Self-evident_In_The_Declaration_Of_Independence

Self-evident In The Declaration Of Independence In the “Declaration of Independence,” Thomas Jefferson uses the phrase “self-evident” as a necessary modifier for the truths of equality he describes -- that all men are created equal and that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights. The inclusion of this phrase has a profound effect on Jefferson’s argument for freedom because of what it represents. In the original draft of the “Declaration of Independence,” it’s obvious that the phrase sacred and undeniable is crossed out and substituted with “self-evident” (2). Much has been said about Jefferson’s purpose for including the phrase “self-evident”: to justify American independence in the plainest terms, to place a stronger emphasis on the scientific logic behind equality [by removing the word sacred] or to signify the merging of religious ideals with human reason. Whatever the reason, Jefferson uses it to “command the attention and assent” of the tyrannical King of England, once arguing that the colonists were “a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their Chief Magistrate” (1). “Self-evident” brings validity to the phrase, self-evident, jefferson, independence, scientific, declaration, time, rights, freedom, reason, philosophy, people, obvious, nature, natural, moral, men, laws, jefferson’s, fact, equality, world, word, whatever, way, validity, universal, undeniable, unalienable, tyrannical, truths, truth, toward, throughout, thomas