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- [00:03]
Narrator
You know the Robertson family from the hit TV show Duck Dynasty. Now Hillsdale College offers you the unique opportunity to learn alongside the Robertsons as they dive deep into Hillsdale's online course, the Genesis Story. Every Friday on the Unashamed podcast, the Robertsons will share their insights and perspectives. Learning from Hillsdale professor of English Justin Jackson. Take a trip down south to Louisiana for this one of a kind learning experience we call Unashamed Academy. Visit unashamedforhillsdale.com and enroll today. That's unashamedforhillsdale dot com to experience the genesis story alongside the ROBERT. To celebrate 250 years of freedom, Hillsdale College's Matthew Spalding, along with professors From Hillsdale in D.C. sit down with Larry O' Connor of WMAL to discuss the truths that make this country great. This is Hillsdale on the Hill.
- [01:29]
Larry O'Connor
Let's turn to America's 250th birthday. The it's not a bicentennial, is it? Well, see, this is why we bring in smart guys.
- [01:39]
Bethany
It's a really hard word.
- [01:41]
Larry O'Connor
Matthew Spalding, he's the Vice President for Washington operations and dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College, right here in your nation's capital. His new book is the Making of the American Mind. The Story of Our Declaration of Independence. And what's it? It's not a sesquicentennial. It's not a bicentennial, it's not a centennial. What is it, Dr. Spalding?
- [02:00]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
It is a semi quincentennial. Yes, that's it, folks.
- [02:03]
Larry O'Connor
Semi quince, Semi quincentennial. That's just ridiculous.
- [02:08]
Bethany
This is why we, that's why they call it America. 250.
- [02:11]
Larry O'Connor
Yeah, we just call it 250. America's 250.
- [02:14]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
Well, you know what? We, we go with those Roman numerals and all that kind of stuff. It just doesn't work anymore.
- [02:19]
Larry O'Connor
Like the Super Bowl. Yeah, it gets out of control. Well, we're having a series of conversations with Dr. Spalding from his incredibly patriotic and learned perspective about this 250th. As this year goes on as part of our celebration and partnership with Hillsdale and specifically the D.C. campus here, their Graduate School of Government and WMAL. And so it's wintertime. We had a really bad snowstorm. Things are nasty. Things are horrible around here. 250 years ago, I know Valley Forge was a thing, but that was after the Declaration of Independence. Were there any weather considerations that sort of factored into the Continental Congress and all that stuff.
- [03:00]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
Of course, there were. You know, the one thing that this last week I've been thinking about is right around now, actually, is the 250th anniversary of a particular event, which was, if you remember, like, a lot of the actual activity, the main activities leading up to the right before the declaration. Right. By 1775, George Washington is already a general. He sent this guy named Henry Knox, who was like a bookseller in Boston, this guy who read books and stuff. He's his head of artillery. He sends him up to Fort Ticonderoga, if you know that's up in New York.
- [03:36]
Larry O'Connor
That's where we get our pencils. Now, if I remember.
- [03:38]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
Right, right, right. For the Ticonderoga. But there's a fort up there, and they had captured it a year before, and there's a bunch of cannon. Well, Washington is in Boston. It has no cannon to fight the British. He sends Henry Knox and a bunch of guys up to New York in the dead of winter. 250 years ago, right now, it was snowing, terrible weather. And they brought back. You ready for this, Larry? This is your challenge. You talk about your challenge and your bells and.
- [04:08]
Larry O'Connor
Yeah, with my little kettlebell. Yeah.
- [04:10]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
Okay, here's what Henry Knox and his guys did. They brought back from Fort Takahiro in northern New York down to Boston, about 600 miles or so, 60 tons of cannons, and they did it with mules and sleds.
- [04:27]
Larry O'Connor
Amazing. Well, you got it. Okay. I know It's.
- [04:30]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
I mean, that's. That's. You know, come on.
- [04:34]
Larry O'Connor
This. The snow probably helped in that regard. Right. It was probably easier to get things that heavy.
- [04:40]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
It did make it a little bit easier, but they also lost nose to the ice in the. The rivers, and they had to recover them from under the water.
