The Grievances in the Declaration (part 2)

Click here to listen to part one of our airing of the grievances if you haven't yet! Today we tackle charges 13-27 against the King, as well as comparisons that have been made between George III and Donald Trump. Our guide is once again Craig Gallagher from Colby-Sawyer College, who breaks down what exactly got the colonists so darn mad. Make sure to listen to our episode on the modern-day effects of the declaration on the Native American community. CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more! To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro. Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  In this life, you can't win.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  When the world gets you down.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  No!

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Escape to Pluto TV.

• 0:05Speaker 02

  This is objectively fantastic.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free.

• 0:11Speaker 00

  Schwing!

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Even our news is uplifting.

• 0:13Speaker 03

  You stay classy, San Diego.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  Watch School of Rock, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The X-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  We're not worthy!

• 0:22Speaker 01

  The best things on TV really are free.

• 0:24Speaker 02

  You just have to know where to look.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

• 0:30Speaker 04

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes. Para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro. Para los que están lejos, los que no ven de lejos, y los que no ven de cerca. Para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen. Para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola. Para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 1:01Speaker 00

  Born in Texas, made in America, that's Valero. Keeping America moving, rain or shine, day or night, 365 days a year. Giving back to our communities and helping businesses thrive. We're proud to fuel the people who keep this country moving. So whether you're exploring new roads or heading down ones you know, we're here, fueling drives coast to coast. Proudly American, proudly getting you where you need to be. Right now. Valero.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  Oh, you put little pillows on chairs everywhere!

• 1:36Speaker 00

  They're like our audience members.

• 1:40Speaker 00

  Oh, a bathrobe. Yeah, let's just hang that up somewhere.

• 1:45Nick Capodice?

  Should we say anything about us, like, being in a table instead of in our closets? Yeah. Yeah, we're at a table. We're sitting at a table.

• 1:54Hannah McCarthy?

  This is a table conversation.

• 1:55Nick Capodice?

  This is a table.

• 1:56Hannah McCarthy?

  Let's table it, everybody.

• 1:57Nick Capodice?

  Let's just table worrying about it till later. That's why maybe you can hear like, you know, rain and wind and humanity and anyways.

• 2:05Hannah McCarthy?

  We set up pillows, though.

• 2:07Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, we have couch pillows here.

• 2:08Hannah McCarthy?

  Everywhere.

• 2:11Nick Capodice?

  You're listening to Civics 101. I'm Nick Capodice.

• 2:13Hannah McCarthy?

  I'm Hannah McCarthy.

• 2:14Nick Capodice?

  And today we are covering the second half of the grievances outlined in the Declaration of Independence.

• 2:21Hannah McCarthy?

  Basically, what did King George III do that justified the colonies severing ties with England and becoming a new independent nation?

• 2:31Nick Capodice?

  I love talking about the grievances because they're like a 27-part post on social media.

• 2:36Hannah McCarthy?

  King George is not the beneficent ruler he claims to be, and if you think he is, you're not paying attention. Thread emoji.

• 2:42Nick Capodice?

  Or like one of those bad computer-generated articles after a real article in a newspaper? 27 Reasons Your King Is Awful. Number 10 Will Shock You. Colonists Hate Him.

• 2:54Nick Capodice?

  Anyways, folks, last week we covered grievances 1 through 12. Give it a listen if you haven't before we jump back in. Today, we are covering the rest and just a little bit, seeing which, if any, of these grievances are relevant right now, fall of 2025. And reading them off to me and breaking them down in his true Glaswegian style is my friend and professor at Colby Sawyer College, Craig Gallagher. He's not from Glasgow, he's from Greenock, which is just outside of Glasgow, but he'll forgive me for that. Enough priddle-prattle, Declaration Grievance Number 13.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation. So this one's kind of in the middle of the military ones. I'll just say that it's straightforwardly a rejection of Parliament's sovereignty over the colonies, seeing that Parliament is a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, which is the Lee Resolution. Right? We don't recognize Parliament as a, an institution that oversees us.

