ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 “Declarations of Independence as Proto-legal Performatives,” looks at the problem of performativity in founding speech. The constituent power in declarations of independence is thought of as resting on self-validating and retroactive performativity, even if it requires some imposture or ventriloquism to get started. The problem is performatives never really escape their context, and the performative hoax sets up troubling claims about self-sufficiency that can obscure violence at a founding. There is always something against which, or upon which, performative speech operates, and no fable should erase those conditions. After reviewing Arendt’s views on beginning in the American founding, the chapter considers the contribution of key figures in the performativity debate, including Austin, Derrida, Searle, and Butler. Judith Butler in particular cautions against a “magic words” view of performative speech that sets it up as something unconstrained and unconditioned. The discussion identifies the compromises involved in maintaining an account of declarations of independence as self-validating performatives, which include the way that theory finds itself entangled in the process of validation it sets out to examine.
