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- [00:07]
Scott Bertram
From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught, nurtured and honored, this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.
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Dr. Bill Maclay
What we lose is in this hyper specialized, intense focus on one thing and ferreting out all that we can about one thing. We lose the big picture.
- [00:37]
Scott Bertram
This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast network. And happy 250th birthday to America. This a very special edition of the program as we talk with two of our esteemed professors here at Hillsdale College about Independence Day and at America 250. That voice you heard was Dr. Bill Maclay, Victor Davis Hanson, chair in Classical History and Western Civilization here at Hillsdale. We'll talk later in today's program about an essay he wrote about memory at America's birthday. First, we're joined by Dr. Khalil Habib. He's associate professor of politics, and Alison and Dorothy Rouse, professor in politics here at Hillsdale College. Dr. Habib, thanks for joining us.
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Dr. Khalil Habib
Scott. It's always an honor.
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Scott Bertram
Talking about a wonderful essay that you wrote over at NATIONAL Review, the Importance of the 4th of July according to the Adams family. Now, many Americans think of Independence Day as a celebration of military victory over Britain, but you argue John Quincy Adams saw it a bit differently. What's the distinction there?
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Dr. Khalil Habib
Well, of course, the Declaration of Independence was occasioned by abuses by King George iii, and it is a celebration of our military victory over Britain. So I wouldn't ever want to downplay that. But in two speeches that John Quincy Adams gave, one in 1821 and one in 1837, he wanted to celebrate Independence Day by reminding us of some of the most important principles that informed the Declaration of Independence, and among them, and we can talk about it more as we continue, he wanted to show and remind Americans that the principles of the Declaration first were rooted in a profound break with a certain European tradition that emphasized, for example, conquest, servitude, divine right of kings. And that was the focus of his 1821 speech in 1837. He emphasizes the Christian roots. He believes that America plays a role in providential history. And he reminds his fellow Americans about the Christian foundation of those principles. And so he thought, thought the best way to celebrate Independence Day was to not just read it, but to actually discuss it with fellow Americans and to always keep it close at hand.
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Scott Bertram
This matters a lot for us here in America. Adams also thought the Declaration mattered for humanity more broadly. What is the Declaration? How does it speak to humanity?
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Dr. Khalil Habib
Yeah. So in the first speech in 1821, he's Secretary of State and he's addressing himself to US House of Representatives, and he recognizes that the Declaration speaks on behalf of all human beings because it's founded ultimately on natural law and the idea of natural rights as inalienable rights that we have to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But in spite of the fact that it does have a universal appeal and it touches upon humanity broadly, as you said in that specific speech, he does want to advocate for a restrained foreign policy because he knows that there would be a temptation to want to impose these principles on other regimes. And so that's where you get that very famous line where he says, do not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. So that's a tricky point, I think, in the Declaration. On the one hand it's universal, but on the other hand, you have to curb your enthusiasm for simply searching, as he says, for monsters abroad.
- [04:24]
Scott Bertram
There are some today, even as we celebrate America 250, that see the Declaration as a statement simply about America's past, a document of its time. The Adamses seem to have viewed it, you argue, as a guide for America's future. Is that a fair assessment?
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Dr. Khalil Habib
Oh, yeah. No, for sure. So John Adams the father, and of course John Quincy Adams the son, always took any opportunity to write about the Declaration, to speak about it. And they both emphasize the importance of just moral obligation and civic duty that every American has when you live in a regime that embodies those principles. So his father, for example, John Adams, played a big role in drafting the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. And in Article 2, he talks about, quote, rights and duties of all men. And in that instance, he was talking about the right of conscience. But the point is, it wasn't just simply a historical document. History occasioned it, those abuses. But you can't have a set of principles grounded in the law of nature and nature's God and think that they just simply have a historical shelf life.
