This past Tuesday was Independence Day here in the U.S., and my family attended all of the traditional celebratory activities—a parade, a barbecue, a concert, a fireworks display—plus one tradition that dates back to July 4th of 1776: a public reading of the Declaration of Independence.
The text was read to the crowd by a member of the local Minuteman company, Revolutionary War reenactors in 18th-century garb, proceeded by drum and fife and followed by ceremonial volleys of musket fire.
The Declaration presents the core mission statement for a new nation, an aspirational document in its own time that remains aspirational today. That is, the Founding Fathers set a goal that they couldn't accomplish in their lifetimes, and which we find ourselves still inching toward after 247 years.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The deliberations that brought the Declaration into a state of consensus also displayed a pattern of progress and regression that still marks our current political and social climate. Two steps forward, one step back.
We know from early drafts and committee notes that the "pursuit of Happiness" was an editorial evolution from the "pursuit of Property," which was seen by some as the endorsement of slavery.
Two steps forward.
But, at the same time, the drafters were pressured to remove an explicit reference to slavery as an evil institution imposed upon the colonies by a morally compromised monarchy.
One step back.
The bulk of the Declaration is a laundry list of George III's misdeeds, which hits especially hard when being read out loud by a man in a powdered wig. It really struck me what a jerk the king must have been to alienate, not one or two, but thirteen of his overseas colonies, and to inspire their leaders to "hang together or hang separately."
If George III had been nicer to his subjects, the Fourth of July might be just another day in an America that remained subject to British rule. Similarly, eleven years after the Declaration of Independence, British astronomer William Herschel discovered a new planet and wanted to name it after his patron. If George III had been popular and universally beloved, that name might have stuck, and today we'd know Uranus as George's World.
The Declaration as TokenBook
The Declaration of Independence is the latest text to be made into a TokenBook, or TokenDeclaration in this case. Copies were given out as this month's reward to holders of the YEAR Token at Cryptoversal Books, with additional copies made available to the public for a nominal cost while supplies last.
We're using the Classics Collection to fine-tune the TokenBook format while offering an eclectic collection of early literary tokens in limited batches. Hold them, trade them, show them off, or try to complete the set.
The Reader's Collection on Polygon now has six tokens:
A Tale of Two Cities; and
The Declaration is the first TokenPublication to be initially released in audio format as well as a PDF/ePUB that can be downloaded or sent directly to a Kindle or reading app.
Manuscript Submissions
Manuscript submissions are open for the month of July, and fifty Manuscript Submissions Tickets have been made available on the Cent Pages platform. These are free to claim with an email subscription to the Cryptoversal Newsletter. At the moment, 36 of 50 have been claimed with only 14 remaining. They are going fast.
Submissions Guidelines can be found in the Newsletter archives.
Elsewhere in TokenPublishing
"Still Here" by Indefatigable - A song about writing, written as a loving tribute to the PageDAO Writer's Guild on the occasion of its second year of innovation and community.
"The First 500" by Greg Younger - A poster collection created to celebrate the milestone of reaching 500 subscribers to Greg's Write3 Newsletter on writing for, about, and with Web3 publishing technologies.
Moonlings Lore: Book One, C.D. Damitio (editor) - A collection of lore and character-focused tweets from an NFT community that's refocusing toward storytelling and the development of lore.
—Cryptoversal
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