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- [00:01]
Grainger Advertiser
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- [00:38]
Lindsey Graham
Today is the 4th of July, and
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Lindsey Cormack
every American is aware, along with many
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Lindsey Graham
others all across the globe, that 250
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Lindsey Cormack
years ago, 13 British colonies declared their
- [00:48]
Lindsey Graham
independence from the Crown. But also on this day, 200 years ago, 50 years after the Declaration of Independence, two men took their last breaths.
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Lindsey Cormack
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. It's a remarkable coincidence that these two
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Lindsey Graham
giants, one who pushed hard for independence from the beginning, the other who penned
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Lindsey Cormack
the words all men are created equal
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Lindsey Graham
died on the same day, coinciding with
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Lindsey Cormack
the semi centennial of the document that made them both immortal.
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Lindsey Graham
It's also remarkable that these two men, rivals from the start, they ran against each other in two presidential elections, became close friends, overcoming differences and forgiving disagreements. And in their correspondence, as the years
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Lindsey Cormack
passed and the original spirit of 76 faded, they wrote of what will be
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Lindsey Graham
remembered of the Adams as to the history of the Revolution, what do we mean by the Revolution?
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Lindsey Cormack
The war that was no part of
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Lindsey Graham
the Revolution, it was only an effect in consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775, in the course of
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Lindsey Cormack
15 years before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington
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Lindsey Graham
many years later, Jefferson agreed. May it be to the world what I believe it to be, to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all the signal of arousing men to burst the chains and to assume the blessings and security of government. All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of humankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them. These are grounds of hope for others, for ourselves. Let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rites and an undiminished devotion to them. In this spirit, I brought in two of my close friends and favorite historians, Professor Greg Jackson, host of the podcast History that doesn't suck, and Dr. Benjamin Sawyer, host of the podcast the road to Now. We had a great conversation about what the Declaration of independence means even 250 years later.
- [03:08]
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- [03:38]
History Channel Promoter
The critics have spoken. World War II with Tom Hanks is a must watch.
- [03:43]
Lindsey Cormack
It is on a scale no one's ever seen before.
- [03:46]
History Channel Promoter
An enormous accomplish the world turned upside down. It's global history on the grandest scale.
- [03:54]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
All wars changed the world, but none of them like the Second World War did.
- [03:58]
History Channel Promoter
Unlike any World War II docu series before World War II with Tom Hanks new episode Monday at 8, only on History. Next day on the app.
- [04:08]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
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- [04:39]
History Channel Promoter
Evening Buyer's remorse. Buy a new car. I'll be moving in. Let's get started.
- [04:46]
Carvana Advertiser
Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.
- [04:49]
History Channel Promoter
You what?
- [04:50]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
Ye.
- [04:51]
Carvana Advertiser
I even have seven days to love it or return it.
- [04:53]
History Channel Promoter
So there's no.
- [04:54]
Carvana Advertiser
No, no buyer's remorse. More like Buyers rejoice.
- [04:58]
History Channel Promoter
I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it.
- [05:03]
Carvana Advertiser
Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply.
- [05:07]
Grainger Advertiser
See our seven day return policy at Carvana.com.
- [05:16]
Lindsey Cormack
So here we are at the 250th birthday of the American Republic. The the semi quincentennial. I always forget that word. So 250 years. A big anniversary of an even bigger event. And we are here to discuss what it means now, today. But that topic brings me back to the other centennials, because certainly we've been celebrating America well every July 4th, but there have been certain July Fourths that have been even bigger and better and more special than others. The first, of course, was the first centennial in 1876. And I suppose the centerpiece was the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, which was effectively America's first world fair. This drew over 8 million visitors in four months. And we have to remember that this was only 20 years after the end of the Civil War. But the tone was triumphalist. It was America showing itself to the world, its industrial and manufacturing power. But also, this was a time in the very end of the period of Reconstruction, and the political discourse was not exactly triumphalist at the time. In 1876, Americans were really struggling with a lot of the inequities I'm sure that we will be discussing today. We had Susan B. Anthony ringing the bell of women's suffrage. We also had terrible events in the south as Reconstruction collapsed, leading to what will become a reign of terror in the South, a racial terror. And then also, this is the culmination of probably political corruption in the federal government. The Hayes Tilden election is one of the most infamous in our history, and it was decided by, fundamentally, a backroom deal in the Compromise of 1877. So as much as Americans wanted to celebrate being Americans, there weren't a lot of really good things they could point to, other than perhaps this rise of industrialism and economic and increasing military power.
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Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
To be celebrating the Centennial at a time when the country had recently fallen apart and is being stitched together with all types of threads, some of which is going through the hearts of, you know, many of our fellow Americans at the time. It's such an interesting moment. It's the transition from this inward focus moment that is the Civil War into a more expansionist worldview. A lot of times we think about the country as going expansionist in the 1890s with the Spanish American War. But really, I think it's fair to see this moment as a push west, and the west being the beginning of that wave of looking for new markets, looking for new materials, and with the assistance of the rise of the corporations, the rise of mass transportation, the rise of mass marketing, mass production, just a completely transformative experience for the country.
