This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, July 4, 2024. I'm Caleb Brown.

The Declaration of Independence is America's birth certificate.

And the Cato Institute's addition of the Declaration and the Constitution is the best around.

Cato's Roger Pallon set the Declaration of Independence in a philosophical and historical context in his introduction.

And so I thought what better way to mark this holiday than to drag him into a studio

and have him read one of the best short pieces of writing about the Declaration of Independence

for you to enjoy.

In 1776, America's founders gathered in Philadelphia to draft the Declaration of Independence.

With that document, America's birth certificate, they dissolved the political ties that had bound the American people to Great Britain.

A new nation was thus born, free and independent, the United States of America.

11 years later in 1787,

after American Patriots had won our independence on the battlefield,

many of the men who had met earlier in Philadelphia,

plus others, met there again to draft a plan for governing the new nation,

the Constitution of the United States.

In 1789, after the plan had been ratified,

the new government was established.

Together, the Declaration and the Constitution The new government was established.

Together, the Declaration and the Constitution

are America's founding documents.

As amended over the years, the Constitution

is the supreme law of the land,

...