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The Declaration Of Independence: A 225th Anniversary Re-Interpretation, Carlton F.W. Larson
The Declaration Of Independence: A 225th Anniversary Re-Interpretation, Carlton F.W. Larson
Washington Law Review
The importance of the Declaration of Independence to American law has been obscured by dubious associations with natural rights jurisprudence. Legal scholars have therefore overlooked the numerous ways in which the Declaration is relevant to a host of legal issues. Ample textual and historical evidence demonstrates that the Declaration, not the Articles of Confederation or the Constitution, legally constituted the United States of America as a distinct nation in the world community. The Declaration was not the act of thirteen states declaring their individual independence, but the act of one American people announcing the birth of an American nation. Nor …