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Professor Greg Jackson
You're so right, Ben. This is on the heels of the transcontinental railroad, right? 1869. So we're not that far away from it. Refrigerated trains are about to really Hit it big. We're not that far away from the quote, unquote, close of the frontier in 1890 as well. This is between the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction. This is a redefining of America. And there are so many things related to the war in that redefinition. But part of that is also the shrinking, if you will, amidst the expansion. Trains have just absolutely overhauled what it means to be a state. Suddenly the states are so interconnected. That's where we get new legislation focused on, well, how do we handle interstate commerce.
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Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
Right.
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Professor Greg Jackson
Suddenly we got to think about that on a new level, because economies aren't just localized. Yeah. This is a wildly changing economy, which is a wildly changing America.
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Lindsey Cormack
Well, let's fast forward another hundred years to 1976, a centennial that I actually bore witness to, albeit in diapers. But this is also a troubling moment in American history, one that is interestingly situated for a patriotic look back, because Saigon had fallen only the year before Nixon resigned in 1974, we were in the midst of horrible stagflation and just institutional trust across the board was at historic lows. Now, the country still wanted to celebrate. And as I go through these facts, I am not making any political commentary about today's situation. I am merely telling you what happened 50 years ago. But the original national Commission to celebrate the centennial was dissolved. The Nixon administration just punted and they replaced it with an office that issued grants to local governments to run their own events. So there was no single national event, no star studded concert. What many people do remember are the historical tall ships that sailed into New York Harbor. That was a grand event, but that was only New York City's local celebration. So the tone was much more muted. It was not triumphalist, it was kind of restorative. We were at this moment a country trying to find out what we were. And can we get back to that place? You know, after Vietnam and Watergate, there was an open question about whether there was any American exceptionalism to be found.
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Professor Greg Jackson
So, Lindsey, I want to point out that there are parallels right there in everything you just said with 1876. And there's a continuity here that I think is lost on some of us today. It's no great secret to say that across the political spectrum right now, a lot of Americans are nervous or have lost confidence and they're questioning again, just as you're talking about Americans doing in 1976 and in 1876. We're talking about one of the most corrupt presidential elections of all. Time. I think it's worth us realizing that, that there is a constant in the American experiment that we should expect if we really believe in the idea that it's government by the people, for the people, and that is that it's always going to feel messy and scary. So whether it's Vietnam and Watergate or it's the end of reconstruction or the various things that are on so many different minds today, we are constantly reaching for those original ideas of forming a society that really makes it a self evident truth that we have certain unalienable rights. And if we talk about American exceptionalism and is it real or is it not, I'll tell you, for me this is very much a glass half empty, half full. And be it one side or the other, the fact is that our aspirations are so beautiful and incredible and we should expect that we will constantly fall short. And yet we should also continue to strive constantly. That tension is part of the beauty and challenge of being an American that we have carried for 250 years.
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Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
Yeah, I think with high expectations comes the opportunity for disappointment. But we should remember that you only have setbacks when you've been moving forward. You're going nowhere. You're never going to have a setback. You just be right where you are. The high expectations and the promise that we founded this country on, it's easy to get disappointed because we, we've shot for the moon. And if you look and you think about this, you let's do the hundred year things. Two hundred years in, we are in the middle of self doubt. We've left Vietnam. We found out the President was lying. We found out the Vice President was taking bribes inside the White House. This comes on the heels of finding out that Lyndon Johnson had lied with Vietnam. Okay, you go 100 years before that, one of the most corrupt presidential elections there are, right? The return of Jim Crow, which had already begun a few years before this. Even as the federal government turns its eyes away. Heck, let's go to year zero, the year they wrote the Declaration of Independence. I mean, shoot, that year they had to formally abolish the government that they had previously been living under and create a new one. So I would say, like historically these hundred year marks are pretty rough ones. But in the end, my advice to everyone listening is this. If there's one lesson of the revolution that the founders passed down to us, be skeptical, but don't get cynical. Because at all the hardest moments in American history, you could have looked at anybody going through what they're going through. Look at The Nazi war machine. Look at Jim Crow, look at Civil War. If someone said to you, ah, nothing good is going to come out of this, you could see someone going, yeah, you're probably right, but they chose not to. And now it's your turn to choose not to.
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Lindsey Cormack
Let's go back not 50 years, not 100, not 200, but the whole 250. And start at this moment. Year Zero has been coined, although there
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Lindsey Graham
were some previous years.
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Lindsey Cormack
You know, the negative years are very interesting in the American story that they are. So let's talk about these, these negative years.
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Lindsey Graham
And of course, what I mean are
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Lindsey Cormack
the years ahead of 1776. We are told, you know, from the time we start learning about history in school, that the American Revolution was about no taxation without representation, and that that's real, but fundamentally incomplete. As an explanation, I'd like to dive into why that was perhaps a spark, a trigger, and what led up to that grievance to become so important? What were the intellectual underpinnings that made a complaint about money turn into what Ken Burns has described the most consequential event since the birth of Christ? So let's talk about the deeper causes before we get to perhaps the more specific tactical ones. What was the relationship between Britain and America and what was the sort of political thought of the day?