• 3:54Hannah McCarthy?

  Alright, a little swipe at Parliament there.

• 3:56Nick Capodice?

  Yeah. We have our own legislatures here in the colony. And this grievance, Hannah, ends with a colon, like so many of us.

• 4:04Hannah McCarthy?

  Alright.

• 4:05Nick Capodice?

  I'm gonna cut that joke. The next batch of grievances, 14 through 22, are a continuation from that colon. Uh, these are the laws that the king has assented to that we did not pass in the colonies. And they all start with "for", as in, "he's given assent to bad laws we don't recognize, laws for doing X." Number 14, and the first "for".

• 4:29Speaker 00

  So the first one is, "for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us." So literally, this refers to the thing you referenced, which is quartering people in your home. That is, "it is the responsibility of subjects of the Crown to provide room and board to soldiers."

• 4:44Hannah McCarthy?

  That one's pretty bad. We even made an amendment about it.

• 4:46Nick Capodice?

  We did, the rarely discussed Third Amendment. Uh, but yeah, the Crown could save a lot of money by having soldiers sleep in your house and eat your food.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  And for the point of view of people like the Sons of Liberty, for example, it's also seen as an invasion of their privacy and an attempt by the Crown to spy on them. "There's a red coat in my upstairs bedroom. That means I can only say so many things." So much of what we think of as the right to privacy in the Constitution comes out of this idea of the government shouldn't be able to impose someone in your home. And that goes back to this idea that redcoats would be sleeping in your spare bedroom, because the government needed to, to put them in there.

• 5:22Hannah McCarthy?

  And it's not just an invasion of privacy. It's not necessarily safe to have a stranger who is suddenly living with you. I mean, these are families with children and vulnerabilities.

• 5:34Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, and Craig told me this was dangerous to the colonists on two opposite fronts. One, that you could be subjecting your child to potential abuse, which happened. And two, your daughter could enter a consensual relationship with a red coat, which also happened and would not be good politically.

• 5:53Hannah McCarthy?

  Just a bad idea all around.

• 5:54Nick Capodice?

  Terrible idea. Okay, 15.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  "For protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states."

• 6:05Hannah McCarthy?

  Wait, what is that about? Mock trial?

• 6:08Speaker 00

  So Jefferson is referencing a very specific thing here, which is that British troops who- Commit a crime well on duty, well in uniform, are not subject to local laws.

• 6:17Nick Capodice?

  So there's an argument in Annapolis, Maryland between some colonists and some British Marines. The Marines killed two colonists and instead of standing trial in the Maryland court, they were sent to London for a trial and were unsurprisingly acquitted. Okay, number 16.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world. This one's complicated, so let me try and do it quickly. Since the 1650s, the British colonies had been subject to something called the Navigation Acts, which in a sentence required goods produced in the British colonies to be sent to London, not to other ports. So they had to be taken to London and then resold from London.

• 6:57Hannah McCarthy?

  So if I were in Boston and I wanted to sell, I don't know, whale oil to someone outside the colonies, I couldn't sell it. I had to sell it to London, which would then sell it to someone else. They're the middleman.

• 7:11Nick Capodice?

  And the Dutch, the French, the Spanish, they were not supposed to be trading in the colonies directly, but they sure did anyways.

• 7:19Hannah McCarthy?

  So everyone was essentially smuggling.

• 7:21Nick Capodice?

  Every day they were smuggling. But what this meant was British soldiers could search any ship and say, hmm, it looks like we got some contraband here. And that truly chilled all trade with the colonies.

• 7:35Nick Capodice?

  All right, here's number 17, and it is a big one.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  For imposing taxes on us without our consent.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  And that one, and the simplest way to put it is the root issue at the heart of the Stamp Act, the Townshend Act crisis is, right?

• 7:50Hannah McCarthy?

  All right, we're talking the classic American Revolution line, no taxation without representation.

• 7:56Nick Capodice?

