The Declaration of Independence
250 Years of Interpretation
A growing collection tracing how Americans have invoked the Declaration of Independence from 1776 to today — designed for scholars, teachers, and students.
8 sources and counting · Updated as the collection grows
The Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson & the Continental Congress
"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."
The origin point — the founding promise every later generation would claim, challenge, and reinterpret.
Declaration of Sentiments
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Seneca Falls
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal..."
The first great reinvention of the Declaration — women's rights claimed in the founding's own words.
"What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"
Frederick Douglass, Rochester
"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn..."
Douglass turns the founders' words into a fierce indictment of a nation celebrating liberty while enslaving millions.
The Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Lincoln re-founds the nation on the Declaration's promise of equality — and makes it the war's meaning.
Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States
Susan B. Anthony, Centennial, Philadelphia
"We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever."
Delivered at the nation's 100th birthday — proof that anniversaries become moments of reckoning over the Declaration.
"I Have a Dream"
Martin Luther King Jr., March on Washington
"When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir."
King casts the Declaration as a check America has refused to cash — the most famous modern invocation of its promise.
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King Jr.
"We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands..."
From a jail cell, King anchors the struggle for justice in the nation's founding ideals.
Democratic National Convention Keynote
Barack Obama
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
More than two centuries on, the Declaration's self-evident truths remain the language Americans reach for to define the nation.
Library management