Why America Wrote the Declaration of Independence by Joseph F. Kobylka on Free Online Video

To commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence 241 years ago on July 4, 1776, we're featuring this free lecture from The Great Courses. In this lecture, Professor Joseph F. Kobylka charts how the philosophy behind the American revolution changed as the conflict between the colonies and Great Britain heated up. Using John Locke as a formative model, American thinkers such as John Dickinson, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson first argued for their rights based on a status as English citizens. When they slowly began to view the British government as abusive, their conciliatory stance began to shift into to a then innovative universal argument based on natural human rights. In this crucial moment, a new, truly revolutionary philosophy was born out of the conflict; a philosophy that led to the Declaration of Independence, and gave birth to a new nation founded on an equal relationship between the government and the people.