In the final discussion of The Declaration at 250 series, Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, argues the Declaration’s natural-rights principles call Americans to civic virtue, substantive justice, and human flourishing—not license. Jonathan Gienapp, Professor of History at Stanford University, emphasizes the Declaration’s political core—non-domination and self-government—and shows how disputes over liberty, democracy, and inequality began almost immediately after the founding. Together they frame the Declaration less as settled creed than as an enduring argument Americans must continually work out.
