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A
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.
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For right now. I'm happy to be joined by a friend and a man I greatly admire, Dr. Matthew Spalding. He's the vice president for Washington operations and a dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College in Washington, D.C. Dr. Spalding, always great
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C
to talk with you.
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B
Thanks for joining us.
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C
Great to be with you. Larry. Good morning. How are you?
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B
Well, I'm great. We, you know, you and I, we've been having a conversation on WMAO in Washington since the beginning of the year celebrating this America to 50. And this is it. Dr. Spalding. This is our last conversation before. That's right, the actual Fourth of July. So take us back 250 years ago. What was going on right now is, is Thomas Jefferson sitting there burning the midnight oil, trying to hammer out all of these drafts of the Declaration.
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C
Well, remember, you know, we've had these previous conversations and just to capture that immediate moment in terms of the story, George Washington is in New York. He's waiting to be invaded and he's, if you can imagine, he is sending to the Continental Congress on a regular basis his intelligence. And he's seeing British ships leaving Halifax. He's looking at them and they're heading south. They're passing ports along the way. They're appearing off of New Jersey, off the Sandy Hook of New Jersey. And then he sees them and they're coming into the harbor and they're landing troops on Staten island on July 2nd.
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B
Wow.
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C
So the Continental Congress, after motion on June 7th, a committee who then has Jefferson as the main drafter, is writing a declaration, drafting it out as rapidly as they can. They're preparing what seems to be the inevitable move, declaring independence but it also means war, which means that that very moment, they're debating independence. They pass independence. On July 2, the British are landing troops on Staten Island.
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B
Wow.
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C
But it's in that moment they then begin debating the Declaration and editing it and spend almost two days editing it in fine detail. They pass it on the fourth, which means the moment, they're under the gun. They're literally being invaded. This is what they wrote, this beautiful declaration. Jefferson writes it as the main drafter, but it's heavily edited by a committee, heavily edited by the Continental Congress. And I think it's the most amazing document created by a legislative body, an amended legislative body in history that I can. That I can think of. It becomes a much better document because of all the editing, which Jefferson, of course, didn't like.
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B
Right.
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C
But it's just this powerful document at that moment that announces not only the independence, but this new nation that's being formed. So it's a remarkable, remarkable document. Yeah.
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B
And it's funny, the old joke is that, you know, you can't do anything by committee. As soon as you do it by committee, everything gets messed up.
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The exception to that rule, it is.
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B
It appears to be.
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C
The other thing I was going to point out is, remember, this is passed by the Continental Congress just to actually give it some more heft. The Continental Congress is essentially our first nation, national government. The Americans start using this word, Congress, to mean legislature. So the Continental Congress is eventually replaced by the artist confederation, the Congress. Then that eventually becomes the Congress of the United States. So it's a precursor Congress, legislative body for our country. So this really is our first founding document. And if you open the US Code book, the very beginning, first page of the US Code, the first thing you see is the Declaration of Independence. Because it's an organic document.
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A cynic would note that it's been all downhill for Congress since then. They peaked.
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Big peak.
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Dr. Spalding, you detail.
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Yes.
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Your great book, the Making of the American Mind. The story of our Declaration of Independence is so vivid. It really does bring people right into this process. And I really recommend it to people. It's a great America 250 keepsake to get the book is the Making of the American Mind the story of the Declaration of Independence. Can we get to the Declaration itself? This. This document that is formed through this process? What are. What are the main themes in the deck? Because most people now at this point, probably just because they rem the song from Schoolhouse Rock, they know the preamble. Right. But it's a remarkable document. In so many respects. What do you think are the main themes that it. That it conveys?
