Propaganda in the Declaration of Independance

The Declaration of Independence is a document that is extremely important to the history of The United States of America. It is the document that was written to declare our freedom, or independence, from England. The colonists from England who came to the United States were annoyed with all the taxes and laws from the king that they were forced to follow. They thought that it was outrageous that they were being forced to follow these laws when they lived so far away from England and they were basically their own established country. This is when they decided to write the Declaration of Independence. Five people came up with the Declaration of Independence, but Thomas Jefferson was the one that was chosen to write it all out. Although the Declaration of Independence poses a very strong argument against England, there are some problems with it's argument. The Declaration of Independence uses a lot of propaganda. One type of propaganda that the Declaration of Independence contains is name calling. Name calling is used when the author is trying to avoid supporting their opinion with actual facts. In The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson uses a lot of name calling against the King of England. "The history of the present Kind of Great Britian is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states." (Jefferson 122). In this passage, Jefferson is accusing the king of repeatedly making mistakes and messing up and not being a good leader. He uses the word "usurpation" meaning that he does not think that the king deserves or is qualified to be the king. By using this kind of propaganda, Jefferson kind of puts holes in his argument. Jefferson uses this name calling technique many times throughout the Declaration of Independence. He continuously tries to make the king look bad. "He had abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation" (Jefferson 124). Here, Jefferson is accusing the king of doing a lot of very bad things to the people of America. He says that the king is destroying their lives and ruining their homes and towns and now he is waging a war with them. He wants to convince the people of his country to go against the king and be independent of Britain. He uses the technique of name calling to make the people think that the king is bad. This technique may help him a bit, but it could also be a bad strategy for Jefferson because it could make his argument faulty.

Bibliography

Jefferson, Thomas. The Declaration of Independence. Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 120-124. Print.

Dspsweb@cuesta.edu. "Recognizing Propaganda--Guide to Critical Thinking--Academic Support." Print.