As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of independence, this episode asks a deceptively simple question: what exactly are we celebrating? Rather than treating 1776 as either a flawless founding or an empty act of hypocrisy, we examine the Declaration of Independence as the beginning of an unfinished American argument. Its claims about equality, rights, consent, and legitimate government were radical, yet limited by slavery, women’s exclusion, and Native dispossession. We also explore how later generations—from Frederick Douglass to Abraham Lincoln and the women at Seneca Falls—reclaimed its language to challenge the nation to live up to its promises.