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C
No, I think that's right. We remember the famous parts, but it really is worth going back and reading the whole thing, especially on this anniversary. It's more like, I think, more of like a symphony. There's different movements, different parts, different tones, different speeds, but it all hangs together. And one thing to keep in mind here is that it's really a legal document. It's written like a common law legal document. It states principles as a preamble. It states a way of thinking. The bulk of the document, the largest part of the document, is about the grievances or complaints against the King of England. And he's been conspiring with others, which is a reference to Parliament, without saying so, and he's turned into a tyrant. And because of that, they declare independence. So you have to look at it as what it is. It's a formal declaration, which is an unusual term itself, a statement of a sovereign body about a change of government, and they're going to withdraw their allegiance from one and start another. So I think the main themes of it are to state their causes and state their principles. And it has the effect of doing two things simultaneously, which we often forget. It declares independence. We're not the British anymore, but we're now going to be a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth. So it announces a new nation and lays out the principles that that nation is going to be based on. It's quite dramatic in that sense and quite radical. I like to use that word rather than revolutionary in the sense that it's not like the French Revolution, but it's radical in a sense. It goes down to the root, radish. The root of things.
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B
Yeah.
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So it goes back to an older argument to lay the ground for this new thing being created. It's a complete different direction, and that's very important.
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B
It always strikes me, Dr. Spalding, when you read the Declaration of Independence, and I think it really helps to read it out loud that it isn't addressed to any. Yeah, go ahead.
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C
No, on that point, Larry, just. I know you'll appreciate this. Both Jefferson and John Adams, who's also in the committee, are trained in rhetoric. The original draft of the Declaration actually has marks on the paper telling us that Jefferson meant the document to be read out loud. His emphasis marks on it. So it is an oral document.
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It's 100% true. I actually read it on the air on July 4th a couple of years ago on this radio station. And as you read it, you can feel the cadence, you can feel it build, you can feel them making the case. But. But what I was struck by is it's not addressed to any specific body. You could say this was written for the king or written for Parliament or written to explain to the Brits why, you know, they were divorcing themselves. But you could also see this as. As being written for the colonists, for these brand new Americans to rally their support and explain this is why we're doing this. And who's with me? Right. Who's going to store up the barricade with me? I love that aspect of it. And was this recognized at the time as so significant and so important? Did they recognize that this was a game changer? I mean, the people around the world.
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C
No, sure. They knew as a practical matter that they were issuing that declaration as they're being invaded and that meant they were going to war against the strongest military power in the world. So there's a powerful sense of the moment. You're right. They clearly were addressing it directly to the king. But wasn't the main audience, it was going to go to European leaders and kings. That wasn't the main argument. Either the French weren't necessarily happy about attacking the king of England as king or the idea. The primary audience in many ways was. Yeah, right. We do know that really the primary mediated audience is the domestic audience. The night after the vote on the fourth, they take it to a printer who prints up about 200 copies. And those are going to go to every colony, the committees of correspondence, and especially to Washington's troops in the field. This was a rallying cry. So that's a very important aspect of what it meant. It's to get them ready for that war. But the other thing to keep in mind here, and I'll underscore this, is there are several references in the document. Two, the opinions of mankind. Facts are submitted to a candid world. That is to say, and I don't mean that in the sense that this was kind of Europe, they meant the world, the opinions of mankind, meaning us, meaning the future, meaning posterity. They knew they were doing something that was a great experiment, a radical turn in human affairs, and they wanted to get it down and give the future their causes and their purposes. They didn't know if they were going to survive. They didn't know this would work at this crucial moment. But they wanted to show that they were going to give it their best and give it their all and dedicate themselves to it. And this is why. That's why I think telling the story of that moment, especially the younger people who want to hear the story of what actually happened, it's that they were going to war. And then this is what they said. I'm just very moved by that at the moment. This is not armchair philosophy. This is not academic, you know, wise things here.
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This is not theoretical. This is happening now, and we're in it. All right, more with Dr. Spalding in a moment here. As we Reflect on America's 250 with Hillsdale College, we continue with Dr. Matthew Spaulding. He is the dean of the VAN, an graduate school of government at Hillsdale, the D.C. campus. By the way, if you know of anyone looking for a graduate program, Masters of government, get them to D.C. get them to that Hillsdale program. If you're currently working in D.C. whether you're on Capitol Hill or your law office or what have you, this is your opportunity not only to get a great education unlike any other graduate program in Washington, D.C. but also, I think, Dr. Spalding, you will back me up on this. The people who graduate from your program and get their degree also end up automatically being part of the Hillsdale Mafia, which is growing pretty large in Washington, D.C. how many people who are really influential doing things connected back to Hillsdale?
