Table of Contents
Chronology 15
Prologue 21
Part I Origins
The Declaration of Independence 27
1 Night Teaching 31
2 Patrimony 36
3 Loving Democracy 39
4 Animating the Declaration 42
Part II Who Wrote the Declaration of Independence?
5 The Writer 47
6 The Politicos 52
7 The Committee 65
8 The Editors 72
9 The People 79
Part III The Art of Democratic Writing
10 On Memos 85
11 On Moral Sense 89
12 On Doing Things With Words 92
13 On Words and Power 100
Part IV Reading the Course of Events
14 When in the Course of Human Events… 107
15 Just Another Word for River 110
16 One People 115
17 We Are Your Equals 119
18 An Echo 123
Part V Facing Necessity
19 …It Becomes Necessary… 129
20 The Laws of Nature 130
21 And Nature's God 135
22 Kinds of Necessity 139
Part IV Matters if Principle
23 We Hold These Truths… 145
24 Sound Bites 146
25 Sticks and Stones 151
26 Self-Interest? 156
27 Self-Evidence 160
28 Magic Tricks 167
29 The Creator 171
30 Creation 178
31 Beautiful Optimism 183
Part VI Matters of Principle
32 Prudence … 191
33 Dreary Pessimism 193
34 Life's Turning Points 197
35 Tyranny 202
36 Facts? 207
37 Life Histories 213
38 Plagues 218
39 Portrait of a Tyrant 222
40 The Thirteenth Way of Looking at a Tyrant 224
41 The Use and Abuse of History 227
42 Dashboards 230
43 On Potlucks 233
44 If Actions Speak Louder Than Words… 240
45 Responsiveness 246
Part VIII Drawing Conclusions
46 We Must, Therefore, Acquiesce… 257
47 Friends, Enemies, and Blood Relations 259
48 On Oath 263
49 Real Equality 267
50 What's in a Name? 270
Epilogue 275
Notes 283
Resources 297
Acknowledgments 301
Illustration Credits 303
Index 305