If you still have thoughts from the graded discussion that you didn't get a chance to respond with, you may add them as comments. If you were absent and excused, you can get credit for posting your comments here. Do a little bit of research on something you are curious about the Declaration or Jefferson. Write a paragraph explaining what your curiosity was and what you found out. Please write it well and be sure to proof read it before posting it. Make sure your content is unique from your classmates...post early to insure this. I will accept comments until 3:03 on Friday, Feb. 22nd.
Mr. Thompson
Tarek Abdelqader
ReplyDeleteDuring my reading of the preamble, one sentence stood out to me. According to Jefferson, "mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Yet colonial Americans overcame their aversion to change, relinquishing material comfort and safety in the fight for independence. What was it that allowed the colonists to selflessly defend the ideals that would form the country I live in today? The answer seems to be money: taxes, to be specific. The outcry from the colonists over the Townshend Acts, which heavily taxed products like tea, resulted in a series of measures called the Intolerable Acts. Perhaps it was the strain on colonists' pride, or maybe it was the toll that taxes had taken on their wallets, but with or without a declaration, the colonists were prepared to take action.
Jake Nemgar
ReplyDeleteAfter reviewing the Declaration of Independence, the main question I had was why was Mr. Jefferson the one to write the Declaration? I looked in our book and found the President page and saw he was a lawyer and thought that might be why. I went on the internet and finally found the website to www.americaslibrary.gov. It gave the best explanation that the representatives of the colonies all thought he was the best writer. Even after futher review I also found out the Mr. Jefferson was part of a committee to draft a declaration of independence. The committee, composed of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman, in turn instructed Thomas Jefferson to write the declaration.
Katie Tran
ReplyDeleteBefore researching the extra credit regarding Dunlap Broadsides, I had expected the definition of the phrase to be some sort of boundary; however, after some research, I found that Dunlap Broadsides is another name for the copies which were made of the Declaration of Independence on the night of July 4, 1776. The name Dunlap Broadsides is derived from an Irish man who did the actual printing of the Declaration, John Dunlap. It is believed that there was an estimated 200 Dunlap Broadsides; although, only 25 are still known to exist today.
Interestingly enough, the Declaration included indirect references to the Social Contract Theory. To reference the Glencoe textbook, Thomas Hobbes, a philosopher from England, believed that “people surrendered to the state the power needed to maintain order. The state, in turn, agreed to protect its citizens.” Based on those statements, Hobbes believed that the people did not have the right to break the contract. Another philosopher, John Locke, extended Hobbes’ ideas by theorizing, “When the government failed to preserve the rights of the people, the people had the right to break the contract. Additionally, Locke also wrote, “…people were naturally endowed with the right to life, liberty, and property.” Coincidently, in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote a very similar phrase, “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.” Jefferson also stated in the Declaration of Natural Rights, “…Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…” I found it very intriguing just how closely related the Social Contract theory and the Declaration of Independence are.