You’ve Probably Never Read The Declaration of Independence
Sources
Davis, Sarah, Nearly half of Americans don’t know what America 250 is celebrating: Poll, The Hill, 3 July 2026, https://thehill.com/polls/5953222-july-4th-ignorance-among-americans/
Armitage, David. The Declaration of Independence’s Influence Around the World. The National Constitution Center. Accessed 7 July 2026. https://constitutioncenter.org/essays/the-declaration-of-independences-influence-around-the-world
Declaration of Independence: A Transcription. National Archives. Accessed 7 July 2026. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
Sanford, Heather and Ibram X Kendi. New Study: 48 of 56 Declaration of Independence signers profited from slavery. The Emancipator. https://theemancipator.org/2026/07/02/investigations/new-study-48-of-56-declaration-of-independence-signers-profited-from-slavery/
Transcript
Over the weekend, the US celebrated its 250th birthday. According to a recent Cato Institute poll, only half of Americans could identify what that even means. 53% of respondents were able to correctly identify that the 4th of July marks the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 57% of respondents couldn’t identify why the colonists decided to declare independence from Great Britain to begin with. Additionally, 60% of respondents claimed they thought America had moved away from its founding principles. Which is interesting because that means that there was some overlap there between people who couldn’t identify what July 4th was celebrating, what was in the declaration of independence, and yet claimed to be concerned the US had strayed from its founding principles, despite demonstrating a lack of knowledge of those founding principles. This has some people handwringing about the lack of patriotism in the United States, but what I’m more concerned about is the whole lack of understanding of the country’s founding principles. Because whether you agree with them or not, whether you uphold them or not, if you want to be an outspoken critic of them, which is what I spend a lot of my time doing on this channel, you have to at least understand them. And turns out most people don’t. So today I’m reading the goddamn declaration of independence out loud in honor of the 4th of July holiday over the weekend. Reading the declaration of independence is also important just from a historical perspective, it is the first of its kind to declare independence and sovereignty from a colonial power and to recognize the individual rights of man, inspired by enlightenment thinkers like John Locke. It inspired countless other declarations of independence afterwards. It’s also important to read because it is clear evidence of the hypocrisy of the writers at the time it was written–white men who owned slaves making declarations about independence and the rights of men. This was not a “product of the time”--many people pointed out to the writers of the declaration directly that what they were doing was hypocritical given that they only included white wealthy men in their calculation of who deserves to declare complete independence. So I read this document today not as gospel or as an act of patriotism but as a reminder of the fact that the United States was founded on the basis of patriarchal misogyny, violent genocide, and racism. The writers of this document did not believe these ideals to extend to anyone besides wealthy white men. We have spent the past 250 years trying to claw back those rights so they apply to all humans, so that the country of the United States more accurately lives up to the ideals printed in the original Declaration of Independents. Whether that is a worthy cause, whether a country founded on such hypocrisy could over correct itself, is also an important part of the discussion, one that has to be grounded in an understanding and reading of the founding documents that got us here. It’s Tuesday, July 7th, 2026, you’re tuned in to Why, America? I’m your lawyer friend, Leeja Miller.
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In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The document is then signed by 56 men, representatives from the 13 colonies. Of those 56, 48 profited directly from slavery at some point, both from the north and the south. Between the 56 of them, they collectively owned 2800 enslaved people over their lifetimes. An important reminder that the quote unquote birth of America was marred, from the very start, by deeply unsettling hypocrisy. That these 56 white men were willing to sit with the cognitive dissonance of signing a document that said all men are endowed with the inalienable right to liberty while most of them directly profited off the enslavement of humans, while their wives sat at home barred from directly participating in the formation of the government or from owning anything or entering into contracts or attending institutions of higher education. While some of their wives were actively begging them to think of the women. They knew what they were doing and they said fine. And we have been trying to undo that hypocrisy ever since. Building a truly just and equal and free society from one so marred with so much violence and hypocrisy has proved itself to be quite literally impossible over the last 250 years. The Trump regime has simply done us all the favor of making the fruit of that hypocrisy impossible to look away from.
If you enjoy these read out loud videos, comment that below, I’d love to do more of them to make important texts more accessible to more people. To support my work, please consider joining on Patreon to get all these episodes completely ad free. Thank you to my multi-platinum patrons Christopher Cowan, Evan Friedley, Marc, Sarah Shelby, Dennis Smith, Art, David, L’etranger (Lukus), Thomas Johnson, and Tay. Your generosity makes this channel what it is, so thank you! If you liked this episode, you’ll like the one from last week breaking down the final week of a tumultuous Supreme Court term.
