Ms. Maier was witty, profound, charming, frank -- all the things an audience hopes for in a speaker. She told us how angry some people became when she informed them that Thomas Jefferson was not the sole author of the Declaration, and one could trace the great document's genealogy back to George Mason, to numerous state declarations, and even to the English tradition of explaining why it was necessary to remove an incompetent or evil king. She described how the people of 1776 focused on the Declaration's last paragraph, the announcement of independence, and paid little attention to the second paragraph, avowing liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness as universal human rights. Nor was the Declaration attributed to Jefferson as the chief author for a good two decades.
From there she took us on a fascinating tour through American history, tracing the growth of our concern with the second paragraph, above all with the idea of equality. She closed with the Declaration's role in the historic clash over slavery -- and the thought that the document's great ideas may have -- and perhaps should have -- replaced our need to see the fathers as great men.