Declaration Of Independence Chapter Summaries

1157 Words5 Pages

TWO CENTURIES OF CONTROVERSIES I would now like to analyze one specific passage of the Declaration. This passage, originally written by Jefferson, was promptly removed before the signature of the fifty-five delegates. The analysis of the following text will help us understand why the Declaration as well as the Constitution were destined to later be modified. He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of …show more content…

As a matter of fact, enslaved blacks were counted at a three-fifth of a U.S. citizen, for censuses and congressional representation purposes. This was called the three-fifth compromise and it was established in 1787 and remained in force until the ratification of the thirteenth amendment. It then becomes apparent that slavery was a tremendously important controversy in the decades following the signature of the Declaration. Should the sentence “all men are created equal” apply to the slaves or not? Were slaves even men? Opinions were strongly divided between Northern and Southern states, and it took approximately a century before the civil rights of slaves and African American were legally