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Professor Greg Jackson
So a number of important things to recognize. One is that these colonials, they saw themselves 100% as British. So all the promises made to the British people, they felt that those were theirs, that they had every single right guaranteed to someone living in London. Those same rights were guaranteed to those who lived in Boston or Williamsburg to go to Virginia. So that's an important piece. Another is that Britain had super overlooked and basically forgotten about those colonials. They did not really care much about them. There were a few tariffs, I guess you could say, in place. The larger British Empire basically did customs duties, but they were poorly enforced. You know, it was like, if I may, it's like jaywalking in Boston. I guess it's technically illegal, but no one would know any better from the way it's done. You know, John Hancock is, is a smuggler. And no one is stopping to think about what an illegal act that really is. You've got the. The king's agents, most of the time are bought off, don't care. And it's only after the French and Indian War, slash seven years War, that a economically devastated British Empire goes, ooh, we should really start enforcing financial policy with those colonies. So, you know, some colonies were less than A hundred years old, but you've got these colonies that have over a hundred year precedent that Parliament does not touch them, that the king leaves them the hell alone. And then finally, what I'd point out is that there's so much social mobility, mobility in these colonies compared to life in Britain. So you've got these immigrants, and of course we're talking specifically about white European immigrants, but whether they come from Britain or they come from Europe, they are seeing social mobility in a way that's utterly unfamiliar to them. In Europe they could come to the Americas and here they can acquire land and suddenly that means they can vote. So the idea that the head of a household, a white man, can acquire the right to vote if he doesn't have it, that feels very attainable. And there is a far larger percentage of men participating in the electoral process for colonial legislatures in the Americas than there is over in Britain. And a lot of the corrupting practices, such as what they call the quote unquote rotten boroughs, where you'd have basically a precinct of voters, but it's literally just the backyard of a noble who simply elects himself to go to Parliament. Right. That stuff doesn't exist. So effectively you kind of have a non gerrymandered, if I might say, system. And what that does is even though the colonials, these Americans are reading the same documents, so they're looking to the English Bill of Rights, for instance. Right. They're reading the same documents that someone in Britain would. Well, that vastly different context has them interpreting it in a very different way. So when Parliament does finally come out with these ideas after the Seven Years War and go, you know what, maybe a little enforcement of customs and even a direct tax makes some sense. You've got generations of colonials who've come to not only latch onto their British identity in the sense that they have rights as Britons, but they have a sense of social mobility and a far more potent, I would say, more ardent interpretation of how far those rights go than their counterparts across the Atlantic.
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Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
Yeah, and. And from the perspective of the patriots, or just the colonists in general, they were Englishmen, as Greg said, and they came with an expectation that their rights would be respected. A lot of what happens here has to do with a couple of things. First of all, the colonies had nothing to do with each other, with one another in the colonial period. Their relationship was with England. It's mercantilism. They're not supposed to trade with each other. They're not supposed to trade with the other colonies. This is why the Smuggling is so popular. And so what you end up with in this situation is, I think, a sense from England that, like, they're dealing with these different colonies, not one united thing, really. And I think this surprises the British as much as it surprises us that people from such different, you know, conditions as Massachusetts and say, South Carolina, they had one thing in common, which was they were angry.
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Lindsey Cormack
So.
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Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
So you've got that. That anger that builds up. But it's not necessarily like they don't see this as irreconcilable. The patriots don't. The first thing the first Continental Congress does, one of the first things is an olive branch petition to King George III asking him to stop so that we can talk. The important thing to remember here is that this brings them together. But it's. The tradition had been that if you ever wanted to raise taxes or had any issues, you went to the legislature of the colony and they would figure out how to do it. From the perspective looking back at it, it's. It's kind of bonkers that Parliament was like, no, we had know how to do this. When if they had consulted the colonial legislatures, they probably would have had a better idea of how to raise revenue. And that gets at the point they're not talking to them, they're not asking them. And the Boston Tea Party, it was a revolt against a corporate tax cut. Wasn't revolt against a new tax. It was that Parliament had given special tax status to their own company to sell to you at a lower price.
- [20:33]
Professor Greg Jackson
Dude, it was too big to fail.
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Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
Exactly. So I think a lot of the times we think it's just taxation. And don't get me wrong, that is part of it. But there's a great book by Patricia S. Williamson about the history of taxation. She points out that when these patriots in New England stopped paying their taxes to the British Crown, they continued to pay them to a local official to pull the money. They weren't trying to keep their tax dollars. They were trying to make sure their tax dollars were well spent.
- [21:00]
Professor Greg Jackson
Well, and. And that it was about that representation piece. There's this idea in English thought, Novus ordo seclorum. This is a book on the intellectual origins of the constitution by Forrest MacDonald. And he details how there's this idea that taxation is a gift from the people to the king. And so that's why representation so important, because the people can't give that gift unless it comes from their representatives. So for Parliament, where there are no American elected members to say the colonials in the Americas will give Money to the king, that's the deal breaker. It's not the idea that they pay taxes, that they give money to the king. And Benjamin Franklin makes this point while he's in London representing so many callings. The dude's the OG of diplomacy, right? And he says, look, just let us do our thing. If you just say we need funds, please go figure it out. Americans are going to be far more chill about this. It will happen. Of course they don't listen to Ben and well, here we are.