  Yep.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  This is the idea that the without our consent provision essentially means we didn't actually have a representative in the British Parliament. And the colonists are like, no, no, we have to have someone there to debate this. Because they don't, they reject the legitimacy of the taxes. And so they call it imposing taxes on us and they stress the lack of consent. Because they just see the whole edifice of taxing them from, from London as illegitimate.

• 8:23Nick Capodice?

  Here comes number 18. Hannah, have I sneaked in a 1776 reference yet?

• 8:27Hannah McCarthy?

  I don't think so, Nick, but I also think that- Shoot George Reed!

• 8:30Speaker 00

  Among your charges against the king, Mr. Jefferson, you accuse him of depriving us of the benefits of trial by jury. This is untrue, sir. In Delaware, we've always had trial by jury. For depriving us in many cases of the benefit of trial by jury.

• 8:46Nick Capodice?

  Again, gonna bring up smuggling here. Anyone caught selling to a foreign trader and not through London was considered a smuggler and a pirate.

• 8:57Hannah McCarthy?

  Is that a back simile of he's a pirate you've got going on here?

• 9:01Nick Capodice?

  Sure is. Anyways, for this, you didn't get a civil trial in your home court, but a military tribunal. No peers, no friends in the room.

• 9:11Hannah McCarthy?

  Which, if you are against smuggling, is probably good. But if you are a smuggler, like say, John Hancock, not so great for you.

• 9:20Nick Capodice?

  Not so great. Okay, number 19.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses. British authorities had a unilateral right to extradite colonists to Britain. There was no corresponding right. So British people could not be extradited to the colonies, even if the crime was committed in the colonies. So from the point of view of the colonists, it's an imbalance. And there's this idea that certain British officials, lords, people who have financial interests in the colonies but are based in London, would rather have, or Bristol, would rather have a crime committed in, say, Charleston adjudicated in Bristol, rather than in Charleston itself. Same idea, right?

• 10:01Hannah McCarthy?

  So much of this is about that ocean, that big 3,000 mile stretch of water that separated England from the colonies and people in power got to pick which side they should be on in any given situation that would benefit them.

• 10:16Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, the sea hates a coward, but it benefits a monarch. All right, number 20.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government- And enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies.

• 10:36Hannah McCarthy?

  What is that about?

• 10:38Nick Capodice?

  It's about our gentle neighbor to the north, O Canada.

• 10:47Nick Capodice?

  In 1774, the Quebec Act established that the now British province of Quebec will be run under old French laws, meaning it does not have to have its own legislature.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Essentially, what they think is happening, or what Jefferson's perspective seems to be here, is that Quebec is a test run for imposing a kind of despotism on the rest of the colonies. Because their subjects are French and Catholic, that must mean they're used to this, right? They're used to a despotic monarch and not having rights, which looks very funny in hindsight 30 years later after the French Revolution. But the idea, right, that Catholic French subjects weren't used to liberty, they didn't know what liberty was, only Englishmen know what liberty is. And so the Crown is attempting to impose despotism on them because they don't know any better. But we know better and we see it as a trial run for what they're going to try to do to us.

• 11:39Nick Capodice?

  And another reason Jefferson might not have liked England expanding its borders is because that left less and less land that the framers could speculate on and make a ton of money.

• 11:48Hannah McCarthy?

  Sounds about right.

• 11:49Nick Capodice?

  All right, 21.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments. This is a reference specifically to the Act in 1774 called the Massachusetts Government Act, passed out of the British Parliament, which abolished the Charter of Massachusetts as a colony.

• 12:10Hannah McCarthy?

  Real quick, can you define charter for me?

• 12:13Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, so the settlement of the original colonies was usually done according to charters.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  That is to say, the Crown grants you, the Massachusetts Bay Company, X amount of land, X amount of rights for X amount of time, and that is your Your sort of authority in this region. The British government wasn't going out and sending soldiers and settling a colony and saying, "This is directly ruled British territory." They were giving a charter, usually to a company, the Virginia Company, Massachusetts Bay Company. In general, the idea of a charter is it is a grant from the Crown, giving you authority over this region. And within that, you have certain rights that are protected.

