expressed in the American Declaration of Independence can certainly be found in the philosophical and legal thought of that period, and they were formulated much earlier than the events associated with the formation of the United States in North America or. We can see many of these principles in the work of Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, and a number of other European and American Enlightenment philosophers. However, in the field of political and legal practice, this document is unique for its time. What was previously the subject of discussion of scientists and philosophers has become the reality of political and legal life. The Declaration for the first time proclaimed principles that fundamentally contradicted the dominant absolutist political and legal ideology and were perceived as revolutionary. And here we can see the direct influence of the American experience on the development European law and the revolutionary process in Europe since the end of the 18th century.
The Declaration laid down certain ideological foundations for the formation of the American state: firstly, it is the principle of popular sovereignty that we noted; secondly, for the first time the right of the people to resist was proclaimed illegal activities government.
The main reason that led the American states to separate from England was that the colonists were dissatisfied with the discriminatory policy pursued by the English king and parliament towards the colonies. An example can be given: the Americans could not send their deputies to the British Parliament and thereby defend their interests at the legislative level. A lot of other decisions of the British government and parliament in the field of economics, trade and administration were regarded by the colonists as illegal and discriminatory.
At the same time, a significant part of the deputies of the Second Continental Congress, which adopted the Declaration, were very cautious about the idea of a final break in relations with England and signed the document under the general impression of the unfolding events, believing that the colonies should achieve equal relations with the mother country. In this sense, the Declaration of Independence was perceived not only as an act of separation of the colonies from England, but also as an act that restores law and justice.
The American experience also lies in the fact that the people, who considered the actions of the government as illegal, rebelled, overthrew this government and established the authorities and those laws that they considered just. These events had a noticeable public response in Europe. As you know, many Europeans took part in the struggle against England on the side of the colonists, and some of them, for example Gilbert Lafayette, worked on the draft of the first French Constitution of 1791, which became one of the first legal documents that established the principles of a constitutional monarchy.
The principles of popular sovereignty, legitimacy, primacy and protection of the rights and freedoms of the individual, enshrined in the Declaration, are reflected in subsequent political and legal documents of the United States: in the Constitution of 1787, in the Bill of Rights of 1791 (the first 10 amendments to the American constitution) and others. In my opinion, the Declaration reflected the spirit of the future American state. And it is no coincidence that the date of its adoption - July 4, 1776 - became the date that is still revered by the Americans as the main Public Holiday- Independence Day.
Alexander Safonov
doctor legal sciences, Professor, Department of Theory and History of Law, Faculty of Law, National Research University Higher School of Economics
Declaration of Independence and Enlightenment Philosophy
The US Declaration of Independence is a laconic text, the main part of which is devoted to describing the crimes of the English king. In order to determine what the American colonists accuse their king of, one needs to understand what prerequisites they proceed from and what picture of the world they live in: what is right and wrong for them in the political sense of the word.
The political philosophy of the document is summarized in four simple theses. People have certain inalienable rights - these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. People establish governments to protect their rights (this is the social contract theory). The power of the government is based on the fact that they represent the people (the theory of representative government). People have the right (and even the duty) to change a government that violates their rights.
The Founding Fathers, primarily Jefferson as the main author of the Declaration, use the construction: "We proceed from the self-evident truth that all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." That is, we do not want to think that people have rights, we do not claim that people have rights, but we proceed from that self-evident fact. The Declaration is thus embedded in the context of the political philosophy of the time and, in particular, the philosophy of common sense and the tradition of the Scottish Enlightenment. A whole group of authors wrote about some self-evident truths based on common sense, on what in English is called common sense.
The idea that there are some self-evident truths in politics, in relations between people, is, of course, deeply philosophical and, one might say, metaphysical. That is why we can say with good reason that in this legal document there is a philosophical content. The declaration was the first official document of the United States of America, on it rests the entire legal tradition of the country that exists today through the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and so on. The document itself rests on the metaphysical premises that the founding fathers put into it and which were taken from the philosophy of the English-speaking world relevant to them.