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Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
Historically, it's a good idea to listen to Ben Franklin.
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Lindsey Cormack
I'd like to introduce the concept or reinforce the concept that the American Revolution was actually an English revolution. That these Americans did not see themselves as Americans, but Englishmen right up until the point where they decided they could no longer be English. And this is kind of, I think evidenced by the fact that not only were they calling themselves Patriots versus Loyalists, but they were calling themselves Whigs versus Tories. And this carries a connotation of a long standing political divide, you know, political science divide in England, that the Tories represented the corrupt court interest, the arbitrary power and deference to the crown that the Whigs have been fighting for, for a long time. What do you make of this continuation of an English political dispute?
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Professor Greg Jackson
I mean accurate 100%. They saw themselves not as asserting new rights, though the framing is brilliant and unique and new. I think there's nothing more radical than saying that it is a self evident truth. Here you are in the age of the Enlightenment and you've got Ben Franklin tweaking Thomas Jefferson's sentence to say we're not even doing proofs, guys. Evident that there are unalienable rights, no need to prove it. But they see themselves as asserting their rights as Englishmen, that they're not coming up with something new. And even George Washington as he goes to take command of the basically mess joke of soldiers that are the New England militia, but they're now calling it a Continental army. As George rides north to go take command up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he himself is convinced that he is going to lead an army in a civil war that is going to end in a matter of months. The original, you know, mistake of pretty much every, every general and leader, right? No, this will be a fast war guys.
- [24:17]
Lindsey Graham
It really.
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Professor Greg Jackson
But he's convinced he'll be over in a matter of months and that it will ultimately turn out with a diplomatic conversation in which the King's gonna go, yep, you know, my bad, we stepped on, on your rights as Englishmen. We will respect them.
- [24:29]
Bob Crawford
Now.
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Professor Greg Jackson
Now, it's only after Thomas Paine's Common Sense comes out in January of 1776. So this is nearly half a year since George took command of the Continental army in the summer of 1775, that you really have a. A swelling of patriots starting to go, crap. You know what? Maybe this isn't a civil war. Do we have to actually divorce? Is that what we have to do to maintain our rights as Englishmen? Do we have to stop being English?
- [24:57]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
As to the continuity here, Jefferson insisted that there was nothing in the Declaration of Independence that was new or original. Now, we can take issue with that. But he insisted that the ideas were laying around. And Ted Widmer just published a new book. It's called a Biography of the Declaration of Independence. It's really a textual rundown of both the document itself and then documents that come afterwards. And for him, one of the important things to come back to is the word we. And I think he's right, because it is we over and over again. And that relationship between the thought of the Enlightenment and this idea that these rights aren't special, they aren't privileges anymore. They aren't things that one of us has been tapped and made magical, you know, by the hand of God. That, in fact, the will of God is expressed in all of our freedoms, whether that be God you think of as Christian God or, as the Declaration said, nature's God. Whatever it is, it's innate within us, and that transcends any political system, which is what's fantastic about it.
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Lindsey Cormack
Well, if the word we is so important, why was there so much us versus them, even within the Americans?
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Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
Well, I would say that's because the Declaration has always been an aspirational statement.
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Colleen Chauk
Yes.
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Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
And I think also one of the catches is, you know, at a time of high partisan struggle, a time of high stress, there is gonna be. There's going to be rupture. And to a lot of Americans, this is one of the things that's left out. A lot of Americans stay loyal. You know, when the British pull their ships out of Boston, after Henry Knox surprisingly drags those cannon back across frozen New York, they leave. And when the. When the troops there leave, they take a thousand Loyalists with them who never see their homes again.
- [26:43]
Professor Greg Jackson
And at the end of the war, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was a minimum of 80,000 loyalists flee the colonies.
- [26:50]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
Yep. Including many black folks who had. Who had taken up, you know, Lord Dunmore's offer to. If they fight for the British cause, then they'll leave. And that, I think complicates the entire thing because when we talk about it being a battle for freedom and you say, well, the enslaved people who had run away to join the British, maybe nobody there fighting more for their freedom than them. They weren't on our side. Yeah, there's all kinds of ways that you could say, who is the we here? Again, you have to have faith that the idea is aspirational. And in spite of its deficiencies in terms of practice, in principle, it's strong.
- [27:27]
Lindsey Cormack
The American Revolutionary period was an intense civil war with outrageous and criminal violence and persecution levied against the Loyalists. Sometimes this was state directed confiscation of property and evictions were mandatory, made by legal authority. But most often it was just mob vigilante justice. And the Loyalists were not a small population. You've already mentioned how many tens of thousands left after the Revolution. Many more tens of thousands stayed. It's estimated that 15 to 20% of the entire population of white colonists were actively Loyalists. And yet they were extraordinarily persecuted, tarred and feathered, subjugated, executed in my mind, because we know the American Revolution inspired the French Revolution, but in this one aspect, it seems the inspiration was one of violence too.
