In this 250th anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence, we are rightly celebrating its proclamation of natural rights. But the document’s other core purpose — founding a nation — deserves equal attention. Indeed, the Declaration was in its way a kind of constitution. In its indictment of King George III, it implicitly laid out the structural blueprint for a new government.

Guest John Yoo joins us to discuss how the Declaration constituted a new republican government and sovereign nation, and why America is both an idea and a concrete heritage.

John Yoo is a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley; and a senior research fellow for the Civitas Institute of the University of Texas at Austin.

This podcast discusses themes from John’s essay in the Summer 2026 issue of National Affairs: “The Declaration as a Constitution.”