The intellectual context for the creation of the Declaration was the Enlightenment, primarily its English-speaking environment. In addition to the Scottish Enlightenment, which is represented in its classical models by Hume and Smith, it is the tradition of British liberalism, primarily the idea of John Locke, as well as continental philosophers - Montesquieu and other authors.
What values were important to the authors of the Declaration of Independence? First, they believed that a person is a free individual who can dispose of himself at his own discretion. highest value is the pursuit of happiness, and this is possible only if a person is free. It is from here that the idea of a social contract is postulated: any honest power (not tyrannical, not the power that must be overthrown, but the power that we recognize as legitimate) must in its source rest on the will of free individuals.
The purpose of legitimate authority is to protect the rights of individuals, otherwise they would never agree to this form of social contract. Accordingly, that power which, as enumerated in relation to the English king, violates in numerous ways the rights of individuals, is not legitimate, and therefore it is both the right and the duty of free individuals to rise up against such tyrannical power and declare that henceforth they the authorities do not obey, which is what the Declaration of Independence is about.
Sometimes abstract ideas, like the idea of a social contract, suddenly become a rather powerful form within which real politics is already being carried out. From this point of view, the history of writing the Declaration looks like political philosophers sat in the office, wrote a small document, and after that there was a democratic state called the United States of America with its more than 200-year history. The Declaration of Independence is just such a transition of theory into practice.
On the one hand, we understand that the Declaration of Independence is a document that was dedicated to the current political situation in a not the most populated, important, significant region of the world, written by a group of people led by Jefferson. On the other hand, in the symbolic sense of the word, this fact may have determined the whole subsequent history. And then we begin to speak the language of myth.
Take the story of the Boston Tea Party, for example. It is documented that the tea was thrown into the bay by smugglers who fought against the fact that the tea was too cheap because it arrived on English ships. But in hindsight, we quite calmly build this event into the general course of the American Revolution, give it a symbolic meaning. Americans can talk about the same events in two modes.
Bernard Beilin's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, written in the 1960s, was literally a rediscovery of the real context of the American Revolution. Because since the 19th century there has been a tradition of studying the American Revolution in American school textbooks, where everything was turned into a myth acceptable to schoolchildren and disfigured by this school mythological thinking. Beilin was one of those who, in the 1960s, rediscovers the real history of the American Revolution, shows it in such a global context, speaks of figures, pamphleteers, who were not in the first row. And fortunately, educated Americans can talk about revolution in both regimes. On the one hand, this is a heroic, brilliant, completely unique story of the birth of a nation. On the other hand, it is a very provincial, local, insignificant gathering of farmers, lawyers and other professions who decided that they were fed up with the king.
But it so happened that the myth has the right to exist simply because of all the consequences to which this small event led.
The US Declaration of Independence begins with the words: “When the course of events leads to the fact that one of the peoples is forced to terminate the political ties that bind it to another people, and take an independent and equal place among the powers of the world, to which it is entitled by the laws of nature and its Creator , a respectful attitude to the opinion of mankind requires him to explain the reasons that prompted him to such a separation ...
We proceed from the self-evident truth that all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, which include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, governments are instituted by men, deriving their legitimate authority from the consent of the governed. In the event that any form of government becomes destructive to these very purposes, the people have the right to change or abolish it and establish a new government based on such principles and forms of organization of power as, in its opinion, will best ensure the safety and happiness of the people. ".
By the spring of 1776, most of the American colonies, enduring the humiliation and economic oppression of the British administration, spoke in favor of independence from the British mother country. In the same year, a commission was formed to prepare the Declaration of Independence, and in July 1776 it was adopted by the Continental Congress. The declaration proclaimed the formation of 13 new sovereign states on the Atlantic coast of North America. Initially, these were separate independent territories not united into a federal union.
Thomas Jefferson, a 33-year-old lawyer from Virginia, was the author of the now famous Declaration of Independence. This happened already during the war with Great Britain for independence in North America (1775-1783). Jefferson initially refused to play such an important role, but after convincing arguments from John Adams, he was forced to agree. This extremely responsible work, which became historical and glorified his name, Jefferson created in seventeen days.