- [28:26]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
Yes. I mean, this is a very famous letter that Washington writes later in 1776 after the retreat from New York on recruiting and maintaining an army. And he's writing to Congress saying, I can't do it with what you've given me. And he talks about the problems. He has to go back to this myth that Americans were like raw America from the very beginning. Washington had been appointed. One of the reasons they appoint him to be commander in chief, you know, a newly created position for an army that had been created like the other day is because the focus is in Massachusetts and they want to send someone from Virginia to drive home the fact that this is truly a colonial army, it's a patriot army, it's not just New England. And he's riding on the way back and he's saying, you guys are under supplying me. You're not paying the soldiers. And they don't listen to me. He is talking about civil war amongst different factions. Even Washington is talking in 1776 about the fact that other militia leaders from the states refuse to acknowledge his authority. So he's not only fighting the British and the Hessians, he's fighting his like other officers and state militias.
- [29:35]
Lindsey Graham (narration)
So.
- [29:35]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
So there is this multi layered thing that's going on there. And yeah, it is, it is so complicated. I Think Washington's leadership. You guys know him as the guy on the dollar bill and from the paintings and stuff like that, as the victorious guy crossing the Delaware. You should look more into it because it is a long period of suffering in his life where he doesn't see his home. He only asked to have his bills paid for, and he has to fight to get that later on. But if you look into the man's leadership in all of this and how he is able to use both experience, knowledge, posturing, but also a deep understanding of human beings into his leadership to hold this together and make it last, it's insanely impressive.
- [30:15]
Professor Greg Jackson
I'd like to add another element here, Lindsay. You brought up the French Revolution, which is notorious for its radicalism. It. No pun intended, but bleeds over into American politics in the 1790s as Federalists and the Jeffersonian Republicans, the two major political parties of the day, actually take sides on whether they support the French Revolution or not. With the Federalists saying, this is insane. These people are off their rocker. This is mobocracy. This is what happens when too much democracy is brought into representative government. And then you've got Jefferson's crowd going, no, no. This is exactly what needs to happen. Now, how could Jefferson's crowd go there? Well, let's also point out that Jefferson's the guy who at least said, and. And forgive me, I'm not trying to throw shade at Tommy Jay, but it's tall talk for a guy who was not a soldier in the war, but he's the one who says every generation, that freedom basically needs to be the tree of liberty. Yes, the tree of liberty. It needs to be refreshed with the blood of patriots. Right. So I'm gonna go ahead and drop perhaps uncomfortable thought, and that is that the American political thought process, we do have an acceptable space for political violence. Right. Because George Washington is a hero. The Continental Army, World War II, fighting the Nazis. Right. We have these righteous wars, if you will, where we know that America was the good guy, so to speak. You have to square that. And, of course, we reject most violence. I want to be very clear on that. We absolutely reject most violence. It is a very narrow space. I'd say that intellectually, we. We get it from John Locke's second treatise on government, where he defines tyranny as being an act in which the legislature puts itself in a state of war. Those are his words. In a state of war with the people. Now, what is tyranny?
- [32:13]
Colleen Chauk
Right?
- [32:13]
Professor Greg Jackson
This is what opens a really difficult bag, and then you can think about so many events in American history, right? Whether it is slave rebellions, right? Nat Turner cites Patrick Henry. Give me liberty or give me death. Is this righteous rebellion? I think a lot of us would say yes, but not at the time. A lot of white Americans did indeed reject that.
- [32:39]
Greg Jackson
Right.
- [32:39]
Professor Greg Jackson
Every act of rising up against government in the American process, you see them look back to the revolution and whether we agree with that or not. Right. And that's something that. This is where history is so important. We have to be critical thinkers about it. But anyone who acts violently is looking to justify themselves through that lens. You know, I think we can't even say that. If we look at the revolution, we look at this rejection of Britain, that is what keeps genuine tyranny at bay is the threat that it will in fact be attacked. But oh my goodness, that's got to be such a, a slow to break glass thing. But it is a part of who we are and it's something that we do have to acknowledge and carefully consider and think about throughout our history.
- [33:25]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
It's not. There's never easy answers in history and people get frustrated with that. But the thing is that the more you know, the better equipped you are to answer these questions in your own world. And I think that's a call, a call to action. If you're listening right now and you haven't read the Declaration of Independence, you should read the whole thing.
- [33:43]
Professor Greg Jackson
There's nothing better you could really do with America. 250. Right, come on.
- [33:47]
Lindsey Cormack
Well, let's go into the document itself. It was addressed purely at this concept of tyranny, but the language is conspicuously universal. It does not talk about Americans or British subjects or all property owning white men. Well, there was a logic of universal rights.
- [34:04]
Lindsey Graham (narration)
Yes.
