What the Founders Really Meant to Say

Robert Parkinson's Tyrants and Rogues revisits the Declaration of Independence, arguing that the 27 grievances Jefferson drafted are the document's substantive core and that later edits and deletions reshaped its meaning. Drawing on 25 years of archival research, Parkinson examines what Congress debated and removed from Jefferson's draft, including the excised attack on the slave trade, and how those choices reflected political compromises and anxieties about unity. The book places the Declaration in the immediate context of panic and wartime desperation in the summer of 1776, showing how its language was constructed to mobilize public opinion and foreign support. Parkinson also traces how the document's reception and authority evolved over the 19th and 20th centuries, influencing figures from Lincoln to civil-rights leaders. By centering the grievances, the book offers a fresh perspective on the founders' priorities and the Declaration's enduring relevance.