As the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Americans continue to debate the meaning and significance of the nation’s founding principles. This document collection examines the Declaration’s place in American political thought by exploring the ideas that shaped the Founding, the challenges those ideas raised, and the ways later generations have interpreted them.

The collection begins by considering Thomas Jefferson’s claim that the Declaration expressed “the American mind.” What does the Declaration reveal about the foundations, forms, and purposes of American government? What are the basic principles of politics articulated in the document, and what did the Founders mean when they declared that “all men are created equal”? The documents then turn to one of the central questions of the Founding: how could the principle of equality coexist with slavery? Through the writings of Jefferson, Adams, Henry, Hamilton, Jay, Washington, and others, the collection examines what the Founders said and did about slavery, why they tolerated its continued existence, and how they viewed the possibility of its eventual abolition.

The collection concludes by following the Declaration’s influence through the writings of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., both of whom returned to its principles during periods of national conflict and change. Why did Lincoln describe equality as a “proposition” in the Gettysburg Address, and why did King refer to it as America’s “creed”? Taken together, these documents invite readers to consider how the Declaration has been understood by different generations and how its principles have shaped debates about the meaning of equality, liberty, and self-government.