A longtime St. Louis, Missouri, financial services executive, Donald L. Koch guides Koch Asset Management as president. Donald L. Koch is also head of the Koch Charitable Foundation, which sponsors presentations that offer a fuller understanding of vital founding documents, such as the U.S. Constitution.

1. Contrasting the Declaration of
Independence and the Bill of Rights
Donald L Koch

2. Introduction
• A longtime St. Louis, Missouri, financial services
executive, Donald L. Koch guides Koch Asset
Management as president. Donald L. Koch is also head
of the Koch Charitable Foundation, which sponsors
presentations that offer a fuller understanding of vital
founding documents, such as the U.S. Constitution.
A foundation-sponsored presentation by Clark Beim-
Esche and Howard Bay in April 2016 in St. Louis focused
on providing an in-depth look at the Bill of Rights and
Declaration of Independence. Both written in 1776 in
reaction to the excesses of colonial Britain, the two
documents were similarly focused on setting limits on
“absolute Tyranny” and “usurpations” of power.

3. Declaration of Independence and the
Bill of Rights
• Their core aim was not simply to establish a new nation,
but to create one in which citizens were shielded from
government excesses.
The two documents differ in that the Declaration of
Independence is focused on detailing the injustices of the
King of Great Britain and providing rationale for the
establishment of a new republic. The Bill of Rights sets
forth 10 basic Constitutional amendments that will
ensure that the United States embarks on a significantly
different course from monarchial Britain. These include
the foundational First Amendment, which provides for
“freedom of speech, press, religion, peaceable assembly,
and [ability] to petition the government.”