New York Times (Opinion)
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This page refers to The New York Times opinion page, including op-ed writers and the Editorial Board. The Editorial Board’s bias is weighted, and affects this bias rating by roughly 60%. Not all columnists for the New York Times display a left bias; we rate many individual writers separately (see end of this page). While there are some right-leaning opinion writers at the Times, overall the opinion page and Editorial Board has a strong Left bias. Our media bias rating takes into account both the overall bias of the source’s editorial board and the paper’s individual opinion page writers.
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Read today, the Declaration of Independence is a freedom document. It stands for absolute human equality and represents the highest ideals of the American republic. On July 4, we celebrate it as much as we celebrate independence itself.
But as scholars like Garry Wills and Pauline Maier have made clear, this relative consensus on the meaning and significance of the Declaration is the product of political, ideological and social developments over time.
“During the first fifteen years following its adoption,” Maier writes in “American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence,” “the Declaration of Independence seems to have been all but forgotten, particularly within the United States, except as the means by which Americans announced their separation from Great Britain.”
The Declaration as we understand it was forged by struggle. Not the struggle with Britain but the struggle within the independent United States for freedom and equality against the weight of the Constitution and the American political system. As you might imagine, the key that shaped our understanding of the Declaration was the fight to end slavery.