- [04:48]
Larry O'Connor
Well, yeah, I'm looking at the map now, Dr. Spalding, Fort Ticonderoga is closer to Montreal than it is to New York City. So that is incredible.
- [04:58]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
Now, it just reminds you of these amazing events and sacrifices that happened. You know, we study this history and we think, oh, yeah, yeah, we had this little dispute with English, and all of a sudden, boom, there's a Declaration of Independence, this little thing called a war, and boom, there's the Constitution. And that's essentially all there is to it. But yet there's this. All sorts of things going on. Really interesting, dynamic history. Fascinating history for. You know, you imagine all these young people and kids and people like us that have forgotten these things because we're getting old. It's a great story. It's a great story. It's not boring. This is not guys in little, you know, tri cornered hats and wearing wigs. They're out there fighting a war. This is real stuff.
- [05:41]
Larry O'Connor
They were manly men. Yeah. Bethany, go ahead. And I should remind you though, Dr. Spalding is our partner and friend here on this excursion into America's 250. So don't grill him like you usually do our guests with your horrible cross examination techniques.
- [05:56]
Bethany
I have a question for you, Dr. Spalding. So I'm actually, as it happens, it's a parenting question. Actually. I am homeschooling my children and we're reading Winter at Valley Forge right now.
- [06:07]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
Right.
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Bethany
And I have been on the fence. Do I bring my children to Valley Forge like next week and give them the experience of winter at Valley Forge and maybe like make them take their shoes off and walk around in rags on their feet?
- [06:22]
Larry O'Connor
Infect them with smallpox. Yes, the whole thing.
- [06:25]
Bethany
Typhus.
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Larry O'Connor
Yeah.
- [06:26]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
Cause them to use a few toes, lose a few toes.
- [06:29]
Bethany
Yeah. So how authentic. Do I really need to go in my homeschool education of Valley Forge or should I wait until like a wimpy
- [06:35]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
time like June, you know? Yeah, that's. That's always a hard call. I mean, the problem is you go up there in the middle of winter, there's not much to see, but it does give you the feel. It's like going to Gettysburg in the middle of July. Right? These things matter. I mean, look, especially with young kids, I actually, first of all, I commend you for taking them to the location, to the actual place. We forget how effect, how much effect there is on young people when they actually see something. Reading in books is great, great stories, but when you go there, you go to a fort, you go to a ruin, you go to, you go to someplace where they actually did something, it makes a huge difference. So just going there is what's important.
- [07:18]
Bethany
On side note, can I ask you about the freedom trucks? I cannot tell you how excited everyone should pull their kids out of school in this next year and just homeschool America 250. Just follow these trucks around. So, Dr. Spalding, I want you to tell us all about these trucks and then also just like all about all the fun things that we can do, especially here in the D.C. area to celebrate America 250.
- [07:40]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
Well, part of it is you just, you struck on something that's very important. I grew up in California, and California, the international, the highway system you had the missions you had the gold rush, but nothing really about the American Revolution. And I was in middle school during the bicentennial and I remember the Freedom train coming through. And so there's. I've been. I'm an advisor in helping them out with the White House Task Force on America to 50. And they've created an organization to support that called Freedom 250. And one of the ideas was to create these trucks, not trains that going over the train tracks, though, but trucks that could go anywhere. NASCAR races, rodeos, schools. And they're the. So imagine a massive semi truck that expands to three times its size by kind of expanding outward. And it's a mobile museum. And they came to me and I worked with them. So I wrote the narrative and the history in it. Prager University did a lot of the walls and a lot of videos and kind of helped create the innards. And then there's this company in North Carolina called spevco that they make these trucks like for Coca Cola and NASCAR and big conventions and things. And so they're gonna make six of these trucks for Freedom 250 with this mobile museum about the American Revolution, the Declaration, the Constitution, the war. And they're gonna be driving all over the country. The first one came out last week, and now they're gonna be rolling them all out. And come, you know, February, they're gonna be all over the country, stopping and everywhere, hopefully everywhere possible, as quickly as possible and get as many people through them as possible.
- [09:22]
Larry O'Connor
Phenomenal. Phenomenal.
- [09:23]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
Because you're right, most people don't live near a battlefield or Philadelphia or something like that. That's the problem.
