Michael Auslin
Michael Auslin is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A historian and policy analyst focused on American history, international relations, U.S. foreign policy, national security, and Asia, he is the author of National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America and prior books including Asia’s New Geopolitics and The End of the Asian Century.
The Declaration of Independence Endures as America’s Unity Document
Historian Michael Auslin argues in his new book, National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America, that the Declaration’s endurance rests not only on its claims about liberty and equality but on its assertion that Americans are “one people.” In this Hoover Institution discussion, Auslin presents the Declaration as a unity document whose authority grew through compromise, preservation, reproduction and repeated use by later movements seeking fuller membership in the American project.
The Declaration of Independence Became America’s Unity Document Over Two Centuries
In a Hoover Institution book launch for National Treasure, historian Michael Auslin argues that the Declaration of Independence began as a wartime instrument and diplomatic necessity before Americans made it a sacred national text. Auslin’s central claim is that the document’s afterlife — as parchment, symbol, commercial object, equality claim and constitutional touchstone — shows it was not only about liberty and equality, but also about creating “one people” out of divided colonies.