- [05:36]
Scott Bertram
Dr. Khalil Habib with us. His piece at nationalreview.com, the Importance of the Fourth of July According to the Adams family. I want to take just a brief sidebar away from the piece itself, because I've been talking to a lot of people about America 250, and John Adams comes up again and again and again as this real engine moving the country towards this break of independence and the Declaration. Can you tell us a little Bit about Adams and then John Quincy Adams in terms of his influence. Compare and contrast John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
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Dr. Khalil Habib
Yeah, they're very similar. I mean, I don't see much of a difference with respect to the Declaration. I think the great contribution I see from the senior, the Elder, is he does write a work, Thoughts on Government. And what I love about that, and I would encourage every American to take a look. To take a look at it, is he unpacks what the Founders meant by the pursuit of happiness, which I think has created a lot of problems, primarily from the right. Interestingly enough, there are some conservative critics of the Founding who attribute all of our moral decline and degeneracy to the principles of the Founding. They say that all of our problems today are really the result of the principles that were baked in it. And so what are they referring to when they say that? Well, among other places, they think that the pursuit of happiness is this relativistic. You pursue your happiness one way, Scott. I pursue mine. Who's to say it's this indeterminate world that we live in. Let's just agree to just get along. And that kind of relativism doesn't give the Founding and a moral anchor. What I love about the Elder John Adams is in Thoughts on Government, he essentially confirms what many of us already know about the founding. Happiness in that context, according to him, was always in reference to moral virtue. It wasn't an indeterminate lifestyle. And he's essentially just developing what Thomas Jefferson, the primary writer of the Declaration, simply said to Henry Lee when he wrote to him to explain the. The meaning and the context of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson there tells him that he drew upon principles that go all the way back to Aristotle. And anyone familiar with Aristotle knows that the centrality of happiness to politics is Aristotle's great theme. And for Aristotle, that happiness, that eudaimonia, is a kind of moral flourishing. So I think that alone constitutes a massive contribution by the Father. And what I love about the Son is, is that he shows us in his own actions what it should mean to be a great American. And you don't celebrate the fourth of July. That's to desacularize it. You celebrate Independence Day. That's like saying, I celebrate the 25th.
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Scott Bertram
I make this point all the time. I mean, at some point it's just semantic, but on the other hand, it really means something you're not celebrating. A date on the calendar is much more than that.
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Dr. Khalil Habib
Look, would you refer to Christmas as just the 25th?
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Scott Bertram
Of course not.
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Dr. Khalil Habib
Now, when you reduce something like our Independence day to the 25th to the 4th, then it just becomes about mattress sales and barbecues, and that's fine. I'm actually looking to replace a few myself, so I'm not. No, that's okay. But I think what he does that I think so well is he shows us in his own actions what it means to reflect on it. It's not simply a history lesson. It's an attempt to try to explain how those principles really created the consensus that formed the founding, the American mind, as Jefferson says. And it's the only basis, I think, of a unity among our citizens. And it really should help inform a national cohesion. So I think those speeches really should inspire us, as I think they were intended.
- [09:25]
Scott Bertram
That's Dr. Khalil Habib here at Hillsdale College. We'll talk more with him in just a moment. This America 250 celebration is the perfect time to dig into our online courses here at Hillsdale College. And the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast right now is featuring the Great American Story, a land of hope. Your teacher for this is Dr. Bill Maclay. We'll hear from him later on in today's program. The Great American Story explores the history of America as a land of hope founded on high principles. It presents the great triumphs and achievements of our nation's past and the shortcomings and failures. It offers a broad and unbiased study of the kind essential to the cultivation of intelligent patriotism. And right now is a perfect time to start the Great American Story, part of Hillsdale College's online courses podcast. Find it at podcast. Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio. Dr. Khalil Habib continues, now associate professor of politics, Alison and Dorothy Rouse, professor in politics here at Hillsdale College. Also, this essay over@nationalreview.com, the importance of the Fourth of July according to the Adams family. Dr. Habib, how does self government at the personal level relate to self government at the political level?
