303Z Summer 2025 The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence is the most read, listened to, and celebrated of our nation’s founding documents. It has inspired people from around the world and across time, from the French revolutionaries of 1789 to Ho Chi Minh. Both Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln claimed to be defending its principles. Congress approved the Declaration on July 4, and that event is now commemorated as the birthday of the United States. In this course we will read and wonder at the structure and flow of those memorable sentences and grapple with some important questions: 1) What did Jefferson mean when he used words such as equality, liberty, and happiness? 2) In what way was the Declaration an expression of the classical and Enlightenment philosophers that were of such great importance to the founding generation? 3) How valid was the evidence that supported the claim that the King George was a tyrant? 

Heather Dudley taught at the high school and college level. She has an MA in History, an MA in Psychology, and a Doctorate from Georgetown University. She writes a blog—charactermattered.org—and is the author of a book on the founders: The Free and the Virtuous: Why the Founders Knew that Character Mattered.