Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Civics In A Year
From America to the World: How the Declaration Shaped Freedom Movements
The American Declaration of Independence created a model for self-government that inspired nations and movements worldwide, establishing principles that transcend time and borders.
• The Declaration serves three primary functions: formally declaring independence, establishing natural rights principles, and listing specific grievances
• France's Declaration of Rights of Man (1789) adopted similar natural rights language while focusing on national sovereignty rather than independence
• Haiti became the second independent nation in the Americas with their 1804 declaration denouncing French colonialism and slavery
• Venezuela's 1811 declaration borrowed direct language from America while adapting it to their unique circumstances under Napoleonic interference
• Ho Chi Minh surprised many by directly quoting "all men are created equal" in Vietnam's 1945 declaration of independence
• Israel's 1948 declaration combined American principles with references to religious heritage and "trust in the Almighty"
• The Seneca Falls Convention's 1848 "Declaration of Sentiments" adapted the format to advocate for women's equality
• Many declarations balance revolutionary principles with claims to be conserving ancient rights and traditions
Referenced Documents:
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789): https://www.elysee.fr/en/french-presidency/the-declaration-of-the-rights-of-man-and-of-the-citizen
Haitian Declaration of Independence (1804): https://today.duke.edu/showcase/haitideclaration/declarationstext.html
Declaration of Indelendence of Venezuela (1811): https://declarationproject.org/?p=370
Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945): https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5139/
Israel's Declaration of Independence (1948): https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/israel.asp
Declaration of Sentiments (1848): https://www.womenshistory.org/sites/default/files/document/2019-08/Day%203_0.pdf
David Armitage is the key scholar of this issue. See his book, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (Harvard, 2007), and this article: https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/declaration-independence-global-perspective
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Hi, my name is Ryan and I'm an AP US government teacher from Michigan. My students want to know how did other countries and movements worldwide use the Declaration as a model?
Speaker 2:Ten minutes. Is that what we're looking for?
Speaker 1:Yeah about ten minutes now. If you go over and the content is good, I'm not going to stop you, because we've definitely had some of the podcasts go 20 minutes, but the content is good. I'm not going to stop you, because we've definitely had some of the podcasts go 20 minutes, but the content's good.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean I usually end up speaking too long, but you promised them 10 minutes in your little introduction. I listened to a couple of them.
Speaker 1:But again, if the content is good, I don't want to. I think the next one's coming up, or yeah, a little bit longer.
Speaker 2:So okay, so you're going to go ahead and play that question. I'm going to start.
Speaker 1:I won't play it because I haven't extracted it yet from my data system, but I will pretend that I have.
Speaker 2:Okay, will you read it to me so I know where we're, what they're?
Speaker 1:going to say Absolutely yes. Okay, welcome back. Thank you, ryan, for that question. Ryan asked how did other countries and movements worldwide use the Declaration as a model, and I am excited today we have a new guest on our podcast. To answer that, I'd like to introduce Dr James Stoner, who is professor of political science and the director of the Eric Vogelin Institute at Louisiana State University, or LSU. Dr Stoner, thank you so much for being with us and can you kind of help Brian and his students out with that question.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll do my best. Thanks for having me, liz. The Declaration of Independence I guess you've been talking about that in other sections. The Declaration of Independence does several things right. First of all, it actually declares independence. These colonies, united colonies, will be independent from Great Britain and ask to, or assert that they intend to assert, their, to assume their separate and equal station among the nations of the world, and the first and the last paragraph of the Declaration speak directly to this matter. It's formally how it functions as a legal document. But then in its famous second paragraph, which today often gets most of the attention, the authors of the Declaration lay out the principles that explain why they took that action. They're not claiming about America that somehow it's always been independent or that there's a kind of geographic necessity or something of the sort. They can't claim to be an ancient nation among the peoples of the earth or anything of that sort among the peoples of the earth or anything of that sort. Rather, they lay out this theory of natural rights and of government built on the consent of the people to protect those rights, and to present all of that as a choice, a political choice that can be made by any people on earth and that would give them the right to assert themselves as an equal nation. So they need the principles because their independence depends upon it in a way that the independence of the French or of the English from each other or from either of them, from Russia or the like, would not. The third thing in the Declaration is a list of grievances that justify the application of those principles to lead to the action of asserting independence. So the other nations that have used the Declaration as a model have done so for different reasons, depending on these different parts of the Declaration. So, for example, one of the first supposed or probable models is the Declaration of the Rights of man and Citizen propounded by the French National Assembly, or what became the National Assembly during the French Revolution. And they don't imitate the Declaration directly, although the very first article sounds altogether similar to what's in the Declaration. The first article reads men are born and remain free and equal in rights, and that resonates with the Declaration of Independence. Resonates with the Declaration of Independence, although they go on to speak of social distinctions may be based only on considerations of the common good, and that obviously involves a rejection of aristocracy or at least a denial that aristocracy is God given or established and the like, but that speaks to their differences in France. They then list a number of rights that actually sound a lot more like what ends up in our Bill of Rights, and another source of this French Declaration is the Declaration of Rights or the Bill of Rights from the Virginia Constitution, which have been translated into French and widely circulated. So that's an important thing to note.
