For all its stirring words affirming the powerful potential of the individual, the DOI recognizes that building a nation requires a unified, collective effort of free and equal individuals. But how do we hold free and equal individuals together? With the ancient practice of swearing an oath on something the individuals value, in this case, "their lives, fortunes and sacred honor."
It’s more than soaring rhetoric at work here. It’s a concrete step of faith. Jefferson has framed an oath around the core truth claims of the DOI. By affixing their signatures to the document, the Founders committed themselves, and those future generations who would come after them, to continue to affirm, those truths.
Get the show notes at www.timtalkspolitics.com.