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Dr. Khalil Habib
For the exact reason that St. Augustine says you have as many masters as you have vices. So if you're just tyrannized by your appetites, by your vices, nobody in their right mind would call you a free person. You're an unfree person. You're a natural slave, so to speak. And what Locke and what the founders and what the Adams is always distinguish is liberty from license. Liberty is not licensed to do anything you want. Liberty is a friend of law of order. And self government essentially means you have the virtue to Restrain your desires, forestall instant gratification. And no human being who can't govern himself is fit to govern and live in society. And so if you're not going to govern yourself, I'm sure the state would be happy to fill that void. And so the idea actually of a small government is predicated on the notion that we have little government here in our own soul and that's sufficient. And so that I think is a very important and good question.
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Scott Bertram
Yeah, this idea that liberty and virtue are inseparable, is that something that we have lost, perhaps many of us have lost modern day America, sadly.
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Dr. Khalil Habib
I think so. I think there's too much of an emphasis on liberty defined as whatever my will desires and, and, and whatever that is. When you, when you liberate the passions from any restraint, you create a condition where humans can't live with limits. Think of all of the addictions that people develop because there's just no, there's no adults left in the room, culturally speaking. And when you do that, you're not suited to live in a world where you have to limit yourself. I mean that's really what virtue is in a way. Well, the laws are also a limit. Our Constitution is a limit. It's a limit on power and abuses of power. And so the more our society encourages, I think license, the more it's going to rub up against our constitutional order. And then the next step would be to just live in an anarchic state. Because once you liberate those desires, you no longer listen to the voice of reason or law. There's no reason to have a constitution. You end up living in a post constitutional world. And I think that's a very dangerous place to be in.
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Scott Bertram
The founders often talked about rights and responsibilities together. How did John Adams and John Quincy Adams understand that relationship?
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Dr. Khalil Habib
Yeah, so every right does entail a certain kind of duty. There's two ways to look at it. So if you have a right to property, I have a moral duty to not steal it. And that's just, I think so clear and obvious. It's self evident the other side of duty is. John Adams, for example, emphasized civic duties, the duty to defend other people's rights, the duty of citizens to pay their taxes, support their government. But of course it's always predicated and conditional. You wouldn't tolerate a tyrannical form of government. Hence the declarations sort of escape route, you know, after a long train of abuses. We do have a right to either reform or abolish, but there's always a, there's a recognition that these rights are not just simply individualistic. I think that's another thing some on the right often think. They think it's just a solipsistic country with no regard for the common good. But rights and duties always are two sides of the same coin.
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Scott Bertram
Talking with Dr. Khalil Habib, his piece@nationalreview.com, the importance of the Fourth of July according to the Adams family. What maybe should we Americans be celebrating today in 2026 that we're not celebrating enough?
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Dr. Khalil Habib
I think it. And there's a lot of free sources out there. I'm not just simply plugging Hillsdale, but I think, you know, I think just reading it carefully and then reading those speeches, you could literally any one of your listeners could just Google John Quincy Adams speeches on Independence Day, and they'll find the 1821 and then the 1837 speeches. They're so accessible. And I think, you know, let him be a guide. Let him at least help shed some light on it. I think that's what they intended. I mean, I would go so far as to say that, you know, the Declaration is many things. It's in his. You can't exhaust it. But one thing I would absolutely argue is that the Declaration is a microcosm of what civic education should look like. It should always reflect about human nature in relation to God and in relation to politics and in relation to one's fellow citizens. And I think in that regard, you can almost see an architecture of a classical liberal education. The letter, again, that Jefferson writes to Henry Lee is very instructive. He mentions four great thinkers, two ancients, Aristotle and Cicero, and two moderns, Locke and Sidney. So I think among the things I would do, I mean, I would read those speeches, I would take a look at Jefferson's letter to Henry Lee. All of this is available for free online, and then think about what kind of education would be required to really understand it. Because I think we're driving a car where we refuse to look at the owner's manual and don't know what light when it's blinking, what that means, and how to fix it. And I think the tendency to just assume government can fix everything is dangerous, because what if government becomes the problem? And so I think we need to restore the vocabulary, the moral and political and religious conception and mindset that the founders had so we can be responsible citizens and do our part.
