Culture is a population’s collective beliefs that influence the behaviors of the members within that population. These beliefs include politics, religion, economics, philosophy, education and historical backgrounds. Because of this, the drafters of the Declaration of Independence were influenced by all of these. Because they were trying to break away from Britain, they were affected not only by the British culture that they were leaving behind but also the one that they were trying to create in America.
Our forefathers had to remember where they came from in order to find democracy in the new world. England ran on a monarchy and was overseen by the Catholic church. They left this behind as well as the centuries of warring between the Protestants and the Catholics. An example of this from the readings was the ruling of Bloody Mary who was called this because of all of the people she put to death for not being catholic. In 1215 the Magna Carta was created which gave an advisory board to the king to help him deal with controversial matters and to advise him on different political matters. Because of this, our fore founders had to consider the monarchy form of government and also had to consider all of the freedoms that they lacked in England. This is why they chose a democracy as the form of government so that people would have say in the government which would insure that their needs and better interests were being looked after.
Aside from being influenced politically and historically above, our fore founders were also influenced by the economical culture. During this time period, the colonists were adjusting to their new found freedoms but were still under the oppression of Britain’s thumb. Part of this oppression came through harsh tax laws. England was voting on which items to tax the colonists on but didn’t consider the colonists’ votes in the matter. An example of one of these taxes was the Stamp Act. This act taxed the colonists on these like paper which involved a piece of paper with a raise stamp on it that could only be bought through an agent of the government. The biggest problem with these taxes is that colonists were told that the money was being used for them but the colonists saw little help from the British government including colonial defense. This taxation without representation was a huge influence on our fore founders drafting the Declaration of Independence. If they were being expected to look after themselves, they might as well keep their own money and goods for this purpose rather than giving it away.
This cultural change influenced the fore founders in other ways as well. The colonists began looking for ways to meet their need for more stability in government since it had been lacking in the past and for more individual rights due to their history of persecution over topics such as religion and their present state of being oppressed by the British. Philosophy also played a huge role in their decision. Jean-Jaques Rousseau was a philosopher of the times who advocated that as times changed, the government needed to change as well in order for it to remain a benefit. This affected our fore founders in their decision to not keep a monarchy since it was rigid in the way that it was set up. We see more of this philosophy come into play with the constitution. Despite their despair with the British monarchy, they took Thomas Hobbes philosophies into consideration as well which said that government is a needed tool. This is why our fore founders didn’t try to scrap government all together. Lastly, they were influenced by John Locke who thought that people should take active roles in government. This influence can also be seen by our fore founders choice for a democracy so that we can have a government that is run and voted on by the people either directly or through people that they directly voted for.
As we can see from the above, after years of oppression, religious turmoil, warring and a long history of rulers that had no effective interest in the well being of the people, our fore founders were influenced by their culture when they made their decision to draft the Declaration of Independence so that they could break away from an oppressive culture that they felt stifled their independence, creativity