Jaffa Versus Mansfield: Does America Have a Constitutional or a ‘Declaration of Independence’ Soul?

Bottom Line: Political theorists Harry V. Jaffa and Harvey C. Mansfield have differing views on the Declaration of Independence’s principle that “all men are created equal” and how the American regime should be viewed: as a nation defined by the institutions created by the Constitution or the natural rights principles of the Declaration of Independence.

Professor Thomas G. West examines the political thought of noted professors of political theory, Harry V. Jaffa and Harvey C. Mansfield. West explores how both men thought about the Declaration of Independence’s famous principle that “all men are created equal” and what bearing, if any, that principle has on American constitutionalism.

According to West, Jaffa views the principle of natural human equality as the cornerstone of the American regime. The foundation of constitutionalism – the political theory underlying republican government, such as that just government is based upon the consent of the governed – rests upon the pre-political basis of the equality of all human beings in their right not to be ruled without their consent. With Abraham Lincoln, Jaffa sees the Declaration as the “apple of gold” framed by a picture of silver, the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution was created to preserve the principles of the Declaration of Independence and should be interpreted in light of its natural rights teaching.

As it was understood by the American Founders, equality is the “best ground for the revival and continuation of a decent constitutionalism in the modern world.”

For Mansfield, equality is at best a “self-evident half-truth” because it too easily disregards the many ways in which human beings are unequal. Basing a regime upon equality led to democracy, where the few rule the whole but only in the interest of the few. The greater and greater calls for the types of leveling that we see in contemporary American society are due to our adherence to equality.

Mansfield sees the Constitution as the cornerstone of the regime. He claims that a specific people with a specific culture created the Constitution. The Constitution continues to constrain and guide political action in a way that theoretical principles can never accomplish. Americans are a constitutional – not a revolutionary – people who must look to the sober institutions the Constitution created instead of the revolutionary and potentially dangerous principles invoked in the Declaration of Independence.

Read the full essay here.