Contradictions and Ironies

            I've encountered many contradictions and ironies in our readings this semester, but the most poignant was the contrast between the noble ideals espoused in “The Declaration of Independence,” and how Native Americans, African Americans, and women were denied the “inherent and inalienable rights” (342) of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (342).   

           Regarding “The Declaration of Independence,” it was very interesting to read Jefferson’s original draft with the additions and deletions that were made to the final document.  Particularly ironic was  the part – deleted from the final Declaration – where Jefferson, who owned many slaves, condemns the practice of slavery and blames it on King George III:  “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 and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere…Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce” (344).

            In his powerful oration, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” Frederick Douglass magnificently articulates the perspective of the American slave regarding American liberty:  “To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery…” (991). 

            In “The Declaration of Independence,” Jefferson also characterizes all Native Americans as “the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions of existence” (344).  First, the irony:  the inhabitants of whose frontiers?  Hello, the Indians were here first!  Second, the contradiction:  many Native Americans did not behave as he describes.  Cabeza de Vaca gives a detailed account of how Malhado, Avavares, and Arbadao people treated the Spanish explorers with kindness and generosity. 

            Although women comprised roughly half of the population in 1776 just as they do now, women are not even mentioned in “The Declaration of Independence.”  They could not vote, were denied opportunities to pursue education and careers, and were viewed as belonging to their fathers and husbands.  As Margaret Fuller pointed out a little over a half a century later, “…that is the very fault of marriage, and of the present relation between the sexes, that the woman does belong to the man, instead of forming a whole with him” (747).  Liberty this is not, and women were permitted to pursue happiness via only one narrow path, that of marriage and motherhood.

            One of the unique and wonderful things about America, however, is that the noble egalitarian principles set forth in our founding documents have helped us to gradually evolve into a country more closely resembling those ideals.  Brave and articulate souls like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Margaret Fuller, and many others have pointed out the disparities between those principles and their contemporary realities, and helped us move forward as a society.  We still have a long way to go, but the literary works we've studied this semester, and the social changes that accompanied them, help me feel more optimistic about our country’s future.