Editor's Notes: The Diplomatic Declaration and the Philosophical Declaration

Tomorrow will make it 250 years since “the unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America” that “all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved,” claiming for themselves the “full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”

Though the immediate consequences of this Declaration were practical—having declared our power to contract alliances, we quickly did so in order to avoid defeat in war—the document soon came to be seen as more of a work of moral philosophy.

The division between the totality of what the Declaration was doing, and how it is remembered, fascinates me. The moral argument is obviously important, but I think we too quickly forget that the document was in fact doing something besides moral persuasion.