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Scott Bertram
You actually encourage in the piece that people should read the Declaration aloud on Independence Day this year. What happens when we actually do that? Read it carefully, maybe even specifically with the grievance section of the Declaration. What do we hear when we hear that aloud?
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Dr. Khalil Habib
I think, believe it or not, if you were to read the Declaration out loud, One, I think it's transformative. Two, I think what might surprise you is you will actually see the Constitution in it. I'm glad you brought up the grievances. That's actually one of my favorite parts, the grievances, at first, if you don't know what you're looking for, just look like a random list of grievances. But if you look at them carefully, they're classified and categorized in terms of certain abuses that belong to certain branches of government. So there's judicial abuses. We have executive and we have legislative. Now, they don't explicitly state that, but you see, they actually line up with how the American Constitution will distribute the powers. And so you could say once you see them that way, which I think it's suddenly something invisible becomes visible. Once you it, you won't be able to unsee it. I think you'll see what we, at least at Hillsdale College, have always argued, and that is that the Declaration and the Constitution are two sides of the same coin. You can't really understand one without the other.
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Scott Bertram
The Adamses viewed Independence Day not just as a birthday party, as we've mentioned previously in the conversation, but also an annual recommitment to certain truths about the country. What truths should we recommit ourselves to this Fourth of July, this Independence Day,
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Dr. Khalil Habib
God, family, and country? I think it's pretty clear from their writings, from their speeches that those three pillars form the foundation of a healthy society. And to see how the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration support them is another way of providing or adding
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Scott Bertram
water to those pillars.
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Dr. Khalil Habib
We always talk about those three things, but I think if we put in the effort to see what the Adamses had thought about these things and let them be our guides, I think it will really deepen our relations with one another. And more importantly, to the founding.
- [18:38]
Scott Bertram
Dr. Khalil Habib is associate professor of politics here at Hillsdale College. Also, Alison and Dorothy Rouse, professor in politics. His piece@nationalreview.com, the importance of the Fourth of July according to the Addams family. Dr. Habib, thanks for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [18:57]
Dr. Khalil Habib
Scott, it's always a pleasure. Thank you.
- [18:59]
Scott Bertram
Up next, Dr. Bill McClay from Hillsdale College joins us. Memory and America's Birthday, his topic. I'm Scott Bertram. This is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [19:19]
Narrator/Announcer
Great books, great people, great ideas. Learning about these things is critical to being a well educated human being. And we can help with the Hillsdale Dialogues. Each week, Hillsdale College President Larry Arne joins radio veteran Hugh Hewitt to discuss topics of enduring relevance. And from time to time, they also talk about current events, but always with an eye toward more fundamental truths. And they want you to tune in to a conversation like no other. The Hillsdale Dialogues are posted every Monday on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network at Podcast, that's Podcast Hillsdale Edu or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you find your audio.
- [20:04]
Scott Bertram
This show is a part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to your favorite. You'll get brand new episodes of all your favorite shows sent right to your device and you'll help us know that you're out there listening. Never miss another episode by going to Podcast Hillsdale Edu subscribe. That's Podcast Hillsdale Edu subscribe or click the Follow or Subscribe button on Apple podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Welcome back to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertram. Follow us on X For updated show and guest information. We're at hillsdaleradio and podcasts for the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. We're joined by Dr. Wilfred Maclay. He is Victor Davis Hanson, Chair in Classical History and Western Civilization here at Hillsdale College. Also the author of the excellent book Land of Hope and more recently, a piece at the American Heritage Online, Memory at America's Birthday. That's what we'll talk about today. Dr. Maclay, thanks for joining us.
