On the Word "Men" in the Declaration of Independence
Which Sense of the Term is Meant by Mr. Jefferson
On the word “men” in The Declaration of Independence.
See comments for source of photo.
My female students in the first year of their studies , when asked, say they are freshmen. Not long ago, the New York Times, staffed by Democrats, titled a story about a trip to Mars with a note that it was "unmanned." They didn't mean than only women were on board. If I run over an old woman while driving drunk, I commit vehicular manslaughter, but it's no legal defense to tell the judge that , you don't understand, she was a woman. When I joined the Navy in 1992 I entered as an E1 with a rank of Seaman Recruit, but so did every woman who joined that year. So does every woman who joins THIS YEAR. In "The Woman's Manual for Parliamentary Law: with Practical Illustrations Especially Adapted to Women's Organizations" published by Lee and Shepard (Boston) in 1891 and 1895 by Harriette R. Shattuck, president of the Boston Political Class, she talks about how to elect a "Chairman" of the women's organization without a hint that there was anything strange about the term applied to her, herself, or any other woman so elected.
The term "man" in English has always had a gender-neutral sense. Many times the same spelling yields different words. That is, the same spelling can have more than one meaning. See for instance the spelling of "Minute". It can be a noun or an adjective with radically different meanings, though exactly the same spelling.
Jefferson obviously meant the term "men" in the gender-neutral sense of that spelling, inclusive of women.
My students who think he meant all men as adult human males seem to forget that many of the slaves were adult , human, and male, a fact not lost on Mr. Jefferson.
Mr. Jefferson was also not talking about so-called "white" people only. "White" people, Mr. Jefferson understood perfectly well, started out, not as men in the sense of ADULT human males (the other sense of the same spelling, "MAN"), but as very small babies, infants in arms, but nonetheless, HUMAN BEINGS or HUMAN PERSONS.
That's right: Jefferson knew that neither he nor anyone else who signed the Declaration of Independence came out of their mothers' wombs a MAN. That would have killed their mothers on the spot.
If you don't get this, you're behind the curve on quite a bit, and it's likely you won't catch up on the more difficult things to understand in American Politics. You must start here. If you don't master this, you're lost on all sorts of other things.
The word , or spelling "man" means the same thing today in English, both senses.
Text Copyright Lucas J. Mather, 2023
All Rights Reserved
Originally published to Facebook 4 July 2023 at 2:59 pm
^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2015, published by Oxford University Press, England.
I think they know something about the English language.
Those are the same definitions that Webster had in 1828. It’s online, here . Notice he uses the King James Bible as examples for the meanings in English ! https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/man
[Photo above ^ : Webster’s 1828 dictionary is online. This is the meaning term “Man,” at the time of the American Founding. NB: The same definition appears above in the 2015 Oxford English Dictionary].
I highly recommend buying the Signet Classic edition of “The Federalist” (edited with introductory essay by Prof. Charles R. Kesler) which includes not only the US Constitution collated by page number to the Federalist Papers, but also a copy of the Articles of Confederation and THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
It’s the best-selling edition of The Declaration.
Professor Charles R. Kesler was a guest of The Republican Professor Podcast last year, available here: https://www.therepublicanprofessor.com/2022/06/21/ep-60-whats-wrong-with-conservativism-dr-charles-r-kesler-ph-d-editor-claremont-review-of-books-distinguished-professor-at-claremont-mckenna-college-calif/
Dr. Kesler was my professor for my Ph.D. course on The Declaration and The Federalist at the Claremont Colleges, Claremont, Calif., in Spring 2014.
Happy 4th of July today.
Sorry for 2 today.
As Ronald Reagan said,
“Republicans believe that everyday is the Fourth of July, but Democrats believe everyday is April 15th.”
Luke
The Republican Professor
