“Unfit to be the ruler of a free people” – Insights from the Declaration of Independence

David Silverberg
Advocacy, History

Speech to the Indivisible Rally for Voting Rights, Collier County Courthouse.

Delivered on June 27, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida State Senate, District 28, Collier County Courthouse, Naples, Fla.

Text as prepared for delivery

 

Hello, my name is David Silverberg and I’m a candidate for Florida Senate in District 28, which is Collier, Hendry and eastern Lee County.

But today I’m not coming with a partisan political message. Rather, I want to reflect on history.

As we all know, July 4th will mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But today is a significant day too because it was on this day 250 years ago that what was called the Committee of Five finished drafting that document.

The Committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston. Jefferson wrote the first draft, the others—mainly Franklin and Adams—made revisions and on this day they were ready to present it to the full Congress, which then tinkered further with it until it was in final form by the 4th.

Now, I want to make the argument that our situation today is more like what the Committee of Five faced on June 27th, 1776 than what they faced the day after they signed the Declaration on July 4th.

Why is that? Because like then, we are faced with an arbitrary and oppressive ruler who has no concern for the concerns of the people of these states. We’re living under someone who respects no restraints, someone who is above the law that applies to the rest of us. Never, in its previous 250 years has the Declaration been more relevant. Indeed, frighteningly so.

Let’s look at some of the observations and complaints that were in the Declaration of Independence. I quote:

“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”

Sound familiar?

The Declaration then went on to list 27 grievances against King George and some could have been written yesterday—or this morning. I’m not going to read them all. But some are very relevant and could have happened yesterday. Indeed, one really did happen yesterday.

For example, the first complaint is:

“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”

Just two days ago the Congress, on a bipartisan basis, passed and presented for signature an affordable housing bill. But the chief executive refused his assent despite the consensus of the Congress and the country that it was wholesome and necessary.

“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”

King George was blocking immigrants from coming to America and was discouraging immigration. Sound familiar?

The Founders wanted immigration to this country. They knew that immigration brought energy, vigor, innovation and prosperity. They wanted what Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense: “O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.” They wanted an America that was open and welcoming and when the monarch blocked that, it was a key cause for rebellion.

Americans didn’t like the king putting alien armed troops among them. And among the abuses that came from those troops was this:

“For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.”

Remember Minnesota! They could have been speaking of Renee Good and Alex Pretti!

“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world.”

Has anyone been more disruptive and destructive of American trade than the current monarch, with his senseless trade wars and arbitrary tariffs? In 1776 that kind of insanity led to revolution.

“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us…”

January 6th, anyone? Does anyone remember that?

American colonists tried to do what they could within the laws and system they had.

“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.”

These rights were so important that the Founders wrote into our Bill of Rights the right to peaceably assemble and petition government for a redress of grievances. How many times have we done this here? And how many times have our petitions been met by repeated injury?

And then comes the conclusion that the founders reached.

“A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

A ruler who does these things, who pursues tyranny, whether his title is King or President is “unfit to be the ruler of a free people!”

The Founders saw tyranny and rejected it. We have to reject tyranny when we see it too.

We are a free people and we intend to remain a free people.

Ultimately the Founders committed themselves to independence and through independence, to freedom. To achieve that freedom, to become a free people, the founders concluded that they must rise up and as they said:

“with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

As they did, so we must do now. We have to be the same change that they were. It’s up to us to ensure that the 250th anniversary of the American experiment is not the end of the experiment but the prelude to the next 250 years of freedom and independence and democracy for the sake of our grandchildren’s grandchildrens’ grandchildren.

And so we too have to resolve, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence to pledge to this great cause our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Thank you for listening.

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