A good book review is a historian’s best friend. In that spirit, The Life of a Historian offers our review of…
Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Random House, 1998.
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The Life of the Historian:
A Book Review of Pauline Maier’s
American Scripture:
Making the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence stands as a testament to American democracy and the right to ‘Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’ This interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, however, did not develop in 1776 nor from the mind of one individual. In her work, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, historian Pauline Maier explores the trajectory and evolution of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence to explain how its contemporary interpretation became the prevailing narrative. Maier refers to the Declaration’s conception as the ‘making’ of the document and its evolution as its ‘remaking.’ Maier contends that both endeavors required the collective energy and political discourse of the American people. Her argument not only challenges the top-down narrative of the early American Republic but also addresses the importance of public memory in creating and sustaining such a narrative.
Maier begins her work with the second Continental Congress, which she refers to as “the first government of the United States,” and takes her narrative through Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in 1863 (xxi). She argues that the ‘remaking’ process did not end with Lincoln, but rather, continues on today through Americans’ constant reevaluation of their identity. Maier suggests that Thomas Jefferson’s vision for the Declaration’s “maxims,” particularly the one stating ‘all men are created equal’ should “be applied more broadly overtime” as Americans become more accepting, dominates its modern interpretation (215). However, as with Jefferson’s original text did not originate within a vacuum. His vision, his words represented a collective opinion among the American public. In 1776, revolutionary colonists developed a political statement of independence based on broad acceptance of republican values and ideals. In the nineteenth century, their decedents applied this statement to their own conditions and need. In the process, Americans transformed a declaration for independence into a “living document for an established society” with “set goals to be realized over time” (207).
Maier’s chapters follow a linear timeline to illustrate the trajectories of the political and social history of the Declaration. Chapters one and three demonstrate how and why the Continental Congress responded to the colonial policies of the British Parliament as well as explore the drafting period of the Declaration by the Committee of Five. Maier’s telling humanizes characters by stripping them of their reverence. Thus, showing that the Founding Fathers’ historical significance had more to do with context than character. She argues, “in ordinary times, their lives would probably have been ordinary…but they lived in an extraordinary time which made extraordinary achievements possible” (95). This conceptualization does not depreciate their achievements, but rather, contextualizes their thoughts and words in relation to their contemporary society. In doing so, Maier helps to explain why a document that served originally as a political tool, and one that many of its contemporaries perceived as unexceptional regarding its political philosophy, has now reached a “quasi-religious” status (xviii).
In chapters two and four of her work, Maier extracts the Declaration of Independence from its current revered status as a profound and novel political work and displays its representation through the lens of its contemporary readers as a document derivative of the political discourse of the time. Maier does so by using state and local declarations of independence produced prior to Jefferson’s work to illustrate how the Declaration developed from the political thought of the time. Chapter two expounds on the forgotten “‘other’ Declarations of Independence” to show that Jefferson’s writing derived from the political conversations of many colonists (47). She explains how the political philosophy that provided the impetus for revolution existed not solely in the minds of the Founding Fathers, but permeated throughout society, transcending class and regional distinctions.
Her work raises an important question; why do Americans remember the Declaration of Independence as a statement of political thought constructed by one man and worthy of its pseudo-scared status? To answer this question, Maier explores the decades after the Revolution when the Declaration faded from public memory and carries her narrative into the nineteenth century with the document’s triumphant return to public discourse and memory. Her use of the Macklenburg Declaration of Independence episode in 1819 provides an excellent anecdote to present this shift in public opinion and memory. This anecdote demonstrates two distinct yet intertwined concepts of public memory during this period. One, the American public seemingly forgot that more than one declaration of independence existed during the Revolutionary period and that Jefferson’s political ideas were common among colonists. And two, the process of herofication had taken hold on the American public placing the Founding Fathers onto a pedestal above all others of the Revolutionary period. These developments helped initiate a self-perpetuating narrative of American exceptionalism. In the process, public memory of the nineteenth century simplified a complex story and nullified the achievements and intellectual capacities of the people.
As Maier argues in chapters one and two, the language used by Jefferson and the Committee of Five was unexceptional and did not radically alter the political thought of the populace. More importantly, for twenty years after its publication, the Declaration held little value among the American public. What changed? Maier asserts that the rise of Jefferson’s party in 1800, the desire to immortalize the Revolution, and the use of Revolutionary leaders to legitimize political movements and public policy coupled with the transference of English customs and values, specifically regarding public memory and reverence for their own political texts like the Magna Carta, produced this change. However, this does not adequately explain why, or even how, nineteenth-century Americans, and current Americans, forgot the political thought and vision of a generation of people whose words and ideas, published through their own declarations of independence, provided the impetus for the Declaration of Independence.
This flaw, however, does not diminish the importance of Pauline Maier’s American Scripture. Her arguments challenge and question the contemporary understanding of the Declaration of Independence as well as the trajectory of its value within public memory. Through sound reasoning and sources, Maier forces her readers to reevaluate the political ingenuity of the Declaration, reassess how and why Americans facilitated the evolution of its language and meaning, and question the desire and need of Americans to hold a document in such an idolatry manner. Her work is beneficial for not only historians but also, for the public in understanding how a specific document’s history and meaning developed and evolved over time. Maier’s narrative on the ‘making’ and ‘remaking’ of the Declaration of Independence allows for a clearer understanding of the document’s political and social importance at its inception and the continuing significance through American history for those who created it, the American people.