Political covenants, called compacts in their secular form, would have had the Declaration serve as a preamble and bill of rights to a constitution. The document also turns out to be part of a political covenant of the kind long used in America, and originally derived from covenant theology. Indeed, the manner in which state and national perspectives are balanced make this the first national document to lay out federalism as a central aspect of American political thought. The document could be read with approval by students of Whig political thought, or the Enlightenment rationalists, or the deeply religious those jealous of state power, or nationalists. Viewed in this context, the Declaration is not only an efficient summary of American political thought, but also a careful rhetorical balancing of contending views.
The Declaration of Independence is an efficient, abstracted summary of the eighteenth-century American mind.
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