Perhaps the strongest sections of this textbook are the sections which unfold for the reader the sources of the principles of the Declaration. Ferrier and Seeley trace those principles to their religious roots but do so in a manner that is nonsectarian. They show the reader that the principles of the Declaration are rooted in what is held common by Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Ferrier and Seeley trace the Declaration principles to their philosophical roots in Aristotle, Cicero, Locke and Sidney but do so in a manner that is understandable to the high school student. They show the reader that the Declaration principles not only arise from the religious traditions of the West but also that they are reasonable, that they make sense. The Declaration of Independence commited the United States to a political order whose goal would be to serve, not a particular family, not a particular class, but a universal truth--a truth for all families, all clans, all races, all classes.

But, of course, the story does not end on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia. Not in 1776 nor since has our nation ever completely lived up to the principles of the Declaration. We failed, and continue to fail, in regard to racial equality, and in other respects. The struggle between the truths of the Declaration and our failure to live up to them has animated our political order from 1776 to the present. Ferrier and Seeley unfold the story of this struggle, its successes and its failures, through the antebellum era, the Declaration statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln, the Jim Crowe era, and the modern struggle for civil rights.

The book closes with a chapter on contemporary issues--the undermining of the family, the attacks on religion, the decline of educational quality, and the like. This final chapter opens with a quotation from Tocqueville, and it shares Tocqueville's concern for the temptations to which a society committed to the principle of equality may be subject. One could ask whether this chapter would better serve as the openeing chapter of a book on Tocqueville than as a concluding chapter of a book on the Declaration.

All in all Ferrier and Seeley have written a book that should, by all rights, play a significant part in the education of our youth. They explain the Declaration, its sources and its unfolding in the life of our nation, in a way that high school students can understand. Their book has the accessibility of a textbook without the banality of most textbooks. Every high school student should read it; and every citizen should be thankful for it.