{"id":5326,"date":"2026-07-04T00:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T04:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/?p=5326"},"modified":"2026-07-04T00:28:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T04:28:30","slug":"the-declaration-of-independence-and-our-legal-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/the-declaration-of-independence-and-our-legal-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"The Declaration of Independence and Our Legal Tradition \u2013 Hon. Trevor McFadden"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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My remarks today are a celebration of sorts. This July marks America\u2019s 250th birthday. A quarter millennium since we broke away from the Old World and charted our own course through the currents of world history. And what a journey it has been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      250 years is a major milestone. By some accounts, it is a turning point. In The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival<\/em>, a scholar by the wonderfully British name of Sir John Bagot Glubb wrote about the lifespan of empires. Studying dynasties from the Assyrians, Persians, and Romans to the Ottomans, Romanovs, and British, he noticed a startling pattern: Each empire would typically last around 250 years.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      America certainly has an empire\u2019s expanse. My long flights crisscrossing the country over the last couple days demonstrate as much. But America is distinctive: We began by splitting from an empire. On July 4, 1776, we declared our reasons. That Declaration set us apart in a more fundamental way\u2014by promising that our government would rest not on imperial domination but on the consent of the governed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To mark the Declaration\u2019s semiquincentennial (quite a mouthful), let us give it a closer read and consider its lasting resonances. To that end, my remarks will proceed in three parts. First<\/em>, I will examine some of the Declaration\u2019s grievances about the Crown, focusing on its misuse of the colonial judiciary. Second<\/em>, I will explore how the Founding Generation addressed those grievances, both in the Constitution\u2019s written text and in early judicial practice. Third<\/em>, I will propose some takeaways for those of us in the legal community today. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Start with the Declaration. . . . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Click here<\/a> to continue reading the full piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My remarks today are a celebration of sorts. This July marks America\u2019s 250th birthday. A quarter millennium since we broke away from the Old World and charted our own course through the currents of world history. And what a journey it has been.       250 years is a major milestone. By some accounts, it is a turning point. In The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival, a scholar by the wonderfully British name of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-per-curiam"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZSiL-1nU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5326"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5329,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326\/revisions\/5329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}