Two hundred fifty years ago, the 13 colonies unanimously declared their independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain and their new identity as the 13 United States of America. Taking such a drastic step meant that the newly declared states had to explain themselves and make the case for the necessity of their actions. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson laid out that case. He recounted, succinctly and methodically, “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations” at the hands of King George III. The Declaration lists, point by point, “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” Jefferson aimed to establish a pattern, demonstrating that Great Britain had “a design to reduce” the residents of the American colonies “under absolute Despotism.” Put plainly, the king had the “direct object” of “the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”
Of course, the story has a happy ending. Two hundred fifty years later, America is still independent and no longer under the control of any king. We live under a Constitution, written just 11 years after the Declaration, that was designed purposefully to avoid many of the worst tyrannies that the colonies suffered.
In Cato’s new book A History of Repeated Injuries, we explore simple, yet profound questions: 250 years later, how successful have we been? Are we entirely free of the “injuries and usurpations” of which the Framers complained? Or have modern analogues of old tyrannies crept into our own government, leading to losses of liberty akin to those suffered by the colonists?
Each chapter in this volume is centered around one of the injuries (or categories of injuries) listed in the Declaration. The authors of each chapter connect the history of the Founding era with modern history, framed around one or more passages from the Declaration’s list of grievances. The aim is to put the language of the Declaration in greater context, looking both backward and forward. What led Thomas Jefferson to include a particular line in the Declaration, and what challenges do we face now that most closely echo that history?
Some examples illustrate the wide range of policy issues the Declaration sheds light on. Jefferson complained of the king “obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners.” As David Bier explains, “Free immigration was a central principle for the Founders.” Yet today, “all immigrants are presumed ineligible unless they prove they fall into an exception.”
The Declaration also famously decries “imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.” Adam Michel and Joshua Loucks recount that the American Revolution “was a rebellion against a system of taxation that was punitive, discriminatory, and enriching special interests on the other side of the Atlantic.” Today, once again, the “tax system has become a tool of political favoritism.”
“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” Brandan Buck’s chapter begins with this grievance, and he describes a long tradition of “opponents to American militarism” who “believed that the creation of a large standing army, particularly via conscription, fundamentally altered the individual’s relationship to the state.” But as Buck explains, America has indeed kept an enormous standing army since World War II and many of the concerns the Framers raised have proved prescient.
The Declaration also excoriates the king “for depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.” The Framers enshrined the jury trial right in the Constitution because they were well aware of how easily criminal law can be abused. As Clark Neily writes, “British kings and queens generally preferred to operate within the ambit of formal law by enlisting the legislative authority of parliament and creating special adjudicative bodies like the Star Chamber to provide legal cover for their predations.” In my chapter, I note that “English colonial administrators attempted to subvert the right to a civil jury trial by trying cases in specialized courts called ‘vice-admiralty’ courts.”
Further chapters by Roger Pilon, Brent Skorup, and Douglas Irwin explore the Declaration’s lessons for political philosophy, executive orders, and trade, respectively. We hope that this new edited volume will give a broad overview of where we started as a nation, where we’ve come, and where we still have to go to achieve the visions of liberty and good government envisioned by those who bravely signed the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago.