Amid contention, criticism, and compromise, a divided nation had to present a unified front. It came at a cost.

The Declaration of Independence, approved on July 4, 1776, dissolved the American colonies' political ties with Great Britain. It established a foundation for American government based on natural ...

IN THE BEGINNING, no one paid all that much attention to it—and, if they did, they were not particularly impressed. Now scriptural, the Declaration of Independence’s most famous sentence—“We hold ...

That Abraham Lincoln, our most American of presidents, "never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the ...

The primary obligation of any government, the Declaration of Independence tells us in its famous second paragraph, is the “safety and happiness” of its citizens. The necessity of securing safety is ...