- [34:05]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
This to me is the most brilliant thing about the Declaration. If you take other documents you could pull up that might be considered to be in the same kind of character for different countries. You know, the English Bill of Rights, for example, the Venezuelan Declaration of Rights. If you look at these documents and you think about this, the Declaration of Independence is addressing things that are happening in real time, but it is meant to singularly address the conflict therein. No other document I'm aware of starts off in these type of conditions with such a grand proclamation. If you look later on into the 20th century, you will see other countries asserting their independence, either opening with direct quotes from the Declaration of Independence ours, or paraphrasing, changing the text. And this is what's brilliant. It's not a long document. Most of it is particular to the case, describing all of the things that Britain had done that warranted this. But it doesn't start like that. It starts off by declaring that all people have inalienable rights. In contrast to a monarchical system that proclaims that rights come from God through the King. Right? That's what makes you a subject. This is an assertion that we are all in this together and that all people, not the Americans, not because of our situation, not because we come from England and we deserve this because we're from England. We deserve this because we're humans. And the radical statement in here is the monarchy would have you believe that God picks somebody tags, that's our representative. There's these kind of like, you know, established figures, and that rights then flow through them, through the state. Our assertion is, no, not at all. In fact, the Creator's rights are in us from the beginning. And this is for all people. This is a radical, radical statement. Think about how hard it would be if you're a British citizen and you believe in the system of monarchy and you believe that God has chosen the monarch, and that is God's will. To rebel against the King is to rebel against God. But when you can see the world and say, no, no, no, our rights come from our Creator, Governments don't give us rights. Governments are created to ensure the rights that we already have. No longer is rebelling against the King, rebelling against God's will. In fact, in this new worldview, the King himself is violating God's granting of rights to people by suggesting that he's the one who gives them out. This incredible turn in the way of conceptualizing rebellion against the system then becomes a problem for us later on. When The Filipinos, in 1898, 1899, when we're trying to suppress them, they say, don't we have these rights? Or when Ho Chi Minh, at the end of World War II, comes out of the world and says, don't we have these rights? It's turned back against us over and over again. And you know what?
- [36:55]
Lindsey Graham (narration)
That's the problem.
- [36:55]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
It's so radical and so beautiful that it's bigger than us.
- [36:58]
Professor Greg Jackson
That's the incredible, beautiful thing about our founding documents, about what we're. We should be celebrating with America 250, is that we have aspirations that are indeed greater than ourselves. They're greater than the men who penned them, Right? And so I believe that we can hold on to. Yes, these aspirations are so great, we will never perfectly fulfill them. We can only more perfectly fulfill them. Right and we can and should continue to strive to do so more perfectly.
- [37:45]
Lindsey Cormack
So that describes the Unalienable rights, those rights that cannot become alien to us. We cannot lose them. That's one of the famous phrases in this document. Another one. And Greg, you touched on this is self evident. This is a bit of rhetorical shortcut, but it's also a departure from previous intellectual tradition. Greg, why don't you talk to us about that phrase?
- [38:07]
Professor Greg Jackson
Yeah, so this phrase we have Ben Franklin to thank for, though of course, Thomas Jefferson is the primary author of the Declaration. But Tom originally wrote these were sacred and undeniable rights. Now, let's again remember this is the Age of Enlightenment. In the Age of Enlightenment were about scientific proofs. So stepping away from the more religious viewpoint that had given the idea of the invested rights of kings, we're now going into an Enlightenment world. And Ben Franklin, he even sidesteps the idea that we're going to rely on some sort of proof. He's calling it a premise, self evident. This is the premise upon which the American experiment is being built.
- [38:52]
Lindsey Cormack
There's another famous phrase, of course, that we are all due life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But this is one of Jefferson's edits. He was quoting Locke, John Locke, who said the triad was life, liberty and property. Why did Jefferson replace property with the pursuit of happiness?
- [39:12]
Professor Greg Jackson
Well, so now that's a really fun piece because the traditional interpretation is, yes, this is straight up John Locke with a little twist. But Jeffrey Rosen, who's just written a book titled the Pursuit of Happiness, he makes an argument that this is actually coming from the Scottish Enlightenment. So if we agree with Jeffrey Rosen, then this is both a Lockean argument. Right, the life, liberty and property. But we're now saying it's life, liberty. But then the happiness component is a really fundamental shift in what is the purpose of essentially our social contract. And he's pointing to the Scots for that influence there, which this is where we could see Thomas Jefferson saying, look, I'm not saying anything original, guys, I'm borrowing ideas. Maybe he isn't as much of a, you know, a plagiarizing writer as some sometimes accuse him, because he's pretty quick to say, I'm borrowing ideas. But Ben and I both believe that there's a lot of originality and it really speaks to Thomas Jefferson doing what you'd hope any good thinker is doing. They're building on the ideas of others. They are well read, they are well researched, but they're also coming up with their own original stuff.
- [40:19]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
Yeah. And the statement of Life, Liberty and property, or some version of this, happiness or property. I mean, this is not the first time it's evoked in the American Revolution. I think it's 1772. Samuel Adams publishes the Rights of Colonists, in which he asserts the same triad there. And so, again, these ideas are floating around, and it's really the Enlightenment itself that we have to thank for that and the spread of those ideas.
- [40:46]
Lindsey Cormack
So there are three famous portions of the Declaration, but they made it in what was cut out.
- [40:53]
Professor Greg Jackson
Oh, Ben, I think we're going to the same spot, right?
