The Captive Aliens Who Remain Our Shame | by Annette Gordon-Reed | The New York Review of Books: "Parkinson insists that “the most important two words in the Declaration are not about equality or happiness.” The most important words are “he” and “we,” speaking of King George and the American people, the opposing forces to which the common cause addressed itself. But that is true only if the Declaration is, as some originalists and textualists say of the United States Constitution, a “dead” thing that can only bear the meaning given by the people who wrote it, and we can never move beyond their intentions—and their limitations.
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