The Declaration of Independence is a document that was published in 1776 by Thomas Jefferson as a reaction to a series of offenses by the English Government, specifically King George III.The document states that the colonists have a desire to dissolve their ties to the King and the government that surrounds him, an entirely novel idea during the time period. Jefferson writes that the colonists have the right to no longer be British subjects because \u201call 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\u201d (Blaisdell 64). Once Jefferson establishes what these unalienable rights are, he goes on to list all of the ways that he, and the rest of the colonists, believe King George III has been withholding these rights from them (Blaisdell 65). Jefferson\u2019s document, The Declaration of Independence, did exactly what its name would lead one to assume, it declared the independence of the people in the colonies and sparked a revolution.
\nAnother man, Emmanual Joseph Sieyes, makes a remarkably similar push for independence and a revolution of the social system in his work What is the Third Estate. Much like Jefferson, Sieyes saw that men do have certain rights, that should not be taken from them. Written as a response to an inquiry about how the Estates-General should be organized What is the Third Estate asked for many of the same things as Jefferson\u2019s The Declaration of Independence did but most importantly it requested equal representation for the Third Estate. Sieyes argues that the Third Estate \u201cconstitutes nineteen-twentieths\u201d of all the production in the country (Blaisdell 72) and that in the event that there were no First and Second Estates leeching off of the work of the Third that the country would be far more efficient and better off in general, much like Jefferson says about the colonists being better off without King George III suppressing them. Just as The Declaration of Independence did, What is the Third Estate motivated the people to make a change, and to revolutionize the way of thinking about social order, mans\u2019 rights and government power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Declaration of Independence is a document that was published in 1776 by Thomas Jefferson as a reaction to a series of offenses by the English Government, specifically King George III.The document states that the colonists have a desire to … Continue reading