Speeches - Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration

¶ … Speeches - Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Two of the most famous speeches in the United States calling for freedom are Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream." It can be argued that King's speech is the more powerful and effective of the two for his purpose, the audience he addressed and his use of language. The intended audience affected how each man wrote his statement.

Jefferson used elaborately structured language, because his message was to the upper class and royalty of England. For instance, his opening sentence starts, "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another...." This sentence contains seventy-one words. By comparison, King's audience was the entire United States. His opening sentence is only seventeen words and immediately refers to the main issue directly by mentioning the Emancipation Proclamation.

Jefferson's speech continues with complex vocabulary and extremely long sentences, while King' speech is almost like poetry in some places, creating clear images and using language that is easy to understand and to listen to. This is why we call it the "I have a dream" speech. That simple sentence resonates in the speech and communicates his intent very clearly. The two statements also varied in content.

Tomas Jefferson surely knew that all Colonists who could read would read the Declaration of Independence and that most of those who could not read it would hear it, but his audience was the rulers of England -- Parliament and King George. King, by contrast, knew his audience was all of the United States. While he wanted to influence government policy, he did this by influencing the ordinary citizens. The content of the two works reflect their different audiences.

Jefferson's work used legal and legislative terms, because that was his audience. While he mentioned individual rights, he addressed what governments should be doing for people and listed specific grievances the Colonists had with specific laws that had been passed. In contrast, King was not arguing about law. Laws had already been passed that should have assured his race of equal treatment and opportunities. In fact the American Constitution had been amended to reflect that. In spite of this, the United States was a land of inequality based on color.

The content of King's speech reflects this reality using rich language to lay out the evils of segregation and racism. Both writers used poetic language to get their points across, but King's structure is much easier to understand. The purposes of the two writers, however, had similarities as well as differences, because both men were protesting a situation where in theory, a group of individual had rights and freedoms, but in reality, many barriers were put before them. However, Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" also amounted to a declaration of war.

He was well aware that the British government would not simply let the colonists pull away from England and declare themselves their own country or countries. England made huge profits from the American colonies and were not about to just roll over and let them cut themselves free simply because they didn't like a few laws the Parliament had passed. In contrast to this is King's speech. While he lists the inequalities involved with being Black in a White-dominated America, he called for people to come together.

He said, "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood." He knew it was a dream and not a reality, as did everyone who heard his speech, and he did not propose that Blacks roll over and make peace with Whites by capitulating and cooperating with segregation and other discriminatory practices, but at the same time, he held out his hand and invited people of all races to learn to live together in equality.

No doubt Jefferson knew that would not be possible with England. England had made it clear that there would be no.