- [09:29]
Larry O'Connor
Is there a website where people can sort of track where they're going to be and sort of schedule out their time?
- [09:33]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
Yeah, yeah, there is a. There's a freedom250.org and there'll be a calendar there and a schedule and you can see where they're going.
- [09:41]
Larry O'Connor
Excellent.
- [09:42]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
And go to that. I agree. You gotta take them somewhere, especially these kids in classes, your homeschooling group or your co op, whatever it might be. Teachers take your whole class there. They're gonna be reading materials, we're gonna provide. There's, you know, it's gonna be an experience that one can go to.
- [10:02]
Larry O'Connor
1. I love that America 250 has tapped you, Dr. Spalding of Hillsdale College, to be able to sort of write that and do the whole narration as such. By the way, Secretary Sean Duffy of the Department of Transportation is one of the leading forces behind the mobile museum tour there with these freedom trucks. So that's very cool. And while I've got you. I'm also. I'm seeing these headlines about how Trump is whitewashing history. Dr. Spalding. And removing, you know, a case in point. National Park Service is now reoriented an exhibit in Philadelphia where they have this giant exhibit in Philadelphia. Think about all the things that go on in Philadelphia and the fact that when he was president in his second term, President George Washington lived there. And when he lived there, there were eight enslaved Africans who lived there with him who had come up from Mount Vernon. And so the entire exhibit, of course, is about Washington slaves. And so the headlines say Trump is whitewashing history. It seems to me. And you tell me, Dr. Spalding, it's. Instead, he's sort of reorienting and swinging the pendulum back. Because ever since the 1619 project, I can't go to a historic location without it seeming like the only dominant story that one is to focus on is slavery.
- [11:10]
Dr. Matthew Spalding
Is the bad. No, I. Look, this is a special egregious case. I've been there. It's near Philadelphia hall on the Mall there behind where the Liberty Bell is. There used to be a house there. The house is gone. There's kind of a structure in an archaeological site. And they've turned it into a focus on Washington's slavery and Washington's cruelty and the terribleness and the barbaric nature of this in the particular case of America's founder. Now, slavery is barbaric. That's. That's not the. That's not the question here. But what they've done is they've taken a very interesting historical society look. When Philadelphia was occupied, the British general lived there. When the Americans went back in, Benedict Arnold lived there. Morris, who was a financier of the revolution, he bought it and lived there. He let Washington live there during the convention. Washington was there as President Adams was there. Now, that's an interesting place. And yet all solely, only exclusively about slavery. So it was way out of balance. It was a great example of this. And the problem is you can't tell history from one extreme and the other extreme. You can't ignore the warts of history. I like to teach warts and all. But you also can't turn it into this evil story of this dark story, America's systemically racist. You need a balance. I think this is a rebalancing going on. The problem is it's getting caught up in politics. But that was just an egregious example that was intentionally done right near Philadelphia. Independence hall, right near the Liberty Bell, turning into America's evil about systemic racism. That was the badness of it. This is why we need to get out there with good history that people want to hear. They want to hear the story. They want to hear a balance, the correct story, the real history, what actually happened. Not they don't want it interpreted according to what is academic views about, you know, race and you know, systemic evilness of the American founding.
- [13:11]
Larry O'Connor
It's also why if anyone here listening is interested or if they know someone who's interested in getting an advanced degree, a part time MA in government for young professionals. You want to talk to Hillsdale College, you want to talk to specifically the Van Andel Graduate School of Government right here, a stone's throw away from the nation's Capitol, from the Capitol building. In fact. I know I've thrown a stone at the Capitol building while standing in front of I got arrested, but I did. It is a stone's throw. And Dr. Matthew Spaulding not only runs things over there, but he's going to be our frequent partner here talking about this astounding year that we're in the middle of in 2026. Dr. Spalding, always great to talk with you, my friend. Thank you so much, sir.
- [13:55]
Narrator
Thanks for listening to Hillsdale on the Hill presented by Hillsdale College. To learn more about the Van Andel Graduate School of Government and Hillsdale's work in our Nation's capital, visit D.C. hillsdale EDU. That's D.C. hillsdale. EDUARDO.