Loyalty Oaths and the American Revolution
In Chapter 3 of Carrying Independence, Nathaniel and his friends face a moment that echoes through American history: the pressure to sign an oath of allegiance. As evidenced by loyalty oaths that still exist from the American Revolution, allegiance was not to a specific leader, but to a country. To ideals. This scene resonates powerfully today as Americans grapple with recent “No Kings” protests across the nation, where millions demonstrated to defend Declaration of Independence ideals against what they view as excessive loyalty to a single individual rather than to democratic institutions.
The ideals articulated in the Declaration of Independence—that all men are created equal, that governments derive their power from the consent of the governed—weren’t just revolutionary arguments against King George III. They became America’s foundational promise, the principles we’ve adopted as our national ideals to uphold across generations. Yet here we are, nearly 250 years later, still fighting to honor that promise against the pull of personal loyalty.
The parallels between 1776 and 2025 are striking—and troubling.
The King’s Oath: Personal Loyalty as Political Control
Revolutionary-era oaths of allegiance weren’t abstract pledges to freedom or democracy. To sign an oath to the Crown was a deeply personal declaration of loyalty to King George III as an individual. British subjects swore to “be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King George the Third” personally, not to Britain as a concept or even to the Crown as an institution.
This wasn’t accidental. Personal loyalty has always been authoritarianism’s most effective tool. When you pledge allegiance to a person rather than principles, that person becomes the sole arbiter of what’s right, what’s legal, and what’s patriotic.
Thomas Paine understood this danger perfectly. In Common Sense, he wrote “that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.” This wasn’t just rhetoric—Paine and the founders deliberately chose a republic over direct democracy or monarchy, creating a system where representatives would be accountable to law and institutions rather than to personal loyalty. The Declaration of Independence ideals echoed this, rejecting personal rule and establishing that governments derive their power from the consent of the governed, not from loyalty to a monarch. (Even Benedict Arnold who flip-flopped signed an oath to the United States, shown above and here. Oh the irony of looking at this document in light of June 14th protests.)
When Party Becomes Person
Yet here we are, nearly 250 years later, watching congressional leaders openly defer to presidential power rather than assert their constitutional authority. During a recent congressional recess in Anchorage, Senator Lisa Murkowski made a stunning admission: “We are all afraid,” she told constituents. “It’s quite a statement, but we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been before, and I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real.” This reveals how personal loyalty has again become the currency of American politics.
Trump has fundamentally transformed the Republican Party into one defined by loyalty to him, turning it against other major institutions in ways that echo the very system America’s founders fought to escape. When 61% of Republicans want their president to “stand up to” Democratic leaders even if it makes solving critical problems harder, we see the same dynamic that split colonial families: loyalty to a person superseding loyalty to the common good.
This isn’t partisan observation—it’s historical pattern recognition. The founders specifically designed our system to prevent exactly this concentration of personal loyalty around one individual.
The Cost of Choosing Sides
During my research at Colonial Williamsburg and Yorktown, I watched reenactments simulate a moment in which representatives for the Crown and for the colonies demanded oaths be signed—respectively one for the King, and one for the Cause of Independence. To other reenactors the struggle was real, but to the modern tourists, the choice was clear. We would absolutely support ideals for the betterment of all over loyalty to and for a single man. And in part because we know how the Revolution ended—and on which side of history.
Yet that clarity came from historical distance. The colonists depicted in that scene had no such advantage. Research on charismatic authority explains how supporters accept a leader’s extraordinary qualities without question, creating what scholars describe as cult-like devotion—whether to a king or revolutionary leaders. But questioning that authority is how we actually came around to declaring our independence from a leader who no longer justly served the people.
Nathaniel’s conflict in Chapter 3 mirrors that original uncertainty. His English mother represents heritage and tradition; his father’s rifle-making supports the colonial cause; his friend Kalawi offers an entirely different perspective on the conflict. Must he choose one loyalty and abandon all others, and during a time of war?
“Who would he be aiming at exactly?” Nathaniel asks himself in a later chapter, capturing the profound confusion of someone caught between competing loyalties.
The revolutionary generation faced this impossible choice. Families split. Communities fractured. Neighbors became enemies. All because personal loyalty to either the King or revolutionary ideals and causes became the test of political legitimacy.
The Founders’ Warning in Declaration of Independence Ideals
What would Thomas Paine say about Americans again debating loyalty to a single person? Perhaps he’d be stunned that we’re relitigating principles he thought settled in 1776. In Common Sense, he wrote of America’s potential to be “the glory of the earth”—not the glory of any individual.
The recent “No Kings” demonstrations, with their explicit rejection of monarchical tendencies, echo Paine’s central insight: free people don’t pledge allegiance to individuals. They pledge allegiance to ideas, institutions, and laws that transcend any single person.
Jefferson would perhaps have mixed reactions to our current moment. He’d be dismayed by institutional erosion, but perhaps proud of the “No Kings” demonstrations. When over 5 million Americans took to the streets in more than 2,000 cities to protest what they viewed as monarchical tendencies, they embodied the Declaration of Independence ideals—its core principle—that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Like the Declaration’s 27 grievances against King George III (nearly all of which begin with the word HE), the protesters articulated specific objections to individual overreach. While more than half of American voters elected Trump, more than 5 million on June 14th refused to accept personal rule over democratic institutions—exactly the kind of popular resistance Jefferson championed when he wrote in our founding document, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive” of the people’s rights, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
The Choice Before Us
The characters in Carrying Independence didn’t have the luxury of historical hindsight. They couldn’t know that rejecting personal monarchy would create the world’s most successful democracy. They had to choose based on principle, not certainty.
We face a similar choice, but with the advantage of knowing where personal loyalty leads. We’ve seen democratic backsliding around the world when citizens transfer their allegiance from institutions to individuals. We’ve witnessed how loyalty tests and conspiracy theories can undermine democratic norms. Even President Zelensky understands loyalty is not unto himself. In his own inaugural address he stated, “We need people in power who will serve the people. This is why I really do not want my pictures in your offices, for the President is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Hang your kids’ photos instead, and look at them each time you are making a decision.”
The question Nathaniel faces in Chapter 3 is this and it remains urgent today. What would compel you to sign an oath of allegiance, especially when it divides you from others? But perhaps we should be more clear: What would prevent you from signing such an oath? What should? What principles and ideals are worth more—and worth fighting for—over personal loyalty?
The founders answered clearly when 56 of them signed the sole copy of the Declaration of Independence: the principle that no individual should be above the law, that power belongs to the people, and that government exists to serve citizens rather than the other way around.
As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, the wisdom of 1776 feels both ancient and immediate. The choice between the Declaration of Independence ideals and our founding-vision of government by “consent of the governed” versus personal rule isn’t historical artifact—it’s the living challenge of every generation.
This post is a deeper discussion for Chapter 3 of Carrying Independence, my historical novel about the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is part of my ongoing weekly chapter serial release—56 chapters FREE—in honor of our America250 Sesquicentennial on July 4, 2026. Join in and read the chapters on my substack: From the Wandering Desk of Karen A. Chase.
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