Speaker 2:Or one example the use of the Declaration or something like the Declaration, or a document that seems in a way like the Declaration, but there's no declaring independence among the French right. They've declared that the nation, rather than the king, is sovereign in France, is sovereign in France, and then they assert these principles, as the Americans did, to explain how government emanates from the people. Well, they say the nation rather than the people maybe an important difference rather than to be a matter of divine right or something simply inherited or the like. So there is maybe the first use, and in some ways, everybody knew that the American Revolution was a kind of model for the French Revolution, even though their circumstances were really different and, of course, the outcomes of their revolutions were really different. A second example occurred just a few years later in Haiti, on the island of Haiti, and there the generals who had fought off the French, that is to say the revolutionary French and at this point, napoleon's army, which is seeking to suppress their attempt to rule themselves, these generals declare independence of France. There's no quotation, I noticed, or no clear quotation from the Declaration of Independence, the American Declaration, but they have lots of grievances and they're all against the French and it's an extensive denunciation of what the French have done over the years, from the period of enslavement no credit given to the French for abolishing slavery, rather the accusation that they're seeking to reimpose it, and the like. But in a way, it's a really different group that's making this announcement. It's a similar announcement in the sense that it's an appeal to the countries of the world to recognize their independence, which eventually was done. In fact, the Haitians like to note that theirs was the second declaration of independence in the New World and they became the second independent state in the New World, independent state on the model of the state's state system in Europe at the time.
Speaker 2:Another example takes place about seven years later, in 1811, in Venezuela, the one they considered their rightful king, and so they think that they ought to be independent now of Spain, which has been taken over, as it were, by the French and by Napoleon, and so they list their grievances against Napoleon. There's no listing of rights here, or of natural rights, maybe a reference somewhere in passing, but mostly it's the grievances against Napoleon and what he's done and these actions that have taken place in Spain, and then the actions of the Spanish agents who had been sent to enforce their will in Venezuela, in the new world. But they do quote from the Declaration of Independence. Towards the end they have a paragraph that says we, therefore the representatives of, and they list their different provinces and then they even assert let me see if I can find this and read it to you they even assert that they're acting independently out of, or that they're pledging to one another their lives, their fortunes and the sacred tie of our national honor. So it's almost like the Declaration of Independence, but once again the mention of a nation, which I don't think is a term that appears in the American Declaration. This term nation Speak of a people but not of a nation. A people but not of a nation.
Speaker 2:The next two or the last two examples I want to give of these sorts of declarations are from the 20th century and they take place shortly after World War II. The first is from a surprising place, vietnam, and it's issued in a speech given by Ho Chi Minh, who later is recognized as the communist leader of North Vietnam, against whom the Americans actually fight a war in the 1950s and especially 1960s and into the early 1970s, and Ho Chi Minh begins his what's called often the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. He begins by saying all men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776, and so forth.
Speaker 2:He then mentions the French Declaration as well. Again, much of his objection is against the French, because they're declaring independence from the French, although he modifies and says well, actually the French had surrendered to the Japanese, the Japanese had ruled Vietnam during World War II. He also makes reference to the unfolding of the United Nations, which is just about to be established A convention is being held at that very moment in San Francisco and declaring in the UN Charter that the nations of the world, against the United Nations, have the right to govern themselves and to be sovereign, have their own sovereign powers and their own self-government or self-determination. And he appeals to this, not to rights exactly. And that of course becomes evident in the course of the war with Americans and his his alliances with the communists in Russia and China and eventually in the communist domination of Vietnam after American withdrawal.
Speaker 2:But the last example I want to give is the Declaration of Independence of Israel a year later, in 1948. Here again they cite the UN Charter and a resolution that declared that the Jewish people of the Middle East and Palestine have a right to their own nation and their own government. But they declare this for themselves on the day that the British mandate to rule that area, to rule Palestine, a mandate that had been given originally by the League of Nations, if I'm not mistaken, after World War I. This mandate's about to expire and, without waiting for further action of the United Nations, the Israelis declare their own independence. They've got somewhat different sources, as they mentioned that they are a people who have created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal book of books, and their appeal at the end is to their trust in the Almighty. So not just sacred honor, but their claim again to be continuous as the people of God from the Old Testament. Continuous as the people of God from the Old Testament. But nevertheless it is very much a declaration of independence, an assertion of equality among the peoples of the world, among the peoples who have the right to govern themselves and are subject as a whole to the law of nations. So so far you see these different elements of our declaration being used by other peoples for somewhat different purposes, although the chief purpose being to declare an equality among the nations of the earth, an equal sovereignty among the nations of the earth.
Speaker 2:But there's also been the attempt of other movements I think the question mentioned movements of other movements to appeal to the principles of the Declaration and to assert those. Well, for I suppose reform within a country Most famous of those is right in the United States, the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments that was issued by the Seneca Falls Convention. Maybe you're familiar with this. Maybe there'll be another session about it in this podcast series. That begins when, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires, etc. And again, a few other changes right.
Speaker 2:We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, and so forth. And then the list of grievances are grievances not against the British, but of women against men, or so as Elizabeth Cady Stanton would have written. So the Declaration, in that way, has been a fertile source of well, I won't just say revolutionary movements, because some of them were maybe not so revolutionary. Actually, our own movement was it revolutionary or was it conservative? That itself about our so-called revolution or war of independence is not always clear, because the colonists claimed, in one way, simply to be asserting their ancient rights that they say the British have imposed upon. And I think in some ways Venezuela is doing the same. It's different for Haiti, it's different for Israel, although they're asserting really ancient rights and different in these different circumstances. But it's clear that the Americans set a kind of model of a people being able to organize themselves politically and then to govern themselves and be respected by the others, others in the world as having the sovereign right to govern themselves.
