Hi, I'm Jeff Sickinga, executive director of the Ashbrook Center, and this is the American

idea, where we discuss the ideas, people, and events that have made America what it is today.

We believe that by understanding our history and our principles, we can better

live up to the promise of the American founding and preserve our ongoing experiment in self-government.

Welcome to the American Idea.

I want to welcome, everyone, to this episode of the American idea.

Today we're in our series on the Declaration of Independence and its legacy, which is part of our

consideration, of course, of America 250, the 250th anniversary of America, our founding principles, and what they have meant over the course

of American history and what they mean for today.

But today we're going to be focusing on something very specific, very particular, and very

interesting, the writing of the Declaration of Independence, how it came to be and what effect its writing had

in the immediate moment of the American Revolution. I'm joined for that conversation by somebody who

knows the answers to those questions, Dr. Kara Rogers Stevens. Many of you know Kara,

of course. She is a guest host here on the American

Idea, a terrific scholar of the American Revolutionary Period of Thomas Jefferson,

and more broadly the American founding. She teaches courses at Ashland University on the founding

on the American Revolution, on Thomas Jefferson.

She teaches teaching American history seminars for the Ashbrook Center all around the country.

She teaches in our Master of Arts in American History program.

She's a good friend of mine, a great friend of the Ashbrook Center, a terrific person.

And the better half of the Jason Stevens, Cara Stevens duo.

And I have to point out, of course, her wonderful book, which has received wide acclaim

...