• 12:54Nick Capodice?

  But the King put a new charter on Massachusetts that gave the royal governor a lot more power. So England thought that Mass had too much power. Mass folk thought that they needed more power.

• 13:05Hannah McCarthy?

  There's a lot more to us than dunks and Ben Affleck.

• 13:09Nick Capodice?

  All right, 22.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  For suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. This is a very specific rebuke to something called the Declaratory Act of 1766. The only thing you need to know about the Declaratory Act is it's passed in the immediate aftermath of the repeal of the Stamp Act.

• 13:31Nick Capodice?

  The Stamp Act, 1765. England says all paper used in the colonies, including playing cards, has to have the official London stamp on it.

• 13:42Hannah McCarthy?

  Meaning, England got the tax money.

• 13:45Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, and it did not go well.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  So the Stamp Act crisis happens. The colonists go crazy, they get really upset. There's a lot of internal pressure in Britain to recognize the right of the colonists. And eventually, the Stamp Act is repealed by Parliament, which is kind of a humiliation for the government and a humiliation for Parliament to have to do this.

• 14:05Nick Capodice?

  So in response, England passed the Declaratory Act, which basically says Parliament still has the right to legislate in all cases in the colonies whenever it wants.

• 14:16Hannah McCarthy?

  Sounds pretty petty.

• 14:17Nick Capodice?

  Petty and peevish, Hannah. All right, number 23, End in Sight. And now, now it's time for the big guns.

• 14:29Speaker 00

  Even if everything listed previously had not been here, you could argue that everything after this is justified. Justification for independence on its own, right? So to give you an example, he has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. Um, so this is a, a kind of a reference to.

• 14:50Nick Capodice?

  Haven't you out there ever Googled your own name, like actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing, there are companies called data brokers whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers, sometimes to people running scams. And once your data's out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where Incogni comes in. Incogni contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over. So your info doesn't just pop right back up. You set it up once and they keep working in the background.

• 15:36Nick Capodice?

  You can even track the progress on a dashboard. And for our listeners, we have an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan. Just go to incogni.com/civics or use the code civics at checkout. There's a link in the episode description. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  In this life, you can't win.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  When the world gets you down.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  No!

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Escape to Pluto TV.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  This is objectively fantastic.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free.

• 16:06Speaker 00

  Shwing!

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Even our news is uplifting. You stay classy, San Diego. Watch School of Rock, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The X-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more. We're not worthy! The best things on TV really are free.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  You just have to know where to look.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

• 16:25Speaker 04

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes, para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro, para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos, y los que no vende cerca, para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen, para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  Born in Texas, made in America, that's Valero. Keeping America moving, rain or shine, day or night, 365 days a year. Giving back to our communities and helping businesses thrive. We're proud to fuel the people who keep this country moving. So whether you're exploring new roads or heading down ones you know, we're here, fueling drives coast to coast. Proudly American, proudly getting you where you need to be. Right now, Valero. The war, essentially, right? The government of Britain is at war with its colonies. Now, if you ask King George III, and if you asked Parliament, they would say, "We sent the military in to quell a rebellion." So by 1776, we've been at war for almost over a year at this point.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  And I think this is often forgotten about the Second Congress. They're meeting in the middle of a war, right? They're a war parliament. Oh, good God, why can't you acknowledge what already exists? It has been more than a year since Concord and Lexington. Damn it, man, we're at war right now.

• 17:59Nick Capodice?

  You may be at war, you, Boston and John Edison. We are at war. The British have occupied New York City at this point. And Jefferson is saying, "The king has abdicated. He has given up his responsibility over us because he has declared war on us."

• 18:17Speaker 00

  So as far as we're concerned, we don't need to listen to him anymore.

• 18:23Nick Capodice?