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Dr. Bill Maclay
Well, it's wonderful. It's always good to be with you, Scott. You're the best interviewer around.
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Scott Bertram
Thank you for the compliment. I appreciate it. The questions won't be easier just because you said that.
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Dr. Bill Maclay
Oh, I know.
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Scott Bertram
So it's a great essay over at American Heritage. Why do moments we're approaching the 4th of July as we speak. Why do moments like that? Why should they matter to us more than just fireworks and tradition? What do those moments mean for us as Americans?
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Dr. Bill Maclay
Well, sure, fireworks is great. I'm all for fireworks. I'm all for festivity, hot dogs, apple pie, Subaru, whatever. But no, it's very look, if you think of we mark time by signifying the certain dates, certain moments, whether it's the Sabbath, whether it's a birthday. And then, of course, July 4th we treat as America's birthday. John Adams would like it to have been July 2, but he did as in so many things, he didn't get his way. And it's a way of when we mark a time, the repetition of a time, like a birthday, it's an act of memory. It's an act of reconnecting ourselves to something that happened before. It articulates time. Instead of just being one sort of thing after another in the kind of flow of life it marks those moments that help to define us and we return to them. I mean, my example that I always like to give, although it's unfamiliar to many of our listeners, is the Seder meal on Passover that Jews celebrate, which they go through this sort of reidentification with the sort of primal foundational features of Jewish identity. The Passover, the passage to the promised land and the fact that it was God who delivered them, it's always there. And you're passing that on. Exodus where this is prescribed, says, you know, you tell your sons, tell your children, the Lord did this for me. And so you have this chain of memory. And in the case of the Jews, it's really a memory of who we are, who they are. And I think always we, the 4th of July should remind us who we are, that we have our origins as a people in this act of separating from the British Empire and acknowledging ourselves not just as a separate entity, but an entity that was dedicated to certain ideals. And these ideals are aspirational. You know, we're not perfect. And sometimes I feel as if our historical consciousness is hindered by the fact that perfection is what we expect from ourselves because we profess and we aspire to ideals of perfection. But anyways, we renew that. You know, I'm a church going person and in church on Sunday there was always this general confession of sin and you confess your sins and you say, I'm going to do better the next week, knowing that chances are slim that I'll do much better. But you always commit to that aspiration which does make us better and does sort of define who we are. We're a. I mean among the church going, we are a. It's always in seek of redemption, always in need of redemption. That's who we are. So I think there's definitely a connection between marking these days and of course, just to go into the religious sphere. There's Christmas, there's Easter, there's any number of other holy days which we get holidays, but that are, you know, Christmas doesn't reoccur every December 25th. I mean, Jesus is not reborn. Everything we remember this and it's the act of remembrance. That we reconnect ourselves to the foundational elements of our own past.
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Scott Bertram
One of the main arguments in this essay, memory at America's birthday, is that without shared memory, that we risk forgetting who we are. What does that look like when it happens to a country? Do we have examples of this happening in history?
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Dr. Bill Maclay
Well, I think we're seeing it, but if I could just. In a moment. I mean, I think the really powerful thing for people who are skeptical about this idea is to think about first, about an individual.
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Narrator/Announcer
And.
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Dr. Bill Maclay
And I think almost all of us have been touched at some point by dementia, Alzheimer's disease, some kind of tragic memory loss in someone we know that really literally does end them up in a point where they don't fully know who they are, and they don't recognize the people that have been integral to their lives. Their spouse, their children, their relatives, their parents, even in extremely tragic cases. So who we are is in part dependent on the memories that we have of the others in their life and sharing the memories with them. Remember what happened on your fifth birthday. Remember, you know, when Uncle Ernie went crazy and started tearing the paintings off the wall. You know, any number of things that at family gatherings you reminisce about. And in reminiscing, you share that memory. You share a sense of community more than community, of commonality that goes very, very deep. And if you don't have those, let's say in cases of divorce, I mean, this is so difficult, I'm glad I've never had to undergo it. But there is this wrenching apart of shared memories, and people who pictures that they treasured can no longer be posted on the wall because the axis in them, or some people don't feel that strongly. But in a lot of cases, there's this need to edit on your side. Your past, and the other person edits are on his or her side. And it's for children. Look, this is just horrible. My generation, the baby boom generation, one of their many sins was to sort of think, oh, the kids are all right. The kids are never all right. They may become stronger by working through their loss, but it is something very deep is lost by the loss of shared memories as a family.