- [40:56]
Colleen Chauk
Yeah.
- [40:56]
Professor Greg Jackson
Okay. So most famously was a. Basically a paragraph. I mean, it was a huge denunciation in Thomas Jefferson's original draft decrying slavery. And it was complicated on a number of levels because, yes, he denounced slavery and the evils of slavery, but he also skirted American responsibility for slavery as he blamed King George III for basically creating an institutionalized problem. And if I'm remembering the language right, he even then goes on to complain that the King has then used enslaved people to push back against the rebelling colonials. So he's very much trying to avoid any responsibility on the Americans part, while also pointing the finger at the King not only for slavery, but for slave rebellions. Am I recalling that all correctly?
- [41:53]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
Yeah. I think it's interesting to point out there is that what he condemns is the slave trade. And so slavery is something bigger, but it still is this idea that, like, you know, that this has been hoisted upon them, that this was a. That was a British thing. It's factually incorrect. But slavery, you know, I mean, the transatlantic slavery predates, you know, British prominence. You know, but, you know, the thing, to me, it gets into this deeper contradiction with Jefferson and slavery. And when I read this line, it always strikes me, you know, Jefferson's analogy was, you know, slavery in America is like having a wolf by the ears.
- [42:29]
Bob Crawford
Yes.
- [42:29]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
And the idea was, like, you didn't want to be in that situation, but you didn't know how to let go either. And if you look at Jefferson's life, he was born into that world.
- [42:40]
Colleen Chauk
True.
- [42:40]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
He doesn't emancipate his enslaved people like he said he was going through.
- [42:43]
Grainger Advertiser
True.
- [42:43]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
He runs himself into debt, he makes a variety of mistakes, but he inherits the plantation, and then he inherits even more when his wife passes away.
- [42:50]
Professor Greg Jackson
His first memory in life was riding on a horse while being held by an enslaved American belonging to his father or within his family.
- [43:02]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
It's always struck me that something deep in Jefferson with That conflict inside of him. The idea is that it was the British who created the system. And perhaps there was a world in which he himself had not been born into, a world where he was dependent upon slavery, or at least he felt he was. That conflict throughout his life goes on.
- [43:20]
Professor Greg Jackson
I think Jefferson's one of the most complicated figures when we consider his legacy with slavery, the man behind these most radical, beautiful words. But, yeah, this was an original piece of the Declaration, and it was cut out.
- [43:35]
Lindsey Cormack
You know what's interesting, Ben? When you mentioned the curious way Jefferson almost wished he was born into a different system, that if there was a fairer world, he wouldn't have to own slaves or participate in slavery. There was a portion of the Constitution that was cut that very much echoed those sorts of thoughts. He blamed the Declaration of Independence on the British, that they did this to him, that if there was a more fair world, that they might have been a free and great people together. It was a lament that put all the blame on the British citizens, not just the monarchy or Parliament. And it was taken out fundamentally, probably prudently, because there was some concern that, hey, after this war, we might really want to reconcile with Britain here.
- [44:27]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
That makes sense. It's all your fault. I mean, it really is a breakup letter because we sent the olive branch petition like the previous in 1775, and we were like, if only King George III knew about all this, he'd help us out. And King George III is like, I'm not even reading that. Also, we're not protecting you anymore.
- [44:44]
Professor Greg Jackson
To be fair, Ben, we did the next day turn around and send the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. So we were a little schizophrenic in that moment, which I think also highlights just how terrifying and uncertain and un unified the members of the Continental Congress were. As they're trying to feel their way forward, they don't. They don't know how this is going to turn out.
- [45:08]
Lindsey Cormack
So this document, the Declaration of Independence, clearly is important to America's future. It is important to the world's future, as it is echoed in other documents throughout history and as we've been talking about over and over again. It is an aspirational document. It is one that describes universal rights, that uses pronouns like we and us and together. Ben, you told me you had an especial affection for the last line of the Declaration, one that probably not too many people are really familiar with.
- [45:40]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
Yes. It says in the end that we are free and ought to be free to be independent and Then the question becomes, you know, when you're taking some type of a stance, you know, where do you claim your allegiance? Where do you fix the thing that you are fighting for? And this is where the concluding line of this document, to me, is absolutely beautiful. It says, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Who do we pledge to? We pledge to each other that oath right there. We're not pledging allegiance to a flag. We're not pledging allegiance to. To a crown. We pledge allegiance to each other. We're looking each other in the eye and we're saying, we're in this together. And you have my honor and I have yours, and you have my fortune, and I have yours. And what happens to one of us is the fate of all of us. And to me, that is the America that I love. We talk about how different we are now. I would. I would invite anyone to reflect upon the differences between Georgia and Massachusetts in 1776 and ask if they were more different then than we are now. This idea right here that's laid out in this Declaration has had 250 years in the soil to get deep roots. And whatever we see is different within us. We share this. And I would encourage everyone to reflect upon the fact that. That the liberties and freedoms we have, who protects them? We do. I protect yours, you protect mine. And we're best when we do this together. And if a group of backwoodsmen on the cusp of a continent that were marginal and peripheral could make a pledge like this and create something as dynamic and brilliant as they created, then just imagine what we could do now. If we pledge our honor to each other, imagine what we could do now if we continue that. I'm not like you, you're not like me, but we have each other's backs, and we're here for each other. And on this 250th anniversary of the country, I really wish everyone could hear that and remember we're not each other's enemies. We're on this together. We inherited something beautiful. And if we could have the. The courage and. And be willing to endure a little bit of uncomfortableness to continue pushing forward, I think that'd be great for the future generations who I think would enjoy the same things that we got now.