During preliminary review the project aroused strong objections from members of the commission loyal to Great Britain. But very influential politicians - Benjamin Franklin and John Adams - approved the text with almost no amendments, and on June 30, 1776, the Declaration was submitted to Congress in Philadelphia with a recommendation to approve it. Heated discussions took place, but the majority of delegates recognized the Declaration as a masterpiece and adopted it, albeit with two fundamental amendments. One of them was quite justified, as it led to the mitigation of unnecessarily harsh accusations against the English people about their insufficient support for the struggle of the American colonists.
(Recall that the citizens of the American States who “break away” from Great Britain were, for the most part, English-speaking, and that both in Britain and in the English colonies across the ocean sounded not even related, but the same English language. That by no means became an obstacle to the separation of the "insurgents" from Great Britain and the formation of a new English-speaking state. It is interesting to know whether London used such a "weapon" as a "single" language during the war for independence in North America? So how is it used today by some modern superpowers to expand their influence in the world - especially on their neighbors?).
The second amendment was more significant. It was about the point of the Declaration, in which Thomas Jefferson condemned slavery and the slave trade. This paragraph stated that the English King George III “waged a cruel war against human nature itself. He encroached on her most sacred rights - the life and freedom of persons belonging to peoples living far from here, and who never did him any harm. He captured and enslaved them in another hemisphere. And often they died a terrible death, unable to withstand the transportation. This pirate war, disgracing even pagan countries, was waged by the Christian king of England. He has dishonored the appointment of power by suppressing any legislative attempt to prohibit or restrict this abominable trade."
Not all delegates were ready to agree with the author of the Declaration of Independence on this - it took more than one decade until the majority of American society joined the opinion of the noble Jefferson. (Remember how Mark Twain's Huck Finn was tormented by his conscience, helping the Negro Jimm to escape from slavery! Huck was sincerely sure that he would burn in hell for this!).
Ultimately, Franklin and Adams submitted the final text to the Continental Congress with recommendations for its approval. The struggle continued in Congress, but the majority of delegates adopted the Declaration (with the two amendments mentioned above). This happened at a meeting on July 4, 1776 - 232 years ago.
The Declaration opens with the words: "Adopted unanimously by the thirteen United States of America." Then the name "United States" was used for the first time - it is believed that it was proposed by Thomas Paine, a well-known public and political figure in the United States and Great Britain, a representative of the European Enlightenment of the 18th century ("The Day" wrote about Paine).
"UNITED STATES OF AMERICA"
In the same 1776, the II American Continental Congress approved the new name of the country - "United States of America" (instead of the name "United Colonies" adopted by Congress on June 7, 1775). There was also an abbreviated form of the name, now often used: "United States". This name, and more short form- "States" was used in the minutes of the Continental Congress. Abbreviation "U.S." found in the papers of J. Washington in 1791, and the abbreviation "U.S.A." first appeared in 1795. In 1777, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia passed a resolution that established the appearance of the American flag: “Resolved that the flag of the United States shall have 13 white and red stripes, and 13 stars, blue on white, which will represent the new union,” says the this document. Subsequently, it was decided to leave the number of stripes unchanged forever, and in honor of each new state to add one more star. Today, on the US flag we see 50 stars - according to the number of states - and 13 white and red stripes, symbolizing the 13 first united independent territories.
The closing words of the Declaration of Independence state:
“The colonies are, and by right ought to be, free and independent states, and are exempt from all dependence on the British crown. All political ties between the United States and the British State shall be completely severed and, as free and independent states, they shall have the power to declare war, make peace treaties, enter into alliances, conduct trade, do any other act, and all that an independent state has the right to do. . And with firm confidence in the patronage of Divine Providence, we swear to each other to uphold this Declaration with our lives, our wealth, and our spotless honour.
The significance of the Jefferson Declaration lies not only in the fact that it informed the "City and the World" about the formation of a new independent state of the United States, but also in the proclamation to the whole world of the most advanced political and legal ideas and ideas of that time.
