Decoding the Declaration

“a history of repeated injuries and usurpations”

King George III’s crimes against the colonists fill most of the Declaration of Independence. Yet almost nobody reads that part of the famous document.

Robert G. Parkinson is a historian at Binghamton University and the author, most recently, of Tyrants and Rogues: Understanding the Declaration of Independence. Parkinson argues that the Declaration’s long grievances section—the colonists’ bill of complaints against the Crown—opens a window onto the real world of 1776 that we miss if we focus on the preamble’s celebrated phraseology.

The themes embedded in the grievances—race, violence, exclusion, the weaponization of the language of liberty—are still very much with us as the nation the Declaration created marks the 250th anniversary of its founding.

See also my essay for The Nation’s special 250th issue: “Our Revolution”

Music for this episode: “The Union,” by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, performed by Akiko Sasaki; “Reel Delisle,” by Joel Zifkin; interlude by Zachary Solomon

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