Justice Clarence Thomas on the Declaration of Independence

On April 15, Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a lecture at the University of Texas at Austin in honor of the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Here’s a taste:

The second paragraph of the Declaration proclaims: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights….”  Throughout my youth, these truths were articles of faith that were impervious to bigotry or discrimination. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines “self-evident” as “obviously true, and requiring no proof, argument or explanation.”  Whether they had a divine source, or a worldly one, they were never questioned. They were the Holy Grail, the North Star, the rock – immovable and unquestioned.

Despite the multiplicity of laws and customs that reeked of bigotry, it was universally believed among those blacks with whom I lived and who had very little or no formal education, that “in God’s eyes and under our Constitution we are equal.”  This was also the case with my nuns, most of whom were Irish immigrants. At home, at school, and at Church, we were taught that we are inherently equal; that equality came from God; and that it could not be diminished by man. We were made in the image and likeness of God. That proposition was not debatable and was beyond the power of man to alter. Others, with power and animus, could treat us as unequal but they lacked the divine power to make us so.

Somehow, without formal education, the older people knew that these God-given or natural rights preceded and transcended governmental power or authority. When you lived in a segregated world with palpable discrimination and the governments nearest to you enforced laws and customs that promoted unequal treatment, it was obvious that you did not get your rights or your dignity from those governments, but from God. Though not a literate man, my grandfather often spoke of our rights and obligations coming from God, not from the architects of segregation and discrimination. Men were not angels. They were subject to the constraints of antecedent rights. And, we were not subject to them even as we were subjected to their whims. We knew that life, liberty, and property were sacrosanct. These truths were self-evident to the adults in our lives and were taught to us as undeniable truths. Those around us could endure with dignity the insults of segregation because they knew that, in God’s eyes, they were equal.

All too often, there is an unfortunate tendency, when discussing the Declaration, to make these self-evident truths and first principles of government obscure. Intellectuals want you to believe that our founding principles are matters of esoteric philosophy or sophisticated debate. Even those who support them too often talk about them as if they were academic playthings. They overcomplicate them, take the spirit out of them, and discuss them in a manner that puts us to sleep.

Justice Thomas’ speech has received significant attention, and stoked a fair amount of controversy, largely over Justice Thomas’ criticism of progressivism. In the New York Times, prominent Supreme Court critic Jesse Wegman even suggested Justice Thomas should apologize for his remarks.

Were Justice Thomas’ remarks really so outrageous? So readers can make up their own minds, here is a transcript, courtesy of Civitas Outlook, and the video is below.