David Shestokas says the United States needs the lessons of his new novel, Creating the Declaration of Independence.
“This book is a history lesson in how our first principals came to define this nation,” Shestokas told the DuPage Policy Journal. “People want to slice and dice, but it illustrates we are created equal. These days, whenever I give speeches people are shaking their heads yes by the end because we always start from the assumption of the common ground we have.”
Shestokas' 154-page novel, which imagines the work that went into crafting the Declaration of Independence, comes on the heels of his 2015 Constitutional Sound Bites, an informative book on America's founding that follows a question-and-answer format.
David Shestokas
“In Sound Bites, there were so many references to the Declaration of Independence,” Shestokas, a constitutional scholar, said. “It’s critical to remember that the Declaration of Independence was the glue that held us together as a nation before the Constitution.”
Shestokas said he seeks to connect the reader with the pulse of the day as leaders embarked on a course that would ultimately define history. He shares everything from what led Richard Henry Lee to formally propose American independence to how Thomas Jefferson came to be revered as a rock during such perilous times.
“The guys who defined this country were brilliant and put forth ideas back than that we’re not commonly acceptable,” Shestokas said, explaining that he wanted to betray no political bias in his work. “Their ideals and principles belong to all of us.”
Shestokas has been practicing law for more than three decades in criminal defense, corporate law, real estate and business financing. He previously served as assistant state’s attorney for Cook County and has been admitted to practice law before the Illinois Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the Supreme Court of Florida and the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
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