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Scott Bertram
Now, Dr. Maclay, can we extend that type of analogy to an entire nation like the United States?
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Dr. Bill Maclay
Well, of course you can. You can. And so things like the Fourth of July cease to have meaning if people don't know something about how and why and for the sake of what this country, it came into being. And all of the people's Veterans Day the people who have given their lives so that we can enjoy our fat and happy existence. That sense of gratitude, I mean, Thanksgiving, people don't think about this Thanksgiving. And everybody loves Thanksgiving for the most part, unless you have a terrible family life, in which case you dread Thanksgiving, which sort of proves my point. But in this secular era, I like to ask people, what do you. When you thank, don't you when you thanks, when you're thanking, aren't you thanking somebody or something? Oh, I never thought about it that way. Of course you haven't. But Thanksgiving implies that to whom we give thanks, that person, persons, but also ultimately the divine person, where we, we presume it, even though we maybe think we don't believe anymore. Well, actually we're acting as if we do. And, and Thanksgiving requires of to be a really successful occasion. It requires remembering all of those things, all of the past and all of the shared past.
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Scott Bertram
You suggest in this essay, Dr. Maclay, that we might know more about our past, about the American past, but actually we understand last, we're ignorant of more. How does that happen? What's going wrong?
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Dr. Bill Maclay
Yeah, well, I think my profession, I blame my generation now I'm going to blame my profession. The professional historians who it really, and you see this lately especially, they kind of consider themselves custodians of the national memory, which I think is a great presumption. I've always felt that even when I was a graduate student, I saw the fallacy of that. But what's happened though? And here I will praise us. We have devised ways to go into areas of history that have been almost invisible. And I'll just give as an example, what was it like to be a slave in the antebellum South? What was it like? And what was it like to be a slave here? You know, Kentucky, Louisiana, sugar plantation. What was it like in all these different situation. Because slavery was not a monolithic experience. We know a lot more than people were even interested in asking about what that condition was like. And we have a national bad conscience about the existence of slavery. And I think that to some extent that's warranted. But what we lose in this hyper specialized, intense focus on one thing and ferreting out all that we can about one thing, we lose the big picture. What people should come away, at least from a high school education with is a sense of the larger arc of American history, the trajectory of American history. How, you know, if you bring up the subject of. Well, you know, there were a lot of people who didn't have the right to vote in 1815. Yeah. Compared to what? You know, Gordon Wood was here, the great historian Gordon Wood and he answered a question, it might have been a question from me actually, but that so much of the criticism of America proceeds from an ignorance of what else was going on in the world. Yes, compared to what where we stingy and providing the right to vote compared to nobody. We were way ahead of the rest of the world. We weren't ahead of the world in the anti slavery movement. The first anti slavery society was founded here. So yes, there's much to criticize. But begin with maybe the 80,000 foot view of most of human history has been really brutal and extremely difficult and we have achieved a level of freedom and a level of prosperity that would be the envy of Louis xiv, the greatest kings and pashas of history. We have that for almost everybody and yet we lack perspective on that, on just, just how far we've come. So, so in a sense we need to know more about the rest of history. I would, I would love to embed American history in the history of the world and people would see more clearly how exceptional we are. But we know we know too much about certain details and not, and we don't stand back and look at the whole picture. You know, when you think of how when someone dies and you have your, you have to write a eulogy to that person, you know, you want to be truthful. You don't want everybody in the audience think what, who is he talking about? But you, you want to look at the arc of their lives and what, what that life meant. And I, I'm not saying we should eulogize America. We're not done yet. But I'm thinking something like that perspective. How do you draw back maybe not a eulogy, maybe an obituary, a lengthy obituary, the New York Times or someplace, you know, you don't want it to be, to bring out well, you know, he was really mean to his dog. And so you know, it's, that's not really important. The important thing is that he did, you know, he created some institution that has blessed the life of, of countless people. So keep perspective and, and you know, we're so worried about being, having a, an overly hyper patriotic view. I think we, we go to extremes in this that we don't want to, we don't want to think we're better than other people and so on. I think let's be honest about who we are and to be honest about who we are. It's a pretty glorious thing. In the broad span of human history.
