But as descendants of the revolutionaries and of their English ancestors, they felt the need for a document that stated those values in a way that could guide the nation, a document that the founding fathers had failed to supply. Lincoln and those who shared his convictions did not therefore give the nation a new past or revolutionize the Revolution. The values he emphasized – equality, human rights, government by consent – had in fact been part and parcel of the Revolution, and as much the subject of controversy then as later. No less than Thomas Jefferson, then, Lincoln gave expression to a powerful strain in the American mind, not what all Americans thought but what many did. In Lincoln’s hands, the Declaration of Independence became first and foremost a living document for an established society, a set of goals to be realized over time, and so an explanation less of the colonists’ decision to separate from Great Britain than of their victory in the War for Independence… What seems clear, is that neither the author(s) nor first recipients had any notion at the time that they were composing “American scripture.” In fact, the Declaration was essentially forgotten until interest revived in it in the early 1820’s – although it was Lincoln (as per Maier) that made the Declaration what it is to most Americans today. The only production details we have are from comments made over two decades after the fact and rely upon the memories and claimed notes of Jefferson and Adams. There was actually a committee of five, and the whole congress had a voice in the editing.

Popular myth says that Thomas Jefferson authored the Declaration – a claim that loomed ever larger on the horizon of Jefferson’s life in his declining years as he seized upon it as his magnum opus. Being a lifelong Bibliophile immersed in Scripture, I found the parallels between Scripture and Declaration striking.

Still, it was the second story that most intrigued me – partly because it was mostly fresh ground for me, and partly because at times I forgot which document I was reading about, the Declaration or the Bible. I know the first story pretty well, finding a front row seat in works such as John Adams by McCullough, but what a delight to see it unfold though Maier’s telling. Maier tells the reader, “This book tells two different but related stories – that of the original making of the Declaration of Independence and that of its remaking into the document most Americans know, remember, and revere.”īoth of them enrapturing – at least to me, but then I devour history the way normal men devour sports. My latest read, finished, fittingly, on Independence Day.Īmerican Scripture: The Making of the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier.

American scripture by pauline maier