  And number 24 is an extension of this.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  So he has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. Using military force against the colonists is an abdication of his responsibility to protect them.

• 18:37Hannah McCarthy?

  Again, this is Jefferson saying, "You're supposed to protect us, not war with us. When you use military force against us, you are no longer our protector."

• 18:47Nick Capodice?

  And the beat of the war drum continues in grievance number 25. Can you feel everyone getting real mad, Hannah?

• 18:53Hannah McCarthy?

  Oh, I can feel it.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and Paraphity scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation.

• 19:14Hannah McCarthy?

  Cruelty and perfidy.

• 19:16Nick Capodice?

  Paralleled in the most barbarous ages.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  So this is Jefferson really getting lathered up. Two things here. Obviously, again, a underlining of the violence, right? The king's resort to violence is illegitimate, but I do want to highlight the mercenaries really quickly. The British government did hire multiple companies of German mercenaries. This would have been in the news around this time. But the idea that there would be the use of mercenaries against American subjects is an odious one to the Americans, because this is a sign that the king is willing to engage with foreigners to crush his own people. And that seems to them to be an abdication of his obligation to protect them. Like, if you hired Russian tanks to come oppress, conquer New Hampshire, right?

• 20:02Speaker 00

  That would be the level we're talking about here. The notion that you would go out and get a foreign military and use it against your own people is what they're so upset about here.

• 20:13Nick Capodice?

  Penultimate grievance 26.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

• 20:26Nick Capodice?

  Hannah, do you know what a press gang is?

• 20:29Hannah McCarthy?

  Is it when I hang out with my friends from journalism school?

• 20:33Nick Capodice?

  So a press gang, the subject of many a shanty. I'm not going to get into the King Schilling or Barrett's privateers here. This is the British practice of impressment, where the Royal Navy took people accused of smuggling or other crimes just up and took them off the streets or in a bar to fight on their ships. A press gang could surround you at a tavern, grab you, and just throw you in a carriage.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  And this would happen to Americans quite frequently. There was a period where Scots and Irish soldiers were overwhelmingly oppressed. But by the time you get to the 18th century, it tends to be American soldiers, in part because Scots and Irish have representation in the British Parliament.

• 21:15Hannah McCarthy?

  Are we there? Is this the last one?

• 21:17Nick Capodice?

  We are Hannah, but this one is tricky. And I think it's best to start with what is not in the final grievance. In Jefferson's first draft, but not in the final Declaration of Independence, this grievance started with, "He has waged cruel war."

• 21:32Speaker 03

  He has waged cruel war against human nature itself and the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his men- That will suffice, Mr. Thompson. I thank you, sir. Mr. Jefferson, I can't quite make out what it is you're talking about.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  He called the slave trade a cruel war against human nature in his first draft. And he referred to the idea of enslaving Africans and taking them to the Americas as something the king imposed upon America, as something that the Crown of Great Britain had forced Americans to participate in, and that it was not a natural thing. It was an abuse of power imposed upon them by Britain.

• 22:24Hannah McCarthy?

  I imagine that most of our listeners are aware that this is hypocritical. Thomas Jefferson enslaved nearly 600 people. He quote unquote, "resolved" to release them, but he never did.

• 22:34Nick Capodice?

  Never did. And Craig said that Jefferson was making the distinction here between slavery and the slave trade, practicing the first and condemning the latter. Which, yes Hannah, extremely hypocritical.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  And the idea that he would then also own slaves while saying these things. I mean, he says all men are created equal earlier in the document, right? It's possible to both say Thomas Jefferson hated being a slave owner, hated slavery, but also did it, and did it in ways that were bloody and invasive and worth condemnation. So it's very hard. He's a complicated figure.

• 23:09Hannah McCarthy?

  So what's the part that made it in?

• 23:11Speaker 00

  So the part that made it in is, "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions." So to start with the slavery point. Domestic insurrections is Jefferson's word for slave revolts. He means enslave people rising up against their bondage and attacking their slave owners, which I think it's fair to say from a 21st century point of view, we all understand that, right? But from his point of view, anything that you would do to excite that is almost as bad as participating in something like the slave trade because you're using violence, right? The problem is the violence.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  The problem is the viciousness of that approach.