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Scott Bertram
Yes. Dr. Bill McClay with us, this piece, Memory and America's Birthday over at American Heritage. Are you concerned as we talk about these shared memories of the past that it's becoming more difficult for us as a country to create new shared memories, that we, we're not doing the same things anymore, we're not watching the same things, we don't see the same movies, we don't have the same experiences in many ways over the past 10 years, 15 years. Does that worry you in terms of making new institutional type memories for our country?
- [36:16]
Dr. Bill Maclay
Well, that's a really great point, Scott. And I have to confess to you that I haven't been worrying about it up until now and now I'm worried. No, you're absolutely right. I haven't thought a lot because I'm always looking back, being a historian, I haven't thought a lot about this. That and when we do try to it, it's often half the country says nyet to, you know, that's just the president I hate, whether it's Barack Obama or Donald Trump. You know, I'm not speaking for myself there. I'm just saying that whatever half it is. So it's going to be people who are simply rejected out of hand because the political party or the leader in question is it's not to their liking, to put it mildly in some cases. So I do think, I think that's a real challenge. I have served, I'm continuing to serve on the U.S. commission on the semi quincentennial, which thankfully Everybody's now calling America 250.
- [37:17]
Scott Bertram
Easier to say.
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Dr. Bill Maclay
It is easier to say. And actually semi quincentennial is kind of a stupid term because it's sort of half, you know, the half of 500. That's not exactly a very elegant way to do things. And we've had a real problem with that because we've been divided, you know, we were appointed, you know, half by Republican leaders. I was appointed by Paul Ryan, remember him and, and others were appointed by Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. And we've gotten not a great deal accomplished. I think I could say publicly because of these conflicts over what, what people want to memorialize because that's really what we're talking about. President Trump wants to have a garden of American heroes. A lot of people are just viscerally opposed to that, to the whole idea of heroes, commemorating heroes or the wrong kind of heroes. So it's very difficult.
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Scott Bertram
Dr. Maclay, how would you compare these discussions you're having now around America 250 with what we experienced around America. 200 In 1976, there was a lot
- [38:36]
Dr. Bill Maclay
of the same kind of conflict. Not quite as intense as now, but it was hard to come up with things that people would unify. There was a people's Bicentennial, which was the sort of early form of 1619 oppositionalism. And although they did a lot of good things, actually I give them credit, much less credit than I give to the current opposition. You know, what really brought the nation together. And you're not old enough, Scott, I don't think to have actually experienced this, but there was something that a promoter in New York dreamed up of having the tall ships, that is these wooden sailing ships, magnificent sailing ships, three masted or more ships sail into parade into New York Harbor. And it was massively unifying partly because it didn't dredge up the issues of Vietnam or race relations or whatever was on the stove at the time. And it wasn't even all American history because there were French and Spanish and there were. There was a beautiful ship from Uruguay in this procession of ships. But it captivated the country. Eight million people watched it along the shoreline of New York harbor. The whole nation watched it on television. It was. It dominated an entire issue of Life magazine which was a. Well, there's nothing to compare it to. Which is your point, Scott. There's nothing compared to Life magazine. Everyone in the nation read Life magazine magazine. But that was I. I kept trying to think of an event comparable to the. To that I never was come up to. I thought something to do with railroads might. Everybody loves railroads and America is all about railroads, at least in the first certain phase of our history. But you're right, it's very difficult to even space. You know, we're back in space and an awful lot of the country could say who cares? Or worse. And you know, and then they don't like Elon Musk, so they don't like space. I mean, it is what it is. I'm not going to criticize anybody. But shared memories, without them you don't have a coherent entity, just as you don't have a coherent family when it's shattered by divorce or even death.
