Richard Schifter is a former U.S. representative in the United Nations Human Rights Commission. He served as the deputy U.S. representative in the U.N. Security Council with the rank of ambassador, and as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. In addition to serving on the ICJS Board of Trustees, Mr. Schifter is a member of the American Jewish Committee's Board of Governors and chairs the AJC's International Relations Commission. In December 2004, he shared his thoughts and research on the relationship of religion and democracy with members of our Board of Trustees.

Most Americans view our Declaration of Independence quite rightly as the foundation stone of our country's secular creed, the creed of democracy. To suggest that the words penned by Thomas Jefferson are derived from the Bible appears to be almost counterintuitive. Yet that is the thesis of this paper.

When we think or speak today of our Declaration of Independ-ence, we focus principally on the "unalienable rights" and on the principle that the role of Government is "to secure these rights." We have emphasized the continuing relevance of the Declaration to the manner in which we conduct our public affairs and have deplored failures to live up to its high standards. We have, in particular, deplored the fact that it took far more than four score and seven years for our Federal Government and our State Governments to accept the "self-evident truth" that "all men are created equal."

What has to some extent faded into the background is that, as distinct from these vitally important guidelines for the future, the Declaration also looked, in 1776, at the conditions then obtaining in the country and in the years immediately preceding. It was in a very literal sense a revolutionary docu-ment. It dissolved "the political bands" which connected the newly Free and Independent States to Great Britain and its sovereign. To justify that dissolution, most of the Declaration's text dealt with "the long train of abuses and usurpations" of King George III, starting with his refusal "to Assent to Laws ... wholesome and necessary for the public good" and continuing with the dissolution of representative bodies, obstruction of the administration of justice, rendering "the Military independ-ent of and superior to the Civil power," and cutting off trade to the United Colonies. "A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people," the Declaration says. It is for that reason that the United Colonies declared themselves "Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown."

The Declaration reflected the ideological consensus of the founders. That consensus, in turn, was the product of the Enlightenment, the thinking on the relationship between government and citizens that evolved in the Western world in the 17th and 18th centuries. The political theory to which Jefferson and the other founders subscribed was significantly influenced by the writings of John Locke, particularly by the Two Treatises of Government, published in 1689.

By 1776, the basic concepts of the Enlightenment had been subscribed to by a great many leaders of thought throughout Europe and North America. They were the concepts that laid the foundation for modern democracy and respect for civil liberties. It is generally assumed that they were the natural outgrowth of the intellectual evolution that accompanied the Renaissance, particularly the re-discovery of the writings of the ancient Greeks and of the democratic form of government that prevailed in many Greek city states in ancient times.

That there might be another source for the proposition that the people have an inherent right to remove a ruler who does not abide by the law as spelled out in our Declaration of Independence first occurred to me when a Dutch diplomat sent me a copy of the Dutch Act of Abjuration, a document executed in 1581. That document is as highly regarded in Dutch history as is our Declaration in our own history. It is the instrument through which six provinces in what is now the Netherlands declared themselves independent from Spain.

As was the case in our War of Independence, the Dutch Act of Abjuration was preceded by years of armed clashes between the troops of the ruler and the population over which he ruled. In the case of the Dutch, their War of Independence had started thirteen years before the Act of Abjuration. There had been numerous armed clashes and often outright warfare between soldiers serving King Philip II of Spain and armed militias representing the Dutch provinces that later came to be known as the Netherlands. In 1581 representatives of these provinces (the States General), meeting in The Hague, re-pudiated the sovereignty of Philip II through adoption of the Act of Abjuration.

The resemblance between that document and the Declaration of Independence is striking. Just like the United States Decla-ration of Independence, the Dutch Act of Abjuration presents a long list of misdeeds of the ruler, in this case Philip II. It lists in great detail the acts of violence committed by Spanish soldiers against the Dutch civilian population, the building of castles and fortifications in Dutch towns to keep them subdued, as well as the imprisonment, trial, conviction and execution of members of the Dutch nobility. The signers of the Act then conclude that "a prince is constituted by God to be ruler of the people, to ... govern them according to equity, to love and support them as a father his children or a shepherd his flock. And when he does not behave thus, but, on the contrary, oppresses them, seeking opportunities to infringe their ancient customs and privileges, exacting from them slav-ish compliance, then he is no longer a prince, but a tyrant ... And particularly when this is done deliberately, ... they may not only disallow his authority, but legally proceed to the choice of another prince for their defense."