The war between the American states and Great Britain lasted from 1775 to 1783 and was completed by the Treaty of Versailles - powerful England recognized the United States as a sovereign power.
THE MAN WHO WRITTEN THE UNITED STATES DECLARATION
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third President of the United States of America. Born in Virginia, studied law, practiced advocacy in his hometown. In 1769, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Virginia, in which even then - being almost alone - persistently advocated the emancipation of slaves. In 1775 he became a member of the II Continental Congress "For Independence", which included such prominent North American figures as Adams, Franklin, Sherman, Levingston. But most Americans remember and respect Jefferson mainly as the father of the famous Declaration of Independence.
His whole life was connected with the formation of the statehood of the country. He became a member of the Legislative Assembly of Virginia, then - the governor of the state. He was the initiator of a law that banned slavery in the northwestern territories of the country. To the Assembly of Virginia, his home state, Jefferson proposed a bill whereby all unoccupied land would be made public and used solely for the free provision of every poor citizen with a piece of land of 50 acres. However, advocating the elimination of contrasts in possession land property Jefferson did not specify what the maximum sole proprietorship of land should be. Nor was he a supporter of radical equalization of plots: "I am aware that an equal distribution of property is not feasible."
In 1784, Jefferson, along with Adams and Franklin, went to Europe to conclude trade agreements and remained in Paris until 1789. In 1790-1794 he was Secretary of State in the office of the first US President Washington. He gained great respect from citizens for his concern for the unity of coins, measures and weights, for the improvement of trade, and also for the founding of the University of Virginia.
As President of the United States, Jefferson repealed several reactionary laws, such as the "Aliens" Act in America. However, Jefferson refused a third participation in the presidential elections and has since lived on his estate in Virginia, indulging in scientific pursuits. He is known as a very competent legal writer, and his work "A Handbook on the Practice of Parliamentarism" has not lost its significance today. The ex-president was also engaged in translations, in particular, translated into English the famous "Commentaire sur Montesquieu" and his other works. (Montesquieu believed that the separation of legislative, executive and judiciary should be under any form of government - both under a monarchy and under a democracy. He wrote that it is necessary to single out "the power that creates laws, the power that executes decisions of a national nature, and also the power that is called upon to judge the crimes or lawsuits of private individuals.") Jefferson, however, argued with the French materialist philosophers - he did not accept their atheism , as well as disbelief in the existence of innate moral principles in man.
The collected works and translations of Jefferson were first published by Congress in 1853-1855.
CHURCH, RELIGION
During the first governments of the United States, the Christian spirit in the country was very strong, as evidenced by the first phrase in the First Amendment to the constitution, adopted in 1791 - it is aimed at protecting the Church from any encroachment of the state: “Congress has no right to legislate aimed at establishing a religion or prohibiting its free exercise" (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof). The US constitution explicitly states that the state should not interfere in church affairs. Then it was especially true - many immigrants came to the United States precisely in order to avoid persecution for religious beliefs by European governments.
In his correspondence with the citizens, Jefferson wrote: “Believing with you that religion concerns only Man and his God, that man should not be accountable to anyone in his faith or worship, that the legitimate rights of the state concern only deeds, and not opinions, I I take with reverence the declaration of the entire American people that "Congress has no power to legislate for the establishment of a religion or forbid its free exercise"... Of all the plans and customs that lead a state to success, religion and morality are indispensable. .. Let us be wary of statements that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience forbid us to hope that national morality can also triumph in the absence of religion.
Jefferson entered modern history chiefly as the author of the United States Declaration of Independence. The significance of this declaration is not only that it proclaimed the United States, but even more so that it was based on the most advanced political and legal ideas and ideas of its time. The declaration remains relevant 232 years later...
SEVERAL STATEMENTS BY THOMAS JEFFERSON:
"I like the dreams of the future more than the stories of the past."
“Who, if not the one who himself has a wound, can heal the wound of another?”.
“The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. This blood is the natural fertilizer of the Liberty tree."
