Mary E. Stuckey is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University. Her most recent books are For the Enjoyment of the People: The Creation of National Identity in American Public Lands and Deplorable: The Worst Presidential Campaigns from Jefferson to Trump, the latter published by Penn State University Press.

“These essays do more than valorize the US Declaration of Independence, they unfold its rhetorical character, probing its rhetorical and political affordances, as well as its gaps, blindnesses, and omissions. Peeling back layers of well-meaning mythology, the essays provide a balanced reckoning with a document that has shaped discourse, inside and outside the United States, for the last 250 years.”—William M. Keith, coauthor of Beyond Civility: The Competing Obligations of Citizenship

• Acknowledgments The Declaration of Independence Introduction | 1Part 1 The Declaration in Its Time1. An Appeal to the Tribunal of the World: The Reception of the Timely and Timeless Messages of the Declaration in 1776 and Beyond Jelte Olthof2. “An Impudent, False, and Atrocious Proclamation”: Loyalist Critique andthe Limits of Dissent in Colonial AmericaStephen Howard Browne3. A Declaration of Style: Masculinity’s Enduring Resonance Anna M. YoungPart 2 The Sovereign Declaration4. The Antebellum Declaration: Abolition, Secession, and Revolution Mary E. Stuckey5. From Declaration to Self- Determination: Decolonial Shifts in Indigenous Rhetorical Authority Jason Edward Black6. Declaring Economic Independence: Argentina, Juan Domingo Per.n, and Political Time Stephen J. Heidt7. Sovereignty Reimagined: Tropes, Sovereign Citizen Discourses, and the Declaration of Independence Scott J. VardaPart 3 Claims to Equality8. We Are the True Americans: The Declaration of Independence and Radical, Anti- capitalist, Working- Class Movements Mary Anne Trasciatti9. The Declaration of Independence and Civil Rights: The Long Movement and CountermovementDavis W. Houck10. From Black Lives Matter to the Syrian Revolution: How Do“We the People” Render Our Struggles Visible? Noor Ghazal Aswad11. A Morally Grounded Ideograph: V.clav Havel’s Constitutive Rhetoric in the Velvet Revolution Rebecca OliverPart 4 The Semi- sacred Declaration12. “That Was the First Time in History That Anyone Bothered to Write That Down”: Mythologizing the Declaration of Independence in The West Wing Christopher J. Wernecke and Ann E. Burnette13. Proximate Deliberation and the 1776 Moment: The Proud Boys’ andOath Keepers’ Use of the Declaration of Independence Leslie A. Hahner14. From Cultural Artifact to Culture War: The Declaration of Independence and the Fight for Control of the US Civics Classroom Mark Hlavacik15. Borrowing Trouble? The Declaration’s Threshold of Suffering and Care Brandon InabinetList of Contributors Index

Mary E. Stuckey is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University. Her most recent books are For the Enjoyment of the People: The Creation of National Identity in American Public Lands and Deplorable: The Worst Presidential Campaigns from Jefferson to Trump, the latter published by Penn State University Press.

“These essays do more than valorize the US Declaration of Independence, they unfold its rhetorical character, probing its rhetorical and political affordances, as well as its gaps, blindnesses, and omissions. Peeling back layers of well-meaning mythology, the essays provide a balanced reckoning with a document that has shaped discourse, inside and outside the United States, for the last 250 years.”—William M. Keith, coauthor of Beyond Civility: The Competing Obligations of Citizenship

• Acknowledgments The Declaration of Independence Introduction | 1Part 1 The Declaration in Its Time1. An Appeal to the Tribunal of the World: The Reception of the Timely and Timeless Messages of the Declaration in 1776 and Beyond Jelte Olthof2. “An Impudent, False, and Atrocious Proclamation”: Loyalist Critique andthe Limits of Dissent in Colonial AmericaStephen Howard Browne3. A Declaration of Style: Masculinity’s Enduring Resonance Anna M. YoungPart 2 The Sovereign Declaration4. The Antebellum Declaration: Abolition, Secession, and Revolution Mary E. Stuckey5. From Declaration to Self- Determination: Decolonial Shifts in Indigenous Rhetorical Authority Jason Edward Black6. Declaring Economic Independence: Argentina, Juan Domingo Per.n, and Political Time Stephen J. Heidt7. Sovereignty Reimagined: Tropes, Sovereign Citizen Discourses, and the Declaration of Independence Scott J. VardaPart 3 Claims to Equality8. We Are the True Americans: The Declaration of Independence and Radical, Anti- capitalist, Working- Class Movements Mary Anne Trasciatti9. The Declaration of Independence and Civil Rights: The Long Movement and CountermovementDavis W. Houck10. From Black Lives Matter to the Syrian Revolution: How Do“We the People” Render Our Struggles Visible? Noor Ghazal Aswad11. A Morally Grounded Ideograph: V.clav Havel’s Constitutive Rhetoric in the Velvet Revolution Rebecca OliverPart 4 The Semi- sacred Declaration12. “That Was the First Time in History That Anyone Bothered to Write That Down”: Mythologizing the Declaration of Independence in The West Wing Christopher J. Wernecke and Ann E. Burnette13. Proximate Deliberation and the 1776 Moment: The Proud Boys’ andOath Keepers’ Use of the Declaration of Independence Leslie A. Hahner14. From Cultural Artifact to Culture War: The Declaration of Independence and the Fight for Control of the US Civics Classroom Mark Hlavacik15. Borrowing Trouble? The Declaration’s Threshold of Suffering and Care Brandon InabinetList of Contributors Index