I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and you're listening to the Sunday Story from Up First.
250 years ago this weekend, the Declaration of Independence was signed.
It marked the beginning of American democracy.
This year, NPR has been looking at how things have gone in the series America in Pursuit,
stories from 250 years of life, liberty, and happiness.
Americans tend to think about the Declaration of Independence as a founding document,
the start of something, the text that brought the country together.
But if you read it closely, you realize it's also a breakup text.
A good portion of the Declaration of Independence is saying it's not you, it's me.
This is just not going to work.
We don't work well together, you know.
So in addition to being a document declaring freedom, the Declaration of Independence is also a document of secession.
Today we have a story about a group of people who see themselves as following in a fundamentally American tradition.
A group of people who are claiming their right to declare
their independence from a state they feel no longer represents them.
We, the people of the counties of New Illinois, solemnly publish and declare
that these counties are and of right ought to be a free and independent state.
When we come back, a modern-day secessionist movement in the state of Illinois.
Stay with us.
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