All men are created equal
This statement, in which everyone wants to believe and which many dream of refuting, belongs to one of the greatest English philosophers, J. Locke (1632-1704). In 1679, Locke published his work entitled "Two treatises on state government”, where he substantiates this controversial thesis. The proponents of affirmation turned it over time into a slogan under which the masses and the revolution marched.
Those who are convinced of the correctness of Locke argue approximately as follows. All people are the same in origin, in structure, in their biological nature. There is no natural division in society into higher and lower. We all do some work, each in its own way benefits society. People share common responsibilities in relation to the team in which they are. We are equally responsible for our actions.
Each person deserves a respectful attitude, because in society there are no equals who are the most respected. There is a more convincing argument, which, however, is not perceived by atheists: all people are equal before God. Thus, the very way of life and the foundations of religious faith serve as confirmation that people are indeed born equal. From this, far-reaching conclusions are drawn.
Firstly, each person has the same rights as the rest, cannot be infringed on them by law, but is under the protection of the state on an equal basis with other citizens. Secondly, anyone has the right to be content with those benefits of civilization that other members of society allow themselves. Thirdly, people must certainly be equal in property relations. No one can own more than the rest, as this will be a detriment property rights of people. It is essential that the state maintains a fair and equitable distribution of wealth.
English philosopher John Locke
Fourthly, all people should work equally, except, of course, the disabled and the elderly. No one should be dependent and fed at the expense of others. Fifthly, complete equality in society means the absence of titles, titles, ranks, etc. No one can stand above other people.
It is impossible not to recognize the justice of the words of the supporters of Locke, but one cannot ignore the fact that their proof of the necessity of equality, although based on correct premises, leads to incorrect conclusions. It turns out a kind of egalitarianism, against which the opponents of the zealots of universal equality rebel. People cannot be equal. We are born with different color eyes, hair, skin. We have different voices and different temperaments. People have completely different abilities, which are realized in different conditions.
We live, finally, in a different natural environment, as a result geographical position, climate and the resources at our disposal automatically leave their mark on the individuality of each. In another area, completely different people live.
Interests, passions, inclinations, hobbies are also different for different people. Even twins differ from each other in their character and behavior. People cannot think the same way, dress the same, talk the same way, do the same job in the same way.
Different needs make us acquire all kinds of items that another person will not need. And unequal acquisitions require unequal costs. So in financial terms people can't compare. As they will not be able to equalize in terms of property. Someone buys crystal as a home decoration, and someone buys paintings, but there will never be an equal sign between a painting and a vase.
The same wages are protesting. Chaos will begin when everyone will be paid the same amount, including serviceable and hardworking workers on a par with truants and notorious lazy people. At the same time, even equally hardworking workers have different innate abilities, and therefore cannot be equal to each other, since the best one must certainly receive greater rewards.
The idea of equality during the French Revolution penetrated all spheres human life(playing card with symbols of Equality - Egalite)
However, the iron logic of Locke's opponents also does not stand up to serious criticism. These people offer in return a society of equal opportunities and the law " certain place”, and the believers, instead of the equal love of the Lord, were provided with a karmic doctrine of fate. From all this it follows that people in conditions of democracy and freedom initially have equal starting opportunities. Those who fail to take their chance must occupy the worst places in life. One cannot agree with this.
It turns out that the political regime is enough for people from childhood to be brought up only the right way and acquired abilities and talents. The ludicrousness of this naive belief is evident. No democracy can ensure the full education of the individual. This is also supported by facts. Computer analysis of the reactions of infants learning to play showed that all children, except those suffering from hereditary dementia, are brilliant. It turns out that the "gray mass" of fools appears as a result of a fundamentally wrong upbringing.
It is also impossible to accept the assertion that a person has a place in life in advance, that is, “one who is born to crawl cannot fly.” According to the law of "a certain place", people do not choose their crafts, but on the contrary, crafts find us and make us work. In accordance with the status of occupation, a person acquires a certain respect from others. As a result, the position of a person in society is predetermined.
It is hard to believe in the validity of this dubious rule, which bears the loud name of the law. Suffice it to recall that in the West only for the period 1980-1992. over 11.7 million new jobs were created. Naturally, people born before 1980 did not come into life programmed for these 11 million activities, thanks to which many found themselves. Thus, a person does not have and cannot have any pre-planned place in life.