- [41:10]
Scott Bertram
Right.
- [41:11]
Dr. Bill Maclay
You know, even something that is non judgmental is the fact that one part I had this happen. My father died prematurely and it was very difficult to reconstruct. And I'm not sure we ever completely did the family sort of memory bank.
- [41:29]
Scott Bertram
Dr. Bill Maclay from Hillsdale College with us. Dr. Maclay, are there examples from our history that should give us some hope of closing whatever hostile political divide in America that we have today.
- [41:43]
Dr. Bill Maclay
Look at what we've come through. Look at the Civil War, even the Revolution, as Ken Burns and others are bringing out. The Revolution had a Civil War aspect to it. Of course, a lot of the others, Loyalists went to Canada, but there were some that stayed and we somehow weathered that. But the Civil War, it's astonishing that we were able to reunite after that. I. If you stand back and look at it, if you look at comparable situations in Europe where, you know, you have a constant bickering over national lines and irredentist movements, we haven't had anything like that. Of course, there are people in the south who just never quite reconciled themselves to defeat of the south or, you know, and there are Northerners who still think everything wrong with the country is because the bloody south is still there. And if we could get rid of them, we would be so much better off. We do have people like that, but by and large, we've reunited. And this is partly due to the genius of Lincoln, but although he wasn't around for the really hard, heavy lifting, we had a really. A mostly failed effort at Reconstruction. It did accomplish some important things with the three constitutional amendments that were passed and a few other things. But. And, yeah, and we've had to go through a whole period of Jim Crow and. And the civil rights movement to kindly finally bring African Americans into political life. It's been a struggle, but we've done it. We've done it. And it's. Look, even Germany is have. We don't get. It doesn't get a lot of press in this country. But culturally speaking, west and East Germany are still very far apart. So I think the success of our passing through and the Civil War is not just a, you know, sort of dark memory that we try not to think about. People love to study the Civil War, to go to the battlefield and in Southerners and Northerners alike, it's part of our heritage that we embrace in all of its tragic bloodiness. It's amazing. So I. And it's. It's one of the rich veins of our. Of our shared memory.
- [44:16]
Scott Bertram
Yeah.
- [44:18]
Dr. Bill Maclay
You know, you may call it Sharpsburg, and I call it Antietam, but we still remember the same thing.
- [44:23]
Scott Bertram
That's right.
- [44:24]
Dr. Bill Maclay
Hey, can I make a pitch for one other book I also just published recently, or I co edited with another man, a book called the Jewish Roots of American Liberty, and I really commend it to you. It's mainly written by people other than me, but I did edit it.
- [44:40]
Dr. Khalil Habib
Yeah.
- [44:41]
Scott Bertram
And you talked about it on this show so people can go back in the archives and hear a great conversation about that book. Dr. Bill Maclay is Victor Davis Hanson chair in Classical History and Western Civilization here at Hillsdale College Authority through the wonderful Land of Hope and this recent essay on American heritage, memory and America's birthday. Dr. Maclay, thanks so much for joining us.
- [45:02]
Dr. Bill Maclay
Absolutely.
- [45:03]
Scott Bertram
That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to Dr. Khalil Habib and Dr. Bill McClay for joining us on this special America 250 edition of the program. Remember, you can hear new episodes every week on this station. You also can find find extended versions of some of our interviews or listen anytime to the podcast. Find it at podcast hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I'm Scott Bertram and this has been the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.