- [47:59]
Lindsey Graham
Greg, Ben, and I continued talking for a little bit after this conversation.
- [48:03]
Lindsey Cormack
One of the things we thought was
- [48:05]
Lindsey Graham
important was that American citizens reread or read for the first time the full text of the Declaration of Independence. Much of it is a list of grievances stuck in the circumstance and language of the 18th century, but much of it is also universal and outside of time.
- [48:23]
Lindsey Cormack
So we have collected a few of
- [48:25]
Lindsey Graham
our friends, other history podcasters, and here is a recording of the American Declaration of Independence. Listen carefully and you might just hear the meaning behind the words that started a revolution not just here in America, but across the globe.
- [48:46]
Colleen Chauk
In Congress. July 4, 1776 the unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America.
- [48:55]
Lindsey Graham
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitled them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
- [49:18]
Bob Crawford
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal,
- [49:23]
Professor Greg Jackson
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these
- [49:28]
Bob Crawford
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- [49:32]
Greg Jackson
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
- [49:40]
Colleen Chauk
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.
- [50:00]
Lindsey Graham (narration)
Prudence indeed will dictate that Governments, long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes. And accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the form to which they are accustomed.
- [50:16]
Greg Jackson
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
- [50:34]
Bob Crawford
Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct
- [50:50]
Professor Greg Jackson
object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.
- [50:54]
Bob Crawford
To prove this, let facts be submitted
- [50:57]
Professor Greg Jackson
to a candid world.
- [50:59]
Unnamed Reader
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained and when so suspect suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people. Unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature. A right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable and distant from the depository of their public records. For the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, time after such dissolutions. To cause others to be elected. Whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.
- [52:34]
Lindsey Graham
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states for that purpose, Obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners, Refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither. And raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice. By refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone. For the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices. And sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction Foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our law, Giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation.
- [53:30]
Colleen Chauk
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.
- [53:34]
Bob Crawford
For protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states.
- [53:42]
Lindsey Graham (narration)
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.
- [53:45]
Greg Jackson
For imposing taxes on us without our consent.
- [53:48]
Colleen Chauk
For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury.
- [53:53]
Bob Crawford
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses.
- [53:58]
Lindsey Graham (narration)
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, Establishing therein an arbitrary government and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument. For introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies.
- [54:11]
Greg Jackson
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws. And altering fundamentally the forces of our governments.
- [54:19]
Colleen Chauk
For suspending our own legislatures. And declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
- [54:27]
Lindsey Graham
He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
- [54:34]
Bob Crawford
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, Burnt our towns and destroyed the lives of our people.
- [54:42]
Lindsey Graham (narration)
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries. To complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny Already begun. With circumstances of cruelty and perfidy. Scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages. And totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
- [54:57]
Greg Jackson
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas. To bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren. Or to fall themselves by their hands.
- [55:09]
Bob Crawford
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us. And has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers. The merciless Indian savages. Whose known rule of warfare Is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
- [55:25]
Lindsey Graham
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant. Is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
- [55:42]
Bob Crawford
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our immigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native of justice and magnanimity.
- [56:01]
Professor Greg Jackson
And we have conjured them by the
- [56:03]
Bob Crawford
ties of our common kindred. To disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
- [56:11]
Colleen Chauk
They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation. And hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies and war in peace. Friends.
- [56:28]
Greg Jackson
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled, Appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, Solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.
- [56:54]
Lindsey Graham (narration)
That they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown. And that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain Is and ought to be totally dissolved. And that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce. And to do all other acts and things which independent states may have right due. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on. On the protection of Divine Providence, we
- [57:19]
Dr. Benjamin Sawyer
mutually pledge to each other our lives,
- [57:21]
Lindsey Graham (narration)
our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
- [57:29]
Lindsey Cormack
Happy Birthday, America.
- [57:30]
Lindsey Graham
You are an inspiring, infuriating, incredible and improving place. May you and the world live up to your ideals. My guests in conversation today were Professor Greg Jackson, hosted the podcast History that doesn't suck and Dr. Benjamin Sawyer, co host of the podcast the Road to Now. The Declaration of Independence was read by Bob Crawford, co host of the Road to Now podcast, Lindsey Graham, Greg Jackson, Lindsey Cormack, co host of Government that Doesn't Suck, Ben Sawyer and Colleen Chauk, host of In Pursuit from Noiser and Airship. This Is History Daily hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham Audio editing by Mohammed Shazi sound design by Molly Bagg Managing producer Emily Byrne Executive producers are William Simpson for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.