Prolonged disputes proved fruitless. Each side has strong arguments in favor of the correctness of Locke or against his statement. And at the same time, each side has completely unacceptable judgments. Some insist on egalitarianism up to depersonalization, others argue that there is a category of “second-class” people. There is no ready answer to the question of whether people are really equal. I want to believe that all people, no matter what, are equal.
However, a new question immediately arises: how does this equality manifest itself? The “equal in inequality” answer is like an oxymoron. The correct answer is only partly known. First, equality is about respect. Everyone deserves respect, even if they cannot contribute to society. The crippled, the handicapped, the feeble-minded and others deserve to be treated like human beings.
Second, equality implies opportunities for self-improvement. Each person should get a chance to learn, to reveal in himself secret talents, to master the craft to which he shows inclination. But how much a person will show his abilities and knowledge, how much benefit to others, depends on him alone.
Thirdly, equality also lies in the right to understanding, moral support and psychological assistance. Each of us experiences an urgent need for psychological help several times during our lives, everyone dreams of being listened to at least once, everyone needs understanding from others.
These are essential conditions existence of equality between people, and these conditions must be observed everywhere. Thus, people are equal and should receive almost everything equally from life. But at the same time, the weak need more protection, the strong need more work in which they could realize their full potential. And creative people need more freedom to express themselves. Obviously, it will be possible to build such a life only when the most important social problems are solved. And they will be solved when people feel equal.
This is not a vicious circle, just both processes must proceed simultaneously. The transformation of society will serve as a guarantee of the equality of people, and the fruits of this equality will bring new changes in public life. It is curious how deep the redistribution of the structure of society must be. It must preserve the foundations of our social existence, but at the same time have infinite creative depth.
The image of a woman served as the personification of Equality (Egalite) during the French Revolution.
The very restructuring of society must be creative, since people will have to create new places for themselves in life in order to find the long-awaited equality. If people simply leave their former places in order to occupy new ones, then, as the philosophers explain, no effect will come of this. Other people will come to the vacated places, also dissatisfied with their lot. Moving from place to place will not lead to positive changes, but will only cause more irritation among the disadvantaged.
Text of the US Declaration of Independence
When the course of events leads to the fact that one of the peoples is forced to terminate the political ties that bind it to another people, and take an independent and equal place among the powers of the world, to which it is entitled according to the laws of nature and its Creator, respect for the opinion of mankind requires from him an explanation of the reasons that prompted him to such a separation.
We proceed from the self-evident truth that all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, which include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, governments are instituted by men, deriving their legitimate authority from the consent of the governed. In the event that any form of government becomes destructive to these very purposes, the people have the right to change or abolish it and establish a new government based on such principles and forms of organization of power as, in its opinion, will best ensure the safety and happiness of the people. . Of course, prudence requires that governments established long ago should not be changed under the influence of insignificant and fleeting circumstances; accordingly, all past experience confirms that people are more inclined to bear vices as long as they can be tolerated, than to exercise their right to abolish the forms of government that have become habitual to them. But when a long series of abuses and violence, invariably subordinated to the same goal, testifies to an insidious design to force the people to submit to unlimited despotism, the overthrow of such a government and the creation of new security guarantees for the future becomes the right and duty of the people. These colonies have shown patience for a long time, and only necessity compels them to change the former system of their government. The history of the reign of the now reigning King of Great Britain is a collection of countless injustices and violence, the immediate aim of which is to establish unlimited despotism. To confirm the above, we present the following facts to the impartial judgment of all mankind.
He refused to give his consent to the adoption of laws that were most useful and necessary for the common good.
He forbade his governors to pass urgent and extremely important laws, unless their action was delayed until obtaining royal consent, but when they were thus suspended, he defiantly left them without any attention.
He allowed other laws important to the life of the population of vast districts to be passed, only on condition that they renounce the right to representation in the legislature, that is, a right priceless to him and dangerous only to tyrants.
