Miller Center Lecture Examines ‘Self-Evident Truths of the Declaration of Independence’

By Georgia Williams

On March 26, students eagerly gathered at the Jack Miller Center event to hear Gregory Collins, lecturer in the program on ethics, politics and economics at Yale University, and Ramon Lopez, assistant professor, Seton Hill University’s political science department, dive into the meaning of “The Self-Evident Truths of the Declaration of Independence” as the 250th anniversary of its signing approaches. 

There is a paradox behind the Declaration of Independence’s famous claim that “we hold these truths to be self-evident” and that all people are created equal and possess unalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

While these ideas form the foundation of American political values, they were actually not self-evident in terms of being obvious and universally accepted. The authors of these words lived in a society marked by slavery, exclusion of women, and exploitation of Native Americans, showing that these “self-evident” truths were not consistently recognized, as Lopez acknowledged. 

The Enlightenment valued reason, debate and justification, yet the Declaration asserts certain principles as needing no justification. He analyzed this through a historical lense arguing that political principles function less as logical truths and more as inherited assumptions that stabilize societies over time.

Reflecting on the past 250 years, Collins challenged the idea that the American Founding was a radical Enlightenment revolution grounded in John Locke’s ideas of natural rights, reasoning and a complete break from British tradition. He argued that this is historically incomplete, because American colonies inherited many British legal, political and cultural systems. He suggested this view underestimates historical continuity and is better understood as an evolutionary development with British roots blended with Enlightenment language and selective reform.

The Declaration is both philosophy and shared political tradition, with “self-evident truths” gaining meaning through societal acceptance. Democracy continually reshapes these ideals through important movements such as abolition, suffrage, and civil rights. 

Lopez and Collins concluded that the Declaration is a living document that evolves through history and interpretation, much like our evolutionary founding.