The Declaration of Independence is 250 years old, and still unfinished.
Its famous assertion “that all men are created equal” and endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has never been a settled truth.
It’s a call every generation of Americans must answer on its own terms.
What did the founders mean by “all men are created equal”? Who did they believe was eligible to pursue life, liberty, and happiness? And how are Americans today thinking through their own answers?
In this special 250th anniversary episode, Robert Parkinson, author of Tyrants and Rogues: Understanding the Declaration of Independence; Steve Sarson, author of The Course of Human Events: The Declaration of Independence and the Historical Origins of the United States; Anthea Hartig, Elizabeth McMillan Director of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian; and Virginia Scharff, Chair of Western History at the Autry Museum of the American West, join us to think through what the Declaration of Independence means in 2026.
This episode was made possible with support from Massachusetts Historical Society, the first historical society in the United States.
About the Show
Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.
It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Episode Summary
Robert Parkinson is Professor of History at Binghamton University and author of Tyrants and Rogues: Understanding the Declaration of Independence.
Steve Sarson is Professor of American Civilization at Jean Moulin University in Lyon, France, and author of The Course of Human Events: The Declaration of Independence and the Historical Origins of the United States.
Anthea Hartig is the Elizabeth McMillan Director of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, where she leads the 250th anniversary exhibition In Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness.
Virginia Scharff is Distinguished Professor Emerita of History at the University of New Mexico and Chair of Western History at the Autry Museum of the American West, where she has been an interpretive leader on the 250th anniversary exhibition Life, Liberty, and Los Angeles.
In this episode, Rob, Steve, Anthea, and Virginia reveal:
-
- Why the Declaration’s 27 grievances form the core of its argument, and why those grievances feel newly urgent in 2026
- What the founders actually meant by “all men are created equal”
- How 250 objects at the Smithsonian and a Hmong story quilt at the Autry show us a Declaration that is not a finished document, but a living call every generation must answer
What You’ll Discover
- Why Americans shifted from celebrating independence to reflecting on the Declaration’s meaning starting in 1826
- How the Declaration’s famous lines about equality and rights became a mission statement for those originally excluded from them
- Why the Declaration’s 27 grievances make up the majority of the document
- How the grievances felt quaint and distant to historians until very recently
- How the Second Continental Congress debated not just which grievances to include, but their listed order
- The story of two tiny pencil marks on Jefferson’s rough draft that reveal a deliberate swap in the Declaration’s final grievances
- Why foreign mercenaries are the reason we have barbecues and fireworks on the Fourth of July
- What Thomas Jefferson originally wanted as the Declaration’s climactic grievance, and why Congress changed it
- The “rogues’ gallery” behind the grievances
- What the founders actually meant by “created equal”
- How gender, race, and class inequalities could coexist alongside the founders’ concept of natural equality
- How Frederick Douglass, the women of Seneca Falls, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr. all used the Declaration to argue for equality
- How the Smithsonian’s In Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness exhibition uses 250 objects to show the Declaration as a living document
- What the Autry Museum’s Life, Liberty, and Los Angeles exhibition reveals about the Declaration’s reach in a city that wasn’t part of the original 13 colonies
- The story of See Lee’s Hmong story quilt and what it shows us about the Declaration’s promises 200 years after it was written
Links to People, Places, and Publications
More from this show