The National Constitution Center recently published The Promise of America: Reflections on Our Enduring Ideals (Simon & Schuster), a keepsake collection of essays bringing together leading thinkers from across perspectives to reflect on the ideals at the heart of the American experiment and what those principles have meant across generations of American life. In this episode, Professor Eric Slauter discusses his essay, “The Declaration’s Promises,” which explores how the Declaration of Independence evolved from a justification of America’s separation from the British Empire into a global charter of liberty. As Slauter writes, in 1776, “very few in the newly United States besides a small contingent of Black and white antislavery activists would have seen the Declaration as a document of radical egalitarianism or even as a founding document.” However, over time, figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr. transformed the phrase “all men are created equal” into a foundational national promise and a powerful tool for social change. As Slauter notes, “it is largely their Declaration, as much as Jefferson’s or Congress’s, that we continue to celebrate today.” Julie Silverbrook, chief content and learning officer at the National Constitution Center, moderates.
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This episode was produced and mixed by Bill Pollock. With production support from Charles Sahm. Research was provided by Anna Salvatore, Trey Sullivan, and Tristan Worsham.
Participants
Eric Slauter is deputy dean of the humanities and the college at the University of Chicago, where he serves as an associate professor in the Department of English, an associate faculty member in the Divinity School, and serves as the founding director of the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture. He is the author of The State as a Work of Art: The Cultural Origins of the Constitution and the forthcoming book The Promises of the Declaration.
Julie Silverbrook is chief content and learning officer at the National Constitution Center, where she leads the strategy, development, and delivery of the Center’s content, public programs, and educational initiatives, advancing its mission of nonpartisan constitutional education and civil dialogue. She oversees the creation of public-facing constitutional content and works to ensure the Center’s programs, scholarly engagement, and educational resources operate as a coordinated national strategy serving students, educators, families, and lifelong learners across the country.
Additional Resources
- Eric Slauter, “The Declaration’s Promises”
- National Constitution Center, The Declaration of Independence
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