Life, Liberty, and the right to Question.

The ideas articulated in the Declaration of Independence are the foundation of a particularly American perplexity which defines both our triumphs and our failures even today. The Declaration says "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", and on these words alone, the very ideals of the United States were formed. Based from these few words, the current superpower nation was beginning to shape into what it is today.

A very controversial issue arises from the line "all men are created equal". The first point to mention is that all men (and women) weren't created equal, and, based on these differences, they were treated differently in rights. The goal of the declaration was equality for all, and setting that goal was a triumph in itself, particularly American because never before had this been attempted in any country. There was no precedent set that they could look to or nation in a similar situation that they could borrow laws from. This was a new country that said it was going to accept people from around the world and they would be given the same rights as the men who'd fought on the soil for a century. Without this statement, maybe slavery wouldn't have been abolished. Sure, everyone can talk about it being amoral, but when "all men are created equal" is put in a governmental document, it gets cogs moving in the brains of the people in charge. There had to be an idea before anything could happen.

What makes it a particularly American failure is almost the same reason; no country had ever declared that their government advocated equal rights for all, so when Thomas Jefferson wrote those famous words, it was an embarrassment to know that America proclaimed their equality but hadn't put it into practice. Jefferson, known notoriously for his opinions on the immorality of slavery, owned many slaves throughout his lifetime. The most perplexing part of this issue is what to remember it as: the first big success, or the first big failure; whether to feel proud about that statement or to be ashamed by that statement. Was it the biggest mistake America ever made, or the greatest accomplishment.

It's common knowledge that the Declaration is said to give us the right to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". How can Americans say we have the right to live when breaking the law means that the government can kill you. If it is the right of an American to live, why should the government be able to decide when to take their life. This is a particularly American perplexity because never had a country formally given its citizen the "unalienable right" to life. That was American, and no place else has ever wrestled with that concept before. Granted, the Declaration of Independence isn't a legally binding or law-making document, but the principals of this country, basic rights down to something as simple as life, come from this document. Was the statement meant figuratively? No, the statement is as clear and concise as the sentence before it, and invokes the same American perplexity. Does breaking the law take away your "creator given" right to live?

All people struggle with perplexity. Often events both past and present that Americans face are reminiscent of those few simple lines that begin the Declaration of Independence. The bottom line is that there is no other country like the United States, and there probably never will be. There are things in the American government and its history that are perplexing, but it's the rights set up by the Declaration of Independence that allow one to even think about wrongs its government may be committing, and that is something that isn't perplexing. The Declaration helped bring up the freedom to question the way our country is run, and that in itself is an American triumph.