He called legislatures in unaccustomed and inconvenient places far away from where their official documents are kept, for the sole purpose of starving them into agreeing to the policy he proposes.
He repeatedly dissolved the Houses of Representatives, which courageously and firmly opposed his encroachments on the rights of the people.
He is within long term after such a dissolution, withheld the election of other deputies, with the result that the legislative powers, which are essentially indestructible, were returned for their exercise to the people as a whole; the state, meanwhile, was exposed to all the dangers arising both from external invasion and from internal disturbances.
He tried to prevent the settlement of these states by ignoring laws for the naturalization of aliens, by refusing to pass other laws aimed at encouraging immigration, and also by making it difficult to allocate new land.
He created obstacles to the administration of justice by refusing to consent to the adoption of laws on the organization of the judiciary.
He placed the judges in the exclusive dependence on his will by determining the terms of their tenure, as well as the amount and payment of their salaries.
He created many new positions and sent a host of officials to us in order to oppress the people and deprive them of their livelihood.
In peacetime he kept a standing army with us without the consent of our legislatures.
He sought to make the military power independent and superior to the civil power.
He united with other persons to subject us to a jurisdiction alien to our constitution and not recognized by our laws, approved their acts that claimed to become legislation and served:
For quartering we have large formations of the armed forces;
To release, by means of lawsuits, which are only apparently so, from the punishments of military men who have committed murders of the inhabitants of these states;
To stop our trade with all parts of the world;
To tax us without our consent;
To deprive us in many court cases of the opportunity to enjoy the advantages of trial by jury;
To send the inhabitants of the colonies across the seas in order to bring them to trial there for the crimes attributed to them;
To abolish the free system of English law in a neighboring province by setting it under despotic rule and extending its frontiers in such a way that it will serve both as an example and a ready instrument for introducing the same absolutist rule in our colonies;
For the revocation of the charters granted to us, the abolition of our most useful laws, and the fundamental change in the forms of our government;
To suspend the activities of our legislatures and assign ourselves the authority to legislate instead of us in a variety of cases.
He relinquished control of the colonies, declaring that we were stripped of his protection and starting a war against us.
He plundered us at sea, devastated our coasts, burned our cities and deprived our people of life.
He is currently sending us a large army of foreign mercenaries in order to finally sow death, ruin and tyranny among us, which have already found expression in facts of cruelty and treachery, which hardly occurred even in the most barbaric times, and absolutely unworthy of the head of a civilized nation.
He forced our fellow citizens, taken prisoner on the high seas, to fight against their country, to kill their friends and brothers, or to perish themselves at their hands.
He incited us to internal rebellions and tried to set against the inhabitants of our frontier lands the ruthless savage Indians, whose recognized rules of warfare amount to the destruction of people, regardless of age, sex and marital status.
In response to these harassments, we each time submitted petitions, drawn up in the most restrained tone, asking for the restoration of our rights: in response to our repeated petitions, only new injustices followed. A sovereign whose character has all the traits of a tyrant cannot be the ruler of a free people.
Equally, we did not leave without attention our British brothers. From time to time we have warned them against attempts by Parliament to illegally bring us under their jurisdiction. We reminded them of the reasons why we emigrated and settled here. We appealed to their innate sense of justice and generosity and conjured them, for the sake of our common blood ties, to condemn these oppressions, which were bound to lead to the rupture of our ties and fellowship. They also remained deaf to the voice of justice and common blood. We are therefore compelled to recognize the inevitability of our separation and regard them, as we regard the rest of humanity, as enemies in war, friends in peace.
Therefore, we, the representatives of the United States of America, assembled in a general Congress, calling on the Most High to confirm the honesty of our intentions, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly record and declare that these united colonies are, and by right should be, free and independent states, that they are freed from all bondage to the British Crown, and that all political ties between them and the British State must be completely severed; that, as free and independent states, they are empowered to declare war, to make peace, to enter into alliances, to trade, to make any other action and everything to which an independent state has the right. And with firm confidence in the patronage of Divine Providence, we swear to each other to uphold this Declaration with our lives, our wealth, and our spotless honour.