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• The Origin and Principles of the American Revolution Compared with the Origins and Principles of the French Revolution
• Gentz argues that the Founders erred in grounding their revolution upon the principles spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. According to Gentz, the American Revolution was completely justified on legal or constitutional grounds, and therefore lawful. There was no need to justify it by appealing to abstract categories of natural and unali...
• Lincoln’s constant approximation of the Declaration’s “standard maxim” is just the thing Gentz fears. Gentz is apprehensive over principles like equality of unalienable rights because he views them as open to great misconstruction, liable to abuse, and therefore politically dangerous. While Gentz finds the American Founders innocent in this regard,...
• According to Gentz, in France, “the rights of man” destroyed the rights of citizens, as well as the harmony and good order of society, whereas “the sovereignty of the people” undermined the rule of law and led to anarchy.
• In his 1839 oration entitled, Jubilee of the Constitution, Quincy Adams enumerates five central principles in the Declaration: (1) the natural equality of mankind, (2) unalienable rights, (3) the people as the only legitimate source of power, (4) the consent of the governed as the source of all just power, and (5) responsibility to God in exercisin...

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