Not only do the thoughts expressed in the two documents parallel each other closely, but the same is true even of the choice of words for key phrases. The Dutch said that a prince who infringes the ancient customs and privileges of the people is no longer a prince but a tyrant and the people may disallow his authority. Jefferson conveys the same thought more briefly when he says that a prince, who is marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

It would seem reasonable to assume that Jefferson, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, had, in his mind, developed the basic rationale for the Declaration of Independence with-out relying on the Act of Abjuration. Yet, looking at the structure of the two documents and the choice of words, it would seem reasonable to assume further that Jefferson may have looked for models for the expression of his thoughts. He may already have known about the Dutch Act of Abjuration or may have come across it while he was in the process of pre-paring our Declaration. Either way, it would be reasonable to assume a close relationship between the Dutch Act of Abjura-tion and the United States Declaration of Independence.

As already noted, Jefferson wrote in an age in which the ideas of the Enlightenment flourished. Our country's founders were in the forefront of the advocacy of modern democracy, but by 1776 the concept of democracy had been subscribed to by much of the intellectual elite of the Western world. The Dutch, by contrast, had acted 195 years earlier, before Locke, before Descartes, before Voltaire. This was a time when the notion that the king can do no wrong still prevailed. What could have inspired the Dutch to deviate so sharply as to declare that a prince forfeits his throne by acting as a tyrant? What was the source of their reasoning?

While I have no direct evidence for it, I believe that a circum-stantial case can be made for the proposition that the Dutch Act of Abjuration is derived from a passage in Deuteronomy. Chapter 17, verses 17-19 lay down the rules that should govern the behavior of a king:

"Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests the Levites. And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he shall learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them; that his heart not be lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left; to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel."
                                                (King James Bible)

The principle is thus laid down in Deuteronomy that the king must abide by the law. If he abides by the law he will "prolong his days in the kingdom," which means that he would stay in power. The logical inference that can be drawn from this last sentence is that if the king does not abide by the law, he will forfeit his right to remain king.

Upon acceding to the throne, Philip II had expressly obligated himself to respect the existing privileges and ancient traditions of his Dutch subjects. The Act of Abjuration charged him with failure to act in keeping with the obligation that he had as-sumed. Thus, he had turned aside from the commandment. Under these circumstances, the writers of the Act of Abjura-tion appear to have concluded that the citizens of the Dutch province had the right to carry out the will of God to "disallow the authority" of Philip II and "legally proceed to the choice of another prince."

It is likely that the Dutch revolutionaries, including the authors of the Act of Abjuration, were familiar with the foregoing pas-sage in Deuteronomy? The answer to that question is that it was indeed most likely. The printing press had been invented in the 15th century and the printing trade was soon well established in Holland. The Bible was one of the foremost publications. It was now printed in the vernacular. The number of book sellers increased rapidly, as did literacy. Reliance on biblical texts was an essential aspect of the Dutch culture of that time.

It is worth noting that while Philip II purported to act in defense of Catholicism and introduced the Inquisition in the Dutch provinces, Dutch Catholics and Protestants united in opposition to him. Their struggle against Spain continued for another sixty-seven years following the signing of the Act of Abjuration and ended in 1648, with the Treaty of Westphalia. Will and Ariel Durant in their volume The Age of Reason Begins describe the provisions of the Treaty as granting the Dutch United Provinces all that they had looked for. They conclude: "So triumphantly ended the longest, bravest, and most cruel struggle for freedom in all history."

A beachhead for the struggle for freedom had thus been established. However, it took another one hundred years for the Dutch ideas to cross the Channel and lead to the adoption of the English Bill of Rights. And it took even more time for the ideas first incubated in the Dutch Netherlands to be reflected in the governmental structure of countries in other parts of Europe. But these ideas did take hold in the early English settlements in North America, a fact that may very well ex-plain the close parallel between the Act of Abjuration and the Declaration of Independence. And over time it was the United States that became the leading proponent of the democratic cause.

Yet the Dutch role must not be underestimated. In the dec-ades following the Act of Abjuration, the Dutch Netherlands provided a place of refuge for the best minds of the Enlighten-ment, such as René Descartes and John Locke, when these intellectual leaders found it difficult to express themselves freely in their native lands. It was from the Netherlands that the concept of freedom of expression spread to many parts of Europe and beyond. The principle that heads of state or government, whether monarchs, presidents, or prime ministers must read the law and abide by it "without turning to the left hand or the right" has indeed served as the cornerstone of democratic government.