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It is. I always like the. They thought, the Christian, the Hillsdale Mafia. But I kind of like it because that means I'm a don.
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B
We kiss the ring. We talked a little bit about the relevance and the impact that the Declaration had at that time. In a second, I want to ask you about, about whether that that ripple still is felt, whether there's still an impact here today. But. But before we do, I always heard this story, you know, you talked about part of this was to rally the troops, literally rallying the troops. And I know the George Washington there, General Washington had it read to the troops the second they got their copies. I'm told if you, if you do the. The Lower Manhattan Revolutionary War tour that they do there, it's really amazing the historical locations there. I'm told this was read outside Chauncey's Tavern, which is still there. It's a great place. You can hear the echoes of the Sons of Liberty in the walls there. And the crowd was so riled up by the Declaration that they marched uptown a couple of blocks to what is now New York City hall and they tore down the statue of King George and then melted it down to make bullets for their muskets. Is that true or is that Apocryphal.
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That. No, no, that actually is a true story. And we know that because it was some of Washington's officers and soldiers went down there and Washington himself wasn't really happy with tearing down the statue because he thought that was getting a little too revolutionary, which is ironic considering we've
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got lunatics trying to tear down his statue right now in this country.
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That's right. That's right. But having said that, he approved and actually gave permission to see that lead statue was melted into musket. So the one hand, on the other hand. But it is a true story. It's a great story. I love that.
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B
That's. That right there. That's the imagery you want for the 250th right now that these words were so inspiring that we had to load our muskets and take it to the enemy. So how do we, how are we affected by the Declaration today? A lot of people look at it. Yes, it was our founding document. Yes, it was important, but. But now it's not as important, it's not as relevant now. It's really more about the, the Constitution and the living breathing document that governs our, our form of government now.
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C
Yeah, yeah, well, that's a good point of the Constitution. Constitution is from a day to day point of view, more important because it's, it's the kind of centerpiece of our whole legal system. But having said that, I would suggest the Declaration actually is still very much in our bloodstream. It really is our civic identity and it's, its words have become a kind of our national poetry. If you, if you think about it, think about current presidents in our lifetimes. I mean, clearly President Trump talks about the Declaration. President Obama and his inauguration talked about the Declaration. Ronald Reagan famously talked about the Declaration a lot. Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, you go back through history, all the great presidents and all the great administrations and political movements, even you think of the abolitionists, the women's movement or anti communist movement in the Cold War, they all go back to the Declaration. Martin Luther King, back to the Declaration, Frederick Douglass back to the Declaration. So it's still fundamentally in our life's bloodstream. And I think that has something to do with what it actually says and the fact that it's not a merely quote unquote, merely revolutionary document in the moment. They were writing for a larger sense of history, of posterity, of the future. And they knew the Republican cause, small r free government, self governing Republican cause was dependent upon what they did here. And so win or lose, this was going to be a permanent claim based on the rights of man. That would not merely be an 18th century thing. One of my professors always liked to say that, you know, Thomas Jefferson knew he was writing in the 18th century, but he didn't think he was writing an 18th century document, if that makes sense. Right. Today, we're bombarded with a sense of you got to think about it merely in your time, as if nothing is permanent. Nothing transcends time. But that was not their world. They're clearly thinking of a larger universe in which this is all occurring.
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Fantastic. It is a timeless document. And here, 250 years later, it's just as relevant. Dr. Matthew Spalding, enjoy your Independence Day. It's great talking with you. Thanks for joining us.
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Happy Independence Day to you and everybody. And join me. Fall in love with America again. It's the Declaration is the reason that makes America great. It really is the cause.
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Read it.
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Read it to your family. That's the reason it makes America worth our affection.
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Well said.
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Well said. 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.