• 23:58Nick Capodice?

  The question of slavery was not part of the Declaration.

• 24:02Hannah McCarthy?

  But it sure was in the Constitution.

• 24:04Nick Capodice?

  Yep, five times.

• 24:06Speaker 00

  The other side of this is the merciless Indian savages, which I really, I don't know if this will be audio only, but I really hope people hear my quotes there, my scare quotes.

• 24:15Nick Capodice?

  So I very much encourage anyone out there to listen to our episode on this very specific part. It is called "The Declaration Revisited: Native Americans," just to understand how damaging the reverberations of that one sentence are, not just in its racism, but that it was cited in Supreme Court opinions as recently as 2005.

• 24:37Speaker 00

  And for the record, this is not a legal document, so it's crazy that that would be the case, right? But that's me, that's me on this side. Unquestionably racist description of the Native peoples here. Specifically, what I would say here is that one of the priorities after the end of the Seven Years' War with France is that Britain does not want to be dragged into an Indian war. They do not want a war with Native peoples. They do not want to fight a conflict against Native Americans in North America. And that kind of language is infused here in this idea that the king is inciting and sort of prioritizing these savages over us, right? And the idea that he's incited them, he's endeavored to bring them onto our frontiers is kind of implying that, right?

• 25:21Speaker 00

  He's saying that the frontier lands are theirs, whereas the colonial American position would be that land is ours. We want that land.

• 25:31Nick Capodice?

  And there we are, 27 injuries and usurpations. So do you want to talk a little about, you know, modern day parallels?

• 25:41Hannah McCarthy?

  All right, let's do it.

• 25:42Nick Capodice?

  All right, we're going to take a quick break.

• 25:47Nick Capodice?

  So Hannah, do you remember it was July of 2017, NPR tweeted, line by line, "The Declaration of Independence"?

• 25:55Hannah McCarthy?

  Oh, I actually, yes, I do remember this. And I also recall that there were people who did not recognize it as the Declaration of Independence, and they accused NPR of tweeting anti-Trump propaganda.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  Well, some President Trump supporters, unaware that NPR was literally tweeting out the Declaration of Independence, accused NPR of inciting violence. One guy tweeted, "So NPR is calling for revolution. Interesting way to condone violence while trying to sound patriotic. Your implications are clear."

• 26:27Nick Capodice?

  I bring that story up, Hannah, because since then, myriad articles have been written detailing similarities between George III and Donald Trump's actions. So Hannah, you've heard them all. You've heard all 27. Where do you want to start?

• 26:44Hannah McCarthy?

  Uh, can we do the "he has refused his assent to laws," et cetera? I know in this instance, assent means the equivalent of signing a bill, and Donald Trump has not vetoed anything in the current administration. His party controls both chambers of Congress, so he hasn't needed to. But the president has refused to recognize laws passed by Congress.

• 27:07Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, there is the illegal firing of federal employees.

• 27:10Speaker 03

  President Trump announced he is firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud. This is the first time a president has fired a Fed Governor in the central bank's 111-year history. Cook has not been charged with any crime. This has huge implications in politics, law, and the--

• 27:27Nick Capodice?

  There is the fact that he has tried to end birthright citizenship via executive order. Now, birthright citizenship is in the Constitution. The Constitution is the law of the land, so I can see that as a refusal to assent to laws.

• 27:40Hannah McCarthy?

  And the fact that Congress has appropriated a bunch of funds for various executive agencies and departments, and a lot of that has been frozen, et cetera, by the executive.

• 27:53Nick Capodice?

  Right.

• 27:54Hannah McCarthy?

  Do you have a grievance you're particularly interested in looking at?

• 27:56Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, I was thinking maybe number 10.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent head or swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

• 28:06Nick Capodice?

