Declarations of Independence

How Americans have embraced, and used, the promise of equality.

Today’s Morning Edition continues an updated NPR tradition—readings from the Declaration of Independence.

For decades, NPR staff read the entire document from 1776, from “When in the course of human events…” to “…our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.”

Last year we did something different, which continues in 2023: reading parts of the Declaration, making room for readings from other Americans through the centuries who quoted, cited, adapted or changed the Declaration. They created their own variations on the line “that all men are created equal.”

It’s a powerful and inspiring American story, beginning with the Declaration itself in 1776. Historian Jill Lepore says the Founders signed on to a claim of equality because they were proclaiming the new United States to be an equal among nations; and they believed in the Enlightenment idea of equal dignity:

It's fashionable - and I think rightly so - to indict the limits of that vision. But it is actually a radical vision in the 18th century. The notion even that all white men are equal is a radical idea… Those men all lived in a highly ranked culture. And the declaration of equality is throwing that away or challenging that in a really, truly revolutionary manner.

The notion soon applied to more than white men. The ink on the Declaration was hardly dry when enslaved people came calling for their equality. A free Black man wrote Thomas Jefferson and urged him to live up to his words. In 1848, women at Seneca Falls drafted a “Declaration of Sentiments;” in the 1880’s, populist farmers declared independence from corporate monopolies. In 1961, delegates from native tribes, who received only a passing slur in the original Declaration, approved the Declaration of Indian Purpose. Martin Luther King quoted the Declaration before his assassination; Harvey Milk quoted it before his assassination.

To illustrate what this means, think about the musical Hamilton, with its innovative casting. The leading figures of the Revolutionary era were white, but are played on stage by people of many races and backgrounds. This is appropriate—first, because we are not defined solely by race! And second, because the story belongs to us all.

The story of different Americans claiming the Declaration’s promise is the real-life enactment of what Hamilton displays on stage.

Our story in 2022 produced some good-faith criticism and bad-faith criticism. Fox News smeared it as part of their business model. I also heard from a friend who said she loved the whole text of the Declaration, and was sorry to hear only part of it. Needless to say, some on the political left disparage the whole document because some of the signers were slaveowners.

The story that we replay, with some updates, in 2023 addresses these divergent views. Historian Annette Gordon-Reed says the Declaration is a work in progress:

Jefferson had this idea… of the next generation carrying a ball forward. And we're sort of impatient with him about that because we wanted him to do more at that point… But the thing is, [you can imagine him saying], “OK. We created a country. We [broke away from Great Britain], the largest, most powerful nation on Earth, and created a country. Now there are things for you to do.”

As there always are.

Since we are talking of reading great American documents aloud, I’ll mention that I’ve been listening to a great American novel: Moby Dick, by Herman Melville.

I hear the audio book while running. It’s lasted me for weeks of runs, and is so long it will last many more. But to hear Melville’s words from 1851 is to hear the sound of the country I’m running through.

Moby Dick is a story from the days of sailing ships. It brings to life the long voyage of a ship hunting whales; and while it’s fictional, Melville himself really did sign on for a multi-year whaling voyage.

In his novel the ship’s captain, Ahab, is obsessed with killing the whale that took off his leg during an earlier voyage. Eventually the whale rams and sinks Ahab’s ship, which is something a whale really did to a ship in Melville’s time.

That’s the basic story, and much of it takes place far out to sea; but I mention it today because it’s essentially a story of America.

For many chapters before setting sail, the narrator wanders New England—stepping into church services and seedy inns, meeting wondrous characters on his way to join a whaleship crew in Nantucket. He encounters America’s contradictions, its variety, and its diversity.

The white narrator, Ishmael, befriends Queequeg, a Pacific Islander who harpoons whales for a living. Ishmael observes Queequeg going through the rituals of his religion, and patiently explains why Queequeg should convert to Christianity.

That’s when Queequeg brings up Ishmael’s religion, and patiently explains why Ishmael should convert to his faith!

When the friends sign up for the crew of a whaling ship, they go to work for Nantucket men—many of them Quakers, who embrace a pacifist religion while making a violent living at sea.

The owners focus on their faith, but also on the money. They make room for men of many races and religions on board, because the crew needs their skills.

That crew pursues an occupation that’s considered disreputable, but powers the economy: whale-oil was the nineteenth century equivalent of gasoline, or electricity, lighting oil lamps around the world.

In a passage that could be Melville himself speaking, the narrator says the hardships he shared with the whaling crew taught him the most important lessons of life.

If he ever does anything good, he says, “I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.”

The contradictions and ironies are where you find America. We are together, even when we suppose we are apart.

Thanks for reading Differ We Must—and, especially, welcome to the many new subscribers who’ve signed up in recent days. I hope this email is a chance to be more thoughtful than Twitter allows.

Differ We Must is a companion to my forthcoming book of the same name, which tells Lincoln’s life story through his meetings with people who disagreed with him. You can preorder here.