  You did a whole episode on DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. This was an office the president created by executive order, but the Constitution grants Congress the power to create new federal offices, not the executive. This office, DOGE, has raided federal agencies. They have been given access to a ton of financial data involving social security, tax filings, government contracts, you name it.

• 28:30Hannah McCarthy?

  I feel we should also point out here that Congress alone has the power to eliminate agencies, but Trump signed an executive order in March to do just that, eliminate seven federal agencies to the, quote, "full extent of the law."

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Trump's order also gives the Office of Management and Budget sweeping new authority over agency budgets, allowing the White House to review and potentially restrict spending decisions.

• 28:54Nick Capodice?

  Another one I got to bring up is number seven. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states, for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners.

• 29:03Hannah McCarthy?

  That one almost does not need expounding on. The man we spoke with is a US citizen. He provided us with documentation of his legal status.

• 29:13Nick Capodice?

  He says this experience has shaken his faith in the immigration enforcement efforts of President Donald Trump, for whom he voted. I mean, I will expound a little on this. The president has given authority to ICE agents to arrest people at their workplace, schools, and even immigration courts. And we can tie this to grievance number 18, denying trial by jury, as many of these immigrants are deported with no trial whatsoever. All right, you want to take another one?

• 29:40Hannah McCarthy?

  Sure. What were the numbers for the grievances involving standing armies and independent military?

• 29:46Nick Capodice?

  That was 11 and 12.

• 29:47Hannah McCarthy?

  We did mention it in the last episode, but the president has deployed the National Guard to Washington DC and California, and has recently signed an executive order to send them to Memphis.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  President Trump, late yesterday, establishing a task force in Memphis to crack down on crime, similar to actions recently taken in the nation's capital.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  The effort will include the National Guard, as well as the FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE, Homeland Security Investigations, and the US Marshals.

• 30:18Hannah McCarthy?

  You want to do one more?

• 30:19Nick Capodice?

  Sure. And I do want to say this list of comparisons is not exhaustive. I read one article that said there were parallels to 21 of the 27 grievances. But I do want to bring up number 16 for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world. Tariffs are taxes. Congress levies taxes and not the president. And we are paying this tax on things we import from other countries. And I guess you could tie this to the next one as well, to imposing taxes without consent.

• 30:52Hannah McCarthy?

  But of course, Nick, we do still have a democracy. We do not have a king. It is a different situation.

• 31:01Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, we are a democratic republic. We do not need a revolution to solve problems when we have elections.

• 31:10Hannah McCarthy?

  You know, I keep thinking of the terror in the room when the first Continental Congress was adopting Lee's resolution to declare independence. These men could have been found guilty of treason. That is, in fact, what they were committing. They could have been hanged. But that's not us, right? We're allowed to air our grievances.

• 31:33Nick Capodice?

  We are. And honestly, that's how we started in the first place.

• 31:42Nick Capodice?

  Thus ends this little mini series on grievances. I hope you air yours loudly and often. This episode was made by me, Nick Capodice, with Hannah McCarthy. Thank you, Hannah. Marina Henke is our producer and Rebecca Lavoy, our executive producer and grievance receiver. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions, Halistnico and Epidemic Sound and the amazing Chris Zabriski. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio. It's all Peter Pence.

• 32:17Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, I love talking about these grievances Hannah, because they're like a...

• 32:20Hannah McCarthy?

  Oh.

• 32:21Nick Capodice?

  Ohhh, the fridge. The fridge just start, we can unplug the fridge? I'll plug, just remember to plug it back in.

• 32:28Hannah McCarthy?

  I know where the plug is.

• 32:28Nick Capodice?

  Oh, I know where the plug is.

• 32:30Hannah McCarthy?

  It's behind it.

• 32:32Nick Capodice?

  It shouldn't be like this.

• 32:36Nick Capodice?

  I'll get that later.

• 32:38Hannah McCarthy?

  Fix it in post.

• 32:39